Tech Guide: 2G 4G63t Upgrades - DSMtuners

Also, stay away from ebay brand exhaust manifolds and turbos, they will fail quickly.
Your factory 2g exhaust manifold with a good porting would flow betetr and not crack compared to the flimsy megan one.

And for 350, i would recommend upgrading to a fmic, you will heat soak the smic rather fast.

I would recomend you to get these following mods
use stock 2g o2 housing and exhuast manifold port them if you want don't buy cheap tubular manifolds cracks will come and they will become door stoppers the stock 2g stuff is more then enough. Parts:
fmic for like $300
J pipe for the 16g $50
16g install kit $100
walbro 255 $80
boost controller $50
Blow off valve about $50
If you want to up the boost past 10-13ish psi you need bigger injectors 550cc-1000cc $80-$150
ecmlink for tuning or find a freelancer to burn you chip you need a eprom ecu. Price vary $200-$600
wideband $199
boost gauge $30-$50ish
That should get you close to 320whp range.
Don't forget maintanance timing belt, tensioners and gaskets if they have never been done. You can't go fast if you motor blows. Should cost about $500

Simple answer yes. You can use a 16g with no supporting mods other than an install kit. I wouldn't boost more than 14-15psi on a stock fuel system though. Any thing more than that you will need a fuel pump and injectors. Depending on what size fuel pump you get you might also need an adjustable fuel pressure regulator. You will also need a way to tune if you increase your injector size.
If you start adding fuel and upping the boost then you should invest in a boost gauge and a wideband o2 sensor at the very least.

Before you buy and go fast parts take a look at the upgrade paths under the "tech" section at the top left of the website.

Please do all maintenance before modding anything though. It is over a decade old and is probably in need of some TLC.

Start with the basics. Maintnence is always #1. I would start with the simple things. Intake and exhaust are usualy the first to be done. 16g's are nice you will see many people on here use them and they can be ran on a stock motor. megan makes good products imo i have never had bad luck with them. I wouldnt run more than 12-14 lbs of boost on a stock fuel set up. When you do plan on upping the boost and fuel supply make sure you get it tuned.

+1 follow the tech guide upgrade path. Tried and true. Good luck with your build!

Also do plenty of research. There's enough information on this site to cover just about every inch of your car.

Thanks alot ill be looking into pricing out some stuff. One more thing, If my intentions were to do injectors and re tuning, would I be better off getting a better turbo and running low boost in the meantime? Like a Garett t3/t4 or something?

No, I would just focus on maintenance and then supporting mods before you slap on a new turbo.

An MHI 16G is probably the most popular turbo upgrade for DSM's. Its proven to make decent power (300-350whp) with relatively few supporting mods.

Do as follows:
Maintenance
3"turbo back exhaust
Port the hell out of your stock exhaust manifold and o2 housing
Boost and wideband gauge
Dsmlink
Boost controller
Blow off valve
FMIC
Walbro 190 (does not require AFPR) Walbro 255( need AFPR) Rewire it.
Injectors
LSD would be a good investment but is not needed
ARP head studs so you can increase boost safely

Welcome to DSMs, remember to be patient, and do things in the right order, otherwise you'll damage the car and blame it because you skipped steps. Not making a jab at you specifically, just noting a pattern we've seen time and time again. Throwing a Huge turbo on and exhaust and ignoring repairs will only damage the car and drive you nuts. Trust us, it's cheaper to follow the tech path.

As with any car, there is an order to do things in.
1.) Repairs
2.) Maintenance
3.) Supporting mods
4.) Mods

1.) Repairs come first because they are discovered usually during maintenance and they can cause problems later. These cars Love to find the weakest link, and if you don't catch it early, they can get prohibitively expensive quick.

What good does a 350hp motor do you when your tires are rotting out from under the car? If you hear wheel bearings going out, it would be a good idea to spend the 50 bucks for the bearing instead of the boost controller. You can drive on stock boost for ever, but what will you be doing when the wheel bearing comes apart? Drag racing? Pretty sure most drag strips have barriers, and the $50 just became a $50 wheel bearing, 200 half shaft, 150 fender, 100 door, 150 tire, and 200 tow bill... Bet the $50 bearing change instead of the boost controller sounds better now.

2.) Maintenance is second because that's how you find things to repair/replace/upgrade. There is a method to the madness. The belts HAVE To be changed every 60k miles, no questions asked. the 4g63 is an interference motor, so if the belt gives out because you decided not to inspect it, or it jumps timing, you will have to pay for not only a timing belt job, but also a head job. ((I'll get into explaining the upgrade during maintenance in supporting mods))

In case you don't know what I mean by interference motor, on a lot of engines, they are non interference, meaning if the timing belt breaks, or jumps time, the valves will come open and the piston won't touch them. On Interference engines, if it's off by more than a 1 tooth, the valve sticks out and the bang you hear is part of your motor going, "I'm a Piston Beech!" and bending your valves so they look like little metal flowers. if you're at high RPMs when you do this, it gets more colorful as the piston and the valve duke it out, and take the block with it, and makes it's own inspection window in the side of the block. And what's worse, is the little pieces of metal they throw around proceed to turn your expensive turbo charger into a blender.

