adding turbo

[kingster]

I heard of adding turbo to a go kart. do you guys think you can add turbo to a hammerhead 250 engine. this the link I found on the turbo charge itself
http://www.ecotrons.com/products/sma..._turbocharger/




thanks in advance guys

[x-bird]

to go all in on that deal you're looking at over $1000. may be cheaper to convert to a larger engine and get a much larger performance gain. Boosting a 250 has been discussed quite a bit, but as of yet, no one's showna build thread on one. Thought about it myself and decided if i want to go beyond my 250, it'll be with a larger engine.

[kingster]

Thanks for the advice..what kind of engine do you think i should swap it to?
Or is the 250 enough with just some mods

[SYCARMS]

Adding it all up it would come to under $500.00 but you would probably have to redo the exhaust pipe along with a turbo muffler. I have seen posts of people who have put turbo's on the 150 and 250 but they have never reported any numbers on how they perform. This makes me suspicious. You can go with a bigger motor but you will have to fabricate it to fit, which eats up a lot of time and if you don't have the knowledge or equipment it will end up costing you much more. Most will look at time as free and do not equate it into the cost. The way I see it is if I am flat broke today I can go and make more money but time I have yet to have anyone show me how to make more of it and believe me the older you get the more you realize just how short time is. This is not to say that going to a larger engine is a bad idea, just since life is too short I will have a running buggy first to enjoy. I will and am in the process of doing an engine swap on another buggy as I have the time to do so, but I will always have one running buggy to enjoy. A port and polish with a big bore kit will definitely wake the 250 up. I am also in the process of having a performance cam made for the 250 but this takes time and money to do. Hope to have something by mid year or before. Back to the turbo, when you take into consideration the weight to cc ratio the buggy is a little underpowered so the question is will the turbo make that big of a difference on a stock engine. If you should decide to try it make sure you do some numbers on the current buggy then do identical numbers with the turbo so that a comparison can be made, unless you have access to a dyno.

[Masteryota]

I agree with both, but lean more toward X's side of the fence. There is no replacement for displacement. This applies both to a bigger engine, and internal mods on the 250 that is already in place. I think if you paired up the internal mods(BBK, P&P, decent cam) and then add the turbo, you should see exponential gains over just one or the other.

I know where you are coming from Tom, as I am a flat rate tech, and I can absolutely put an exact dollar amount on each and every minute I spend working on something, but these are hobbies to us. It would be the same comparison for you if you were a sport fisherman. You can make $_____ amount of dollars catching fish, but now you see no fun in doing as a hobby, as 99% of would be doing it, because you directly equate your time to money being made, or in this case, potentially lost.

I look at what we do here as enjoyable time spent doing something we love. I have to agree with the 'have a running buggy at all times', as I have spent roughly 1 hour of seat time in my yerf in the year that I have had it. Frustrating? Yes. Worth the time and effort? Man, I hope so. Example: When I finish my current project, I will be building a completely new swing arm from the ground up. Yeah, I put a ton of time and work into the stock one, but I am not happy with it as it sits. I am happy to start it over? No, but in the long run, I know I will be much happier that I spent the time and money to build one the correct way, over patching this one up.

[kingster]

Thank you. All for your help i really appreciate it. I guess i will try to get a port and polish with a big bore kit..