07 Saturn Sky LE5 2.4 Turbo project

[NGKTECH]

07 Saturn Sky TURBO project This past summer my fiance and I sold our CTS-V and picked her up a 2007 Saturn Sky with the N/A 2.4L LE5 engine with 5-speed manual, 19k miles, LSD, and the red and black leather package.

It's a great handling (and looking) little car but it's truly a turd. My 98 Saturn wagon is probably faster.



Needless to say after going from 400hp to 170hp she wasn't too happy. So for X-mas I purchased her some turbo parts.

Here's what we have currently:

Stainless log manifold ($137 shipped)
Chinese T3/T4 turbo with internal gate ($149 shipped)
Bar & plate intercooler ($90 shipped)
2.5" aluminum Intercooler piping, clamps, & couplers ($55)
BOV (recycled from my Mazdaspeed 6)
60lb Injectors (100 shipped)
HP Tuners (had it from my old Ion Redline)
NGK Powerdex AFX wideband (already had it from previous saturn build)

Plan is to start tuning around 8psi and work up to 12-15psi max. This is a summer daily driver so we're only looking for 300-350whp.

I know how some of you feel about Ebay turbos but I did a lot of research and when I was at SEMA and AAPEX this year in November I actually met with this company and checked out their product in person, and I can say their turbos looks pretty decent. The quality of all the chinese products we buy off Ebay gets better every year. In fact one turbo company I talked with even employs a couple X-senior turbo engineers from Honeywell and they're designing their own wheels and turbos that outperform the originals, not just copies!

[NGKTECH]

Haven't done anything with this project till last night. I finally got around to painting the turbo manifold and turbine housing with VHT high temp ceramic coating, then baked it per the directions.

I've used this coating on a couple other projects before and it works great if you bake the parts. It says you can also heat cycle them on the car but I've never tried it.



Now that this is done I should be able to start tearing the car apart tomorrow and Saturday.

[moorethanenuff]

Good luck with your project! I'm sure you're gonna get a lot of replies that you should've bought a Redline but wheres the adventure in that I plan on going the opposite route and putting an Ls v8 in my Sky once she's paid off next year. There are some threads on here where others have done the custom turbo like your installing, so you can probably get some useful information there...Again Good Luck

[shabby]

Originally Posted by NGKTECH

Chinese T3/T4 turbo with internal gate ($149 shipped)

Let us know how long it lasts.

[NGKTECH]

Originally Posted by shabby

Let us know how long it lasts.

Will do. Ive only ever used Garrets and Master Power turbos before so I'm really anxious to see how it compares; For the price and after seeing them in persob I finally had to try it.

[NGKTECH]

Originally Posted by moorethanenuff

Good luck with your project! I'm sure you're gonna get a lot of replies that you should've bought a Redline but wheres the adventure in that I plan on going the opposite route and putting an Ls v8 in my Sky once she's paid off next year. There are some threads on here where others have done the custom turbo like your installing, so you can probably get some useful information there...Again Good Luck

For us the Redlines with the same mileage were going for 3 to 4k more than the base model and were more to insure. This turbo setup will be under $1500 and it should easily make more power than a redline, which only puts down around 230whp.

Maybe a couple years down the line id also like to swap in a LSX, one of the newer all aluminum 5.3s with ls6 heads and aftermarket cam would be really nice and wouldn't hurt the wallet too bad.

[Rob the Elder]

Actually, with the GMPP tune and a high flow cat, the RL makes around 305 WHP and 390 ft pounds

[shabby]

Originally Posted by NGKTECH

Will do. Ive only ever used Garrets and Master Power turbos before so I'm really anxious to see how it compares; For the price and after seeing them in persob I finally had to try it.

Just hope that if it does fail that it doesn't send any metal pieces into your engine, that's the only thing i'd be worried about. A turbo that spins at 150000rpm is the last thing i would skimp on, hope it works out for you.

[moorethanenuff]

Originally Posted by NGKTECH

For us the Redlines with the same mileage were going for 3 to 4k more than the base model and were more to insure. This turbo setup will be under $1500 and it should easily make more power than a redline, which only puts down around 230whp.

Maybe a couple years down the line id also like to swap in a LSX, one of the newer all aluminum 5.3s with ls6 heads and aftermarket cam would be really nice and wouldn't hurt the wallet too bad.

Whew! don't get me started on insurance lol. I debated on going turbo or supercharging but never liked the look of all the tubing under the hood. No offense but the v8 just looks cleaner, not to mention that classic v8 growl lol. As you mentioned 400hp and instant torque is hard to beat. Embarrassing a Camaro or Mustang couldn't hurt my ego either lol. For the money it sounds like you're going the best route...I'm looking at at least $7k for a crate Ls3 engine plus trans and installation kit.

[moorethanenuff]

Just a teaser pic Any idea how long your turbo installation will take? For $1500 I'd be willing to try the turbo route.

[NGKTECH]

Originally Posted by Rob the Elder

Actually, with the GMPP tune and a high flow cat, the RL makes around 305 WHP and 390 ft pounds

True, but now your talking another $800-1000 or so (?) on top of the higher initial price we'd have paid for the Redline to begin with.

[NGKTECH]

Originally Posted by shabby

Just hope that if it does fail that it doesn't send any metal pieces into your engine, that's the only thing i'd be worried about. A turbo that spins at 150000rpm is the last thing i would skimp on, hope it works out for you.

That's other nice thing about the base 2.4, is that this engine can be found at any local junkyard for only $300-800 The 2.0 turbo DI engine is a couple grand for a replacement if it blows.

Plus when a turbo blows it'd be extremely rare for metal pieces to make it all the way through the intercooler system and into the throttle body. I've had turbo's blow before at full boost and oil did make it to the throttle body but the metal pieces remained in the intercooler

[NGKTECH]

Originally Posted by moorethanenuff

Attachment 42251 Just a teaser pic Any idea how long your turbo installation will take? For $1500 I'd be willing to try the turbo route.

I used to own an Ion redline and have turbocharged a few other cars before so I don't see the installation taking longer than a weekend or two. I'll take my time and bolt on the manifold & turbo and install the injectors in one weekend and maybe even get some of the charge piping cut.

The next weekend would be intercooler mounting & charge pipe welding, oil line connections & welding and all the other small stuff you run into in a project like this.

Remember too that I already have a wideband and access to HP Tuners. HP tuners by itself I think was $600 and a wideband is usually around $180

I also haven't purchased the MAF bung yet ($15), stainless piping for the downpipe ($100), Oil drain lines & fittings ($75) and say any other small stuff I'm forgetting right now ($50)

[NGKTECH]

Originally Posted by moorethanenuff

Whew! don't get me started on insurance lol. I debated on going turbo or supercharging but never liked the look of all the tubing under the hood. No offense but the v8 just looks cleaner, not to mention that classic v8 growl lol. As you mentioned 400hp and instant torque is hard to beat. Embarrassing a Camaro or Mustang couldn't hurt my ego either lol. For the money it sounds like you're going the best route...I'm looking at at least $7k for a crate Ls3 engine plus trans and installation kit.

I thought long and hard about dumping the LE5 and buying a $600 aluminum 5.3 from the yard, some used LS6 heads, etc, etc. But for the time and cost, turboing the stock engine right now was the easy way to go. I'm getting married this June so I'm only allowed to be ballin on a budget this year and the LE5 only has 19k miles on it so it should last a while with a good tune.

[cfjara]

wow....$149 for a turbo??!?? I think I'll turbo my riding lawn mower this weekend.