So, the 300 you pay for the timing belt parts and the time you take to do it RIGHT will spare you replacing the head, valves, guides, piston, block, doctor bills for anger management, turbocharger, etc etc.

3.) Supporting mods follow up because usually when you're doing the above, you find something that needs done, and darnit, while you're there, you can replace something that's screwed up with something better. Not only will they help the engine run better, they will make later mods even better.

Blindly throwing a HUGE TURBO on a stock car won't do you much good. Too big on factory exhaust and tune, and you won't get much power down low. In fact, you'll hurt your spool up time to some where north of reasonable, and you'll complain that the car isn't fast. On the flip side, putting HUGE Exhaust on a factory set car, your turbo will spool up quick, and in some cases, too quick. Boost spikes and boost creep become your greatest enemy. The boost spike can rupture diaphragms in the waste gate actuator, which might cause your car to over boost. (You CAN do that. not good.) Trying to run a turbo outside of it's efficiency island and you'll cook it's bearings, the compressor won't be able to move enough air and your engine will start to run hot. Which overheats valves, making them stretch, and yet again, you'll hear "I'm a Piston BEECH!" at WOT.

Supporting mods are modifications that improve a good portion of factory set things, which frees up HP. The fuel pump rewire lets your fuel pump send more fuel at WOT, which keeps the engine from running lean. Replacing the crappy plastic Bypass valve on the intake, (others call it a Blow Off Valve) with a 1g one lets you hold a bit more boost, there again, freeing up power. Switching the 2g throttle body to a 1g one allows more air into the engine, again, freeing up power. And switching the factory 2g turbo for a 1g one, or the 16 will again, free up power. Getting an aftermarket boost gauge is helpful, cause you can tell something is wrong. The factory one is about as accurate as a blind monkey playing darts in a tornado. It watches air go through the sensor and plans for that to make it to the engine. If you don't recirculate your BOV, you run engine boggingly rich, and kill the motor, as well as waste fuel. If you have a boost leak, your car will think it has 14lbs of boost when you're barely making 5, cause your turbo is seizing up. (Ask me how I know.)

And a clutch could be considered a supporting mod cause if you have a 1000 hp motor, it's not going to do any good if your clutch is covered in kitty hair cause the previous owner rode the clutch.

Speaking of which, Get quality parts. Getting cheap Chinese made parts can cause problems. Garret tests their turbos til burst speed, and the compressor housing holds the pieces from escaping. A chines one won't. (Not that you'll get a turbo to spool up to 100k RPMs this early, but it's an example.) Learn how to make a boost leak tester and test your car as often as you can. You can find and locate problems when they are small and cheap before they become big and expensive.

4.) Mods.... The fun bits. The go fast parts. The big expensive parts that can make your car go from zero to traffic ticket in a heartbeat. Do your research. Make sure you have the stuff needed for it before you throw them on your car. Make sure you actually NEED it before putting it on. a big Front Mounted Intercooler on a factory turbo and tuned car is going to cause HUGE lag, cause the tiny turbo has to pressurize the entire intake. A good example is imagine you have a water hose going into a kiddie pool sized area before it goes to hose again, and you want to drink some water. you gotta wait for the pool to fill up before you get any. Same with huge intercoolers on barely modified cars.

Also, putting huge intake, Huge turbo, and HUGE exhaust and a HUGE TURBO will kill your motor if you don't put in injectors and something to tune with, as well as a HUGE fuel pump, cause the big turbo and intake and exhaust will send massive amount of air into the engine with little fuel, resulting in detonation, knocking, melted pistons, melted valves. (Can you guess what you'll hear again?)

So PLEASE, do yourself a favor, as well as the rest of us, and start low and follow the path. These cars have been around for 20 yrs, and there isn't really much deviation from the path that won't result in problems down the road.

Research, Research, RESEARCH is your best friend.

Have fun, and happy tuning.

EDIT: Another thing to consider if you are taking the car to the track. Seat time will out weigh HP. Learning the car before you do major upgrades will take you further, and be cheaper in the long run. There was a guy on here asking about welding his front diff cause he had wheel hop and tire spin off the line. Turns out, he had pushed the car up to huge HP numbers, but was only at the track like 3 times. He didn't learn how to drive the car before he modified it, and he was trying to patch a problem that would have been fixed by lifting his foot a few millimeters.

And by drive, I don't mean to and from work, I mean driving it at the race track. Taking off from a stop sign in front of a cop is different than at a tree at a race track. There are tuners here that had 400hp race cars that couldn't do consistent lap times. When they slowed the car down, their times actually improved because they was not running balls out through every corner, they could control the car easier. Switching to a smaller turbo means they spooled up faster and made power earlier, so they were getting up to speed earlier. The supterheavydutyboughtonebay suspension they bough bounced them all over the road cause it wasn't meant for their car, when the factory or slightly upgraded let them keep the car in line.

Have a goal, and read and watch what others in that group are doing. A car set up for the standing mile will not have the same set up as a car for road course running, and neither will be anything like an autocross car, and none of those cars are not going to be set up like a Rally car.

Just some food for thought.