Found this.. Have no clue if it'd be a good place to start.. I figure it'd be ok to start, then just upgrade the components as necessary? I'm pretty new to turbo systems.. But I mean, for that price, I'm not quite sure how you could go wrong as long as you keep the psi low..

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/_Car-...4506.m20.l1116

And don't say a damn thing about the JDM reference. lol. Just give honest information..

 

you get what you pay for.. PERIOD

 

As it says in the title though, starter kit. Obviously I wouldn't buy it expecting to run 30 psi and have 500 hp. lol. Buy the kit, upgrade the thing later.. Run lower psi to keep it together.. Seems like a simple plan to me?

 

a "kit" is generaly put together and tuned, thus costing more money...

buying the peices seperatly is usally the cheapest route, however , with lack of knowledge this can be very hard.

cheapest way to get a kit...i beleive there are some in the classifieds (mike is selling one)

if not..wait for somone to ditch a project and sell theirs.

 

No way would I ever trust an $800 Ebay turbo-kit from a vendor that has a Mirage with giant chrome wheels and vertical doors on my $22,000 car.

 

don't do it man.. the piping isnt made for the car, the turbo might last or it might blow in a month .. you'll still need a downpipe made (about 400+) and you'll need a manifold (300+) and thats just at the very least...

get a vulcan manifold if you're looking for a t3 or a SMP manifold if you want t25 (disco potato) get a name brand turbo (600-1200).. you can get universal piping and cut it as well as an ebay intercooler (cxracing makes good **** I have one of their intercoolers welds are top notch fins are in great shape and it's pretty dense) cost me 100

if you play your cards right you can get a decent quality turbo setup for 2500 or less.. a jdm CAI is a good help for the something to use for the maf section

so over all

JDM parts (ebay CAI for 2.2/ 2.4 ) 65$
name brand turbo 600-1200
downpipe $400$
turbo manifold 350$
turbo accessories (oil lines and such) 100
intercooler 100$
piping from cx racing (good quality) 120$ (i'll ahve a bunch of piping for sale within a month or so after i'm done boosting my car
wideband 200$
boost gauge 50$
manual boost controller 150
BOV adaptor 50$
name brand BOV 200
maybe a wastegate if it's not internally gated 200$
injectors 200$
tuning 250

so thats like 3200 but you can get alot of things for cheaper then what i've listed

ebay's a good place to look just makes sure it's name brand

also look at blaast performance for turbo's and some other parts

 

if you know what your doing you can peice a budget kit together. the key is to look for good quality parts the first time around. keep an eye out localy (craigslist) for used stuff that you can check out before you buy. things like the turbo manifold you will need to buy new, however you can keep your eye out for a properly sized brand name turbo thats used but in good shape, and pay less than half you would new. if you go internall wastegate it saves more. for a bov, you can use a 1st gen dsm unit you can get dirt cheap.

keep in mind you will have to fab up all your charge pipes and a downpipe yourself by goping this route. i wouldnt attempt it if you dont have a welder, or know someone who has a shop, welder and fab skills who is willing to help out. there is a ton of fabbing that needs to be done, and this is why aftermarket turbo kits cost so much. if you arent able to do that, buy an off the shelf (hahn) kit or get a supercharger setup.

 

I knew the price sounded too good.. I'm with going s/c or just staying na then.. Kinda sucks because I love turbos.. But I can't fork out that much cash..

 

x2

 

All eBay companies have gay **** like that though..

 

Cheap, fast, and reliable.. you can only have 2 of those 3.

 

That's the problem with "big boy" hobbies.. You gotta pay to play. And for a student in college with a minimum wage job, it's quite hard to buy some 2,500 dollar turbo kit.. lol.

 

I'm sure that turbo is really great.

 

it's all about patience, averagewhiteboy. I'm a college student too (first degree proved useless, i made more working on a HS diploma, so now I'm back studying for a more lucrative career)

save whatever you can, and keep putting it aside. don't touch it, don't think about it. just keep building up the funds, until you get as much as you need to do the project right.

it'll build character, too. i do all my projects this way...i have seperate accounts for my different savings projects...one I use to pay for school every semester, one for car stuff, and one for buying my first house. just keep putting aside whatever I can afford to, and split it based on priority. 50% to school, 25% to both car and house.

i've never come up short on school costs, always eventually get what I want for my car (like...the car itself), and i've been saving for so long for the house that when I turned 20 I bought $10k worth of 5-year CD's @ 5.55% APR, so come my 25th birthday i'll have over $13k coming back to me, so I can put that 10k + 25% of the interest back in my new house savings and put 50% into my school bills and 25% into my car.

just remember, the easy, fast way out is usually the one that's gonna bite you in the ass later on.

 

That's the best saying ever because it's totally true.

 

seriously i got my boost setup for "cheap" because it was all used.. but it's still going to cost me about 3K to get totally done.. maybe a bit more but I managed to save 1-1.5K on the whole thing due to buying barely used stuff and waiting for group buys.. but i'm trying to do it reliably so i'm spending a bit of extra money so i know it'll work well

 

i dont think any of that kit was designed to work with a cobalt...

 

Some good information.. That could just be a universal picture though too.. They do that on those listings.. But it's all good.. I don't know anything about piecing together one really so I figured it'd be an easy way to source all the tubing and whatnot, then just upgrade the parts as necessary, but it's not a big deal.. I'll either go s/c or just stay n/a. It's not like I'm gonna have the Cobalt for the rest of my life to warrant spending that much on it.. But we'll see.. Thanks for the serious input, guys..