has anybody done this and how hard is it to do compared with the performance gain.

will need to keep the heater as it is my daily. how tunable is this engine?

Its done several times. Engine is good to tune. Try to found some old topics, there is wrote a few things about it.

http://www.huskyracer.50megs.com/

Chris C is part way through this conversion.

I had considered this myself.

One thing to think about is all the wiring involved ( big stumbling block for most ppl). If you went for a 16 valve conversion you could run on carbs to solve that problem and still get good power.

If you perfer turbo power and are capable of the wiring go for it.

once some one has done the wiring it if they offered to make more looms/ mod convert etc its the best way unless you are competent. i'd love to do the turbo one allt he boys in the 480 last year were telling me to do it in stead of the 16v, but meh i think you can fit some of the turbo parts to the 16v block im not sure though. some one might care to enligthen me.

CR would be your issue plus the 480 turbo is tiny.

does the manifold fit?

uprate to a T3 turbo flange. compression ration metal headgasket and wossner forged pistons... drop it down to 8.9 on wossners metal head gasket should drop it some more.

kaos wrote:does the manifold fit?

uprate to a T3 turbo flange. compression ration metal headgasket and wossner forged pistons... drop it down to 8.9 on wossners metal head gasket should drop it some more.

8.9 is quite low already, typical 8.5 is going to be fuel hungry won't go anywhere without boost.

I say 10:1 is perfectly ok to slam turbo on, 9 is very good, certainly any lower is only for some stupid engine management, using good engine management and there is power even at lower rpm and part throttle, much nicer to drive

kaos wrote:does the manifold fit?

uprate to a T3 turbo flange. compression ration metal headgasket and wossner forged pistons... drop it down to 8.9 on wossners metal head gasket should drop it some more.

the manifold will not fit as teh 8 valve has inlet and ex on the same side. totaly different

fair enough. worth considering though..

theres an ebay seller selling 16v turbo exhaust manifolds... bit expensive in my eyes but meh im not turboing.. just going through numbers effectively

I've only partially looked into it, but the 16V block seems to pop a lot when turbos are put near it, but then again, it could just be the special people turning the wastegate screw...

The swaps certainly possible, I've completely failed to get time to finish mine off again, but as Dai say's, it's the wiring thats a pain. In theory though, it's only 6 wires. You just have to lengthen, shorten, etc the rest of them. I still havn't sussed how the ECU decided what gear it's in, but I havn't looked at the wiring diags for a while.