Turbocharging a 3SGE?

XR Pilot (Brogan) has interesting things to say about this subject of turbo'ing a 3sge.... hopeful he will share

sorry i cant help with much. i know its been done and not HEAPS successfully but its been done all the same. just gotta do it right!

personally i would just go for a rebuild of a 3sgte rather than the hassle of replacing heaps of parts on the 3sge... unless of course you WANTED a challenge? in which case im sure its possible to do right

 

Ok I don't have access to the part numbers to back up these statements on this computer, but I can prove it if needed Also, this is speculation as I am yet to do this due to license restrictions, in New South Wales we can't drive a turboed/supercharged or V8 until we are 20, hey Alex

A gen 1 3SGE shares the same connecting rods as a gen 1/2 GE/GTE
It shares the same crank as a gen 1 GTE
It has the same head as a gen 1 GTE, with the exception of the camshafts, however some Alltrac owners use GE camshafts as a slight upgrade anyway due to the greater lift and duration.
The inlet manifold is different, ours is side feed unlike a centre feed GTE. Bad if you want to run a factory water to air intercooler, great if you want to run a front mount .

With regards to compression ratios: The highest compression GTE (gen 2) runs 8.8:1 vs our GE's 9.3:1. Not that much difference really.
Ok so thats the similarities covered, the biggest difference is that our engines lack the oil squirters under the pistons to cool them, and we don't have the oil return for the sump for the turbo.

Now to overcome these issues, the ideal solution would be to ceramic coat a set of GE or GTE pistons (the later dropping the compression ratio a few points) which would keep the heat out of the oil altogether, rather than running oil squirters, and then fitting a GTE sump for the oil return. However the alternative is to not worry to much about the lack of oil squirters, and also to put a 19mm (3/4") tap into the sump for a barbed return fitting.

Other than this, 2 things I think are essential to pull this off without destroying a GE: a good aftermarket ECU (I believe you yanks call them standalones) and if you have to keep the factory air flow metre its not good enough, and getting the computer tuned on a dyno by a competent tuner.

These are my 2 cents worth, might add more later

EDIT: Highlighted the most important sentence in bold

 

1fstgts turbo'd his 3sge

I don't think it lasted very long....

 

told you lol

 

I'd also like to add that this is a similar case to turboing Nissan SR20DE's, which has been done quite successfully, so given the reasons above I can't see why we can't turbo a GE.

A mate of mine has a SR20DE+T in a Pathfinder which has run successfully pushing 180-200rwhp for the last 3 years or so. It did recently break a ring land on number 3 piston however, but that was due to a cheap Chinese turbo having poor boost control, at one stage it spiked to 30psi, and they were unable to bring boost on any lower than 14psi :shock:

 

Out of curiosity, did it still have the standard ECU on it?

 

I'm not sure about the details of his operation, maybe give him a pm and ask? He might stumble upon this thread but he hasn't been around much lately so a pm might be faster!

 

I had a look in his project thread, and it looked like he still had the standard computer and flap air flow meter setup on it. I would say it is a 90% chance that is the reason why the GE+T blew up.

 

But why? He threw a rod.....maybe 3sgte blocks are specially reinforced for boost or something.....

 

GE ECU's (speculation here, but is probably correct, Toyota wouldn't neuter a NA motor by running turbo timing maps) run more timing under load than a GTE, and it is very likely that under boost this was causing the motor to ping, and maybe to the point of detonation. This is a quick way to kill any motor, boosted or not.

The other thing is, the flap air flow metre is pushed wide open on a GE at maximum flow. In the case of a GE+T where you get a heap more air, AFTER the flap has already hit the stop, how does the engine know it is getting all that extra air so it can compensate for boost by adding extra fuel?

Answer: It can't. So a GE+T is likely to run lean on the standard ECU, which will make the advanced timing situation even worse. Good recipe for a blown motor in my opinion

As I have said though, there is not much differance between a GE and GTE besides the inlet manifold, cams, pistons (.8 compression higher, wow! :lol and oil squirters. Thats it as far as I can tell, and I have spent a few hours cross referencing part numbers in the Toyota EPC (electronic parts catalogue), the program used by dealerships

 

*stop getting ideas about turboing your car Meph, stop!*

 

You may as well, since I can't because of license restrictions. Sigh... 2 more years...

Heres a tip though, if you decide to turbo your car cut the air flow metre plug off the loom and put the air flow metre in the bin, that way your not tempted to try it with a standard ECU

 

I think he ran a piggyback off his normal ecu to compensate for extra air/fuel....iirc

 

First thing that popped in my head when I bought my gts was..... +T! :twisted: but after reading this I'll just focus on bodywork, suspension, and brakes. Besides I bought the car as a reliable dd.