Boosting Beams, Plans and improvement on those plans Options

[ricochet1490]

I' ve been considering this as my build progresses and it's something I want to do after I get the car on the road.... but something I want to do nonetheless. I don't want a terribly high investment but 200+ WHP would be a great feeling.... and this is where I'm looking for expertise outside of mine....

Internals are remaining factory
Looking at going with a supercharger and I don't really like how "cluttered" the engine bay looks with a turbo .... it also isn't as "peaky" and should be more smooth to the power
My initial thought is that I want to keep the stock ECU so I'm assuming I have to stay at about 5psi or so for this to happen?
I'm frankly not sure what the stock beams ecu can handle as far as boost is concerned. Any thoughts?
What are my best tuning options? I want something that is tunable and the toyota ecu not be able to change it (if that makes sense... these things are smart)
I want to keep the CR stock as well. With a proper tune, and the low boost numbers it shouldn't be a big deal I don't think, just gotta watch for knock
Keeping the boost low like that, I'm HOPING that the stock fuel pump is adequate to handle the increased load...
More importantly the injector size of the BEAMS has been debated. The books say 340 cc while the bench test hat the guy did on Daniels injectors reported 400 cc flat. If they are 400cc, I don't think I'll need to upgrade those either... but again, I just don't know.

My biggest questions at the moment are involved around ECU and the tuning, but any and all help would be appreciated

[ricochet1490]

I want to keep the good qualities of the beams if possible. Those qualities are the 11:1 cr and the vvti for me. I still want it to feel like a beams when I'm not in boost.
The new eco boost engine from ford that's in the f150 is twin turbo charged at 10:1....knowing that,.there is no reason why I couldn't low boost at 10 or 10.5 to 1 with proper tuning. I'd be willing to spend extra on a piggy back with a really good tune to keep the high cr...
And this car would only ever get premium.... Or else it would explode lol

Thinking about the turbo vs sc.... The turbo would be cheaper, but protok on the beams forum said when the turbo kicked in right about the same time as the vvti, it made a ton of power, but really hurt drivability.
If I could score a supercharger from an old buick regal and make that work.... Lol


Thanks for the input so far guys. Huge help.
?
So what would you recommend as a good piggy back for this application assuming the stock ecu can't do what I want

[Syaoran]

I want to keep the good qualities of the beams if possible. Those qualities are the 11:1 cr and the vvti for me. I still want it to feel like a beams when I'm not in boost.
The new eco boost engine from ford that's in the f150 is twin turbo charged at 10:1....knowing that,.there is no reason why I couldn't low boost at 10 or 10.5 to 1 with proper tuning. I'd be willing to spend extra on a piggy back with a really good tune to keep the high cr...
And this car would only ever get premium.... Or else it would explode lol

Thinking about the turbo vs sc.... The turbo would be cheaper, but protok on the beams forum said when the turbo kicked in right about the same time as the vvti, it made a ton of power, but really hurt drivability.
If I could score a supercharger from an old buick regal and make that work.... Lol


Thanks for the input so far guys. Huge help.
?
So what would you recommend as a good piggy back for this application assuming the stock ecu can't do what I want

The stock ECU definitely won't do what you want, that's for sure. Either way, there is no way I would personally run boost on the stock system in any car that didn't come boosted from the factory.

Yes, you can run boost on high-compression engines. It's been done before many many times. It's really sensitive and dangerous to do it, however, and I wouldn't do it on an otherwise stock, high-compression engine; that goes for both turbo and superchargers.

Again, take the idea out of your mind that you won't need at least a decent piggyback. Something like an AEM FIC or a GReddy Ultimate would be your best bet. Most seem to be happy using the GReddy unit on Celica ECUs, and you can get a decent tune from it, while keeping VVT-i working like it should as well.

I don't know what you know about ECUs but the only option that will mess up your VVT-i is going standalone. Piggybacks use the stock ECU for everything except open loop tuning.


"The turbo" kicks in at different RPMs, it all depends on what size turbo you run. Considering that the engine is a high-compression engine, I wouldn't run anything bigger than a GT28RS, and even that I think it's too big. You can spool up a small turbo at 2500 RPMs, or a bigger one at 4400 RPMs, it all depends on tune, size and type of turbo you're using.

Turbo will always be better than supercharger in the sense that it is not a drag to the engine, it doesn't take power to make power. It reuses otherwise wasted energy to make even more power, so turbo is a much better option.

The F150 has a crap ton of sensors and ECU settings that will protect the engine to its best ability from destroying itself, which is something you do not have. It's tuned to have 2 turbos on there, unlike your car which is tuned to have no turbo. You have to be very careful with a custom turbo setup on a n/a high-compression engine...

It's usually best to lower compression for the fact that the power and torque that you lost from going from 11:1 to 9:1 is minimal compared to the power and torque you will gain from boosting 20psi. The main advantage of your engine is not the compression, it's the headflow. Beams head flows really well, even better than the 3sgte head, so you'll probably make more power with the same mods as a comparable 3sgte.