Finally going to turbo my 2011 aveo5 lt

[petrified.rabbit]

I wouldn't over complicate things, if your cutting and welding yourself, then cut the flange off the factory intake cut about the the cat flange and put the turbo flange on there. the placement would still end up about like this:

[Hondahunter]

I have thought about that too and it would make things easier just cutting the cat off and putting flange on that then plumb the rest.

[Hondahunter]

yesterday I was playing around in my engine bay checking the intake and stuff and took a good long look at the exhaust area. for clearance reasons with my turbo i either have to run a short log with the turbo leg coming from between 3 and 4 or an offset shorty ramhorn style. with the compressor side towards the battery this will maintain clearance for oil filter replacements but forces me to have to do a u turn on the hot side with mandrel bends @ 2.5 in should not be an issue as long as I instal heat shields. however the stock fan assy. is taking up more space than it should so I will replace it with one that has a 2.75 profile gaining the space needed for charge tubing.. aint engineering fun lol

[Hondahunter]

Did a bit of looking around and found an injector that may just work off of a Volvo s20 the tip looks the right length and being for a 1.9 it should be the right flow I'm looking for... crossing fingers

[Hondahunter]

Ment to put s40 or v40 it's the 1.9 turbo that Volvo has so the injectors should flow plenty of fuel

[Hondahunter]

Picked up my arc welder today so now the fun begins first off is the exhaust system then I am going to make my log style manifold so y'all keep your fingers crossed that I don't muck it up lol. Been a decade or so since I last welded with an arc welder

[Daox]

Haha, sounds good. I'm looking forward to some pics!

[Hondahunter]

Slight off topic but got a laugh out of it... Stock manifold heat shield tool tray (yes I'm playing with the welder lol)

[exist3nce]

Hello there Hondahunter,

Glad to see someone in this community is still brave enough to tackle a turbo project! The old timers here will know who I am - for those who don't I went through the whole custom turbo build route with my Optra/Forenza back in 2006/2007 and still have the car driving today. The car has been through several different setups but see my signature for the current quick specs (I also have a 40+ pg build thread). I'm sure you know about some of the similarities between the Aveo and Forenza platforms... they were essentially like siblings. Anywho I come on this forum once in a while due to the closeness of our platforms and to see what the Aveo community is up to. I usually get interested if I see someone starting a turbo thread, but so many of them just give up for many different reasons... So I thought I would give you a few points of advice as I've learned alot over the past 7 years especially with 2 custom turbo cars now..

Hardware

1) Turbo choice - That K03 is ok to start with, but don't expect too much power or performance from it. They are old technology and relatively limited.

2) Manifold - Log manifold is acceptable to start with and a good budget choice. I went with custom ramhorn tubular manifold from the very start on both my cars, so I don't have any 1st hand experience with logs. However, I spend alot of time observing cars being professionally dyno tuned and I can guarantee you that tubular manifolds with proper collectors will ALWAYS make more power and provide better response than logs. This is not only true just for "high rpm and high HP", even in a low power setup tubular will be more efficient, thus generating more power (and safer power) with all other things being equal.

3) Downpipe/Exhaust - Don't limit yourself here. With turbo cars, the bigger the better after the turbo. Try to fit at least a 2.5" downpipe in there. 2.25" as a compromise - but I wouldn't go smaller than that. The rest of the exhaust can be 2.25" but go for 2.5" if you can. If you intend to have a cat in there, opt for a high flow one to match your piping size - the stock ones will be restrictive and you may end up ruining them.

4) Fans - I see you are talking about removing the stock fans.. Please try to avoid this. OEM fans are far superior to 99% of those cheap aftermarket fans out there - ESPECIALLY the slim ones. The factory fans were designed to be able to pull plenty of air through both the radiator and AC condenser to keep things cool in the worst case scenario - think stuck in traffic on a hot summer day. Now with sticking an intercooler in front of that condenser you are making it even harder to pull air through. If you abandon them for aftermarket fans, you will most likely overheat on hot days - and you can forget about using the AC. If you absolutely must remove something - remove the smaller one of the two and get a quality SPAL or Flexalite fan in its place.

