[pdupler]

Still flying at 30,000 feet! Expecting to survive more than a single pass down the strip at over 12 psi on a 5m is gonna require a programmable stand-alone ECU and major mechanical modifications in the neighborhood of many, many thousands of dollars, especially if you don't have the mechanical skills to do it all yourself and have to pay for all the services. A couple of guys on this forum do the 7m-gte swap as sort of a side business and they'll run you $5000 to $6000 US to swap in a freshened, but bone-stock 7m-gte, which is nearly minimum wage considering the work involved. From there you can follow at your own pace the typical upgrade path of the many mk3 owners learning as you go. Turbocharging a 5m at any level is really something that ought to be left to those who revel in the do-it-yourself automotive hobbies and who chalk up every little unforeseen necessity and minor disaster as merely the cost of their education.

Phil D.

 

[pdupler]

Simple supply side economics! Mk3s are becoming scarce around Texas too, tho not yet as scarce as mk2s. I've been wanting to do this for my redpra daily driver. My ideal donor would be to find a mk3t thats still driveable but that for other reasons wouldn't be feasible for restoration making it OK to part it out. I been watching the local auction and classified listings for the past year and all than have come up have had the dreaded BHG or otherwise non-running which is too much risk not knowing without taking it apart if its just bhg or if the internals are totally trashed. Thats another factor to consider is that a great deal of patience is required to find just the right donor car at a price that makes it doable. Jeff in Atlanta apparently had a couple of donor cars already lined up but come to think of it, he hasn't posted in a while either so its possible his supply is already spoken for or gone already.

Phil D.

 

[pdupler]

There are at least a dozen members of this list, people who seem to have considerable knowlege of what they're doing, who've tried to get some sizeable gains from turboing a 5m. Despite some pretty ingenious methods, no one has gotten anything more than about 250 yet. I thing if 350 were possible for $2500, one or probably several of our members would have done it sometime in the last five years we've been a group. I'd beware of anyone making outrageous claims like that and asking for money.

Phil D.