turbo beams?, to turbo or not to turbo? that is teh question Options

[Arturio55]

Hello all. I have a 97 celica st. Obviously I need to ditch the 7a.
Last year I wanted to turbo the 7a and bought a bunch of parts. (Intercooler, mr2 turbo map sensor, blah blah) I soon acknowledged my stupidity.

Fast forward. In less than 2 weeks im gonna order a BEAMS engine for $1450 shipped. .CHOOSING THIS OVER 3SGTE BECAUSE IT COMES WITH LSD S54 AND THE WIRING IS SIMPLE. 3rd gen 3sgte is $1500+, and s54 is maybe 500. Factor in the cost of wiring and i would be at $2500 total. Unless one of you swap nazis are gonna give me an extra 1000 bucks, Please dont comment with the redundant "just buy a 3sgte". I already have 2nd gen pistons/rods (my good pal Garin sold me a bunch of stuff for dirt cheap), so compression isnt an issue. Also have stage 2 spec clutch, ct26 turbo, berk down pipe, axles, etc. All I would need to buy is a manifold, injectors, piggyback ecu, and fuel pump. Even if I got a 3sgte I would buy the last 2 so in reality I only need 2 extra things for this swap.

After considering all this, is it worth it for me to turbo the beams?
Does anyone know what compression gen2 pistons will give me?
Will gen 4 injectors work?
Would I have to recirculate the bov before or after the maf?

Any other helpful comments are welcome. Thank you.

This post has been edited by Arturio55: Sep 29, 2014 - 12:30 PM

[richee3]

http://www.mr2.com/forums/threads/81602-Be...Why-Good-or-Bad

Spend quite a bit of time searching the BEAMS Owners Group. All of your questions will be answered there.

Boosting a BEAMS would be an awesome project. It has a stronger block than a 3rd gen 3S-GTE and the 5S's that came in our cars. If you can find a good tuner, you can keep stock 11.0:1 compression which will spool your turbo really quick, but you better have a REALLY good tuner and EMS. It's easier to and safer to drop the compression but it's doable. And most importantly, the BEAMS head has EXCELLENT flow, perfect for a turbo project! The BEAMS head will embarrass an S2000 head.

But the big issue is money. Like Norberto said, the BEAMS head is unique and none of the other exhaust/turbo manifolds will bolt on (possibly the 4th gen 3S-GTE, but I've never looked into that) so you'll need a one-off manifold. You'll need a good standalone and some time on a dyno with a tuner who knows his way around a VVT-i system. Pretty common these days so finding a tuner shouldn't be difficult. At that point it would be best to ditch the stock MAF and switch to a MAP, since the MAF and stock ECU are the two biggest restrictions on a stock BEAMS.

When all of that is done, you've essentially spent a lot of money to build a 3S-GTE, which Toyota spent a ton of time and money to develop for us and costs less. It all comes down to how much you are willing to spend to end up with the same power. BEAMS is fun, 200 hp is great, but I don't like having all of my power at 7k RPM where I literally never use it. I'm going for a 3S-GTE rather than just putting a turbo on my BEAMS since it's much simpler and cheaper, but that's just the route I'm choosing. I love the idea of a boosted BEAMS but I'm too much of a tightwad to go through with it myself.

Summing things up: BEAMS is good fun in stock form but too expensive for most people to be worth modding. There's still a few brave souls who go through with it though.