5) Fuel - While it would be a good idea to upgrade the fuel pump from the start, for a low power setup this probably won't be necessary. I made 230whp on my Optra with the stock fuel pump. If you do upgrade - make sure to get a Walbro or other quality brand as I see you just mentioned "high flow fuel pump(355 lph or better) ebay 50 and up". Don't bother with a $50 ebay special - it is most likely a cheap China knockoff which will overheat and seize up or worse (yes I've seen this happen). If I remember correctly the Aveo shared the same size injectors with the Optra (200cc) ... this won't allow for very much power - maybe 140whp at best. You will need something slightly larger - 280 to 350cc would be ok. Also to consider - your fuel system is most likely a RETURNLESS system which means you cannot physically install an aftermarket fuel regulator (rising rate or otherwise) without converting the system to a return type system. Your factory regulator will be built into the fuel pump basket assembly and is a proprietary piece. You can convert the system to return but I would not recommend a RRFPR - they don't offer anywhere near the desired control. My fuel system is a return system and uses a standard regulator with a 1:1 rate to maintain a consistent fuel pressure over manifold pressure. You will need some type of electronic tuning to adjust fuel delivery (piggyback, ECU flash, standalone, etc).

6) Ebay warning - I see you are planning to source alot of things from ebay. While this is fine, some stuff should not be "cheaped out on" or your risk it failing causing damage to the motor or worse like starting a fire.

7) Transmission - I think you mentioned that you are manual 5 speed. I believe your transmission is the D16. My Optra came with the D20. While theres no true concrete info, most people have come to associate those names with the safe torque handling capacities. Transmissions only care about torque - that is what will break shafts and shear off gears. Commonly accepted rating for D16 would be about 160 lb ft and 200 lb ft for the D20. I destroyed two D20's running ~245 lb ft (at the wheels) with sticky tires. On my third one, I turned down the boost so as not to exceed 200 ft lb at the wheels - tranny lived for over a year. Then I upgraded to the F28 6 speed because I wanted MORE lol.


Tuning

This is the single most critical area if you want the engine to live! The tuning will make or break the setup. Tuning is not simply just to "maximize the power" of the setup - it is a critical and integral piece of the setup. A bad/poor tune will destroy even a $10k fully built engine. It can also make for hard starts, jerky/inconsistant power delivery, poor fuel economy and a host of other strange issues. Being able to tune a car properly and safely for a given set of modifications is an art in and of itself.

I see you mentioned about Trifecta - I just checked out their website and their list of supported cars - however I dont see any Aveos on there unless I'm missing something? This would actually make sense since all the cars they listed are the "pure GM" stuff rather than anything Daewoo (GMDAT) related. I went through a search back in 07 for tuning as well - and it would have been nice to be able to use a ECU remap/reflash such as HP Tuners which is essentially what Trifecta is doing. At the end of the day there was (and still is) ZERO support for flashing my ECU from anywhere. I'd bet your 2011 Aveo ECU is in the same boat.

That doesn't mean you are stuck necessarily. In my case I was able to use a piggyback (Greddy Emanage blue) to modify and intercept certain signals from the stock ECU to accommodate the turbo and extra air delivery. If you are going this route, hopefully you have some electronics and electrical wiring knowledge. There are a few other "tricks" that need to be implemented to make this work.

Talking about ECU's I've actually just purchased a Haltech Sprint500 standalone which I will be installing over the next couple months. The piggyback route is good, and reliable if done correctly BUT it is limited with the amount of adjustments and tuning that you can do. Again - I want to venture further so that's why I'm going this route.

PS: I saw some people mention about A/F ratio ... this is a whole discussion in itself depending on many factors, but please don't tune for 12.0 AFR at WOT and expect your stock motor to live long. Ive also ready Cork Bell's Maximum Boost and while he communicates some good basic concepts and principles - many of the specifics are outdated and obsolete by today's standards.

This is by no means a comprehensive guide, but just some quick insights. Hopefully this is helpful for you... I'll keep an eye on this thread

[Hondahunter]

Thanks for the advice. Since starting out on this venture a lot has changed from the original list. I know the k03 won't do much power but it's a good start and after working out the kinks of the install I will most likely change over to a ramhorn style and put in a Garrett gt2560. My exhaust is what I am putting together 1st and. 2.5 is the size I'm using with the future upgrade in mind. On the fuel side I found that the injectors off a 2k Volvo s40 should be adequate being it is a turbo 1.9. For the fuel pump I am going to run a walboro 255 in tank and plan on modifying the stock unit to hold it. My transmission is an automatic so its 50/50 on how long it should hold and having a junkyard just down the street is helpful for the oddball stuff. I looked into both the emanage blue and ultimate but decided to start with a trifecta tune then go from there. After poking around my engine bay I have figured out how to mount everything and keep the stock. The curious part that has me scratching my head is where to tap into for the oil send since I'm draining back into the pan. Other than that I'm excited about putting the turbo in and can't wait to get all my pieces together to get it done.