Learn How to Prepare Your Jeep For Turbocharging
When you need more power but you can’t afford a HEMI swap, follow these tips to add boost.
We all want more. It’s built into who we are a species. That never holds truer than when talking about horsepower and torque. The problem with wanting more power is that it is rarely cheap or easy to obtain. In short,reak it down to the old “High power, low cost, good reliability: you can only pick two.”
The ideal power-maker in a JK would be the much-loved Hemi V8 swap. Sadly, as glorious as that engine feels inside of a Jeep, the cost is hilariously outrageous. When it comes to keeping costs as low as possible while managing power and reliability, the turbocharger is king.
However, you can’t just slap a turbo onto your exhaust manifold and call it a day though. There are a lot of things to consider when trying to add some boost, but thankfully we have a little how-to video for you.
This comes from the fine minds at Engineering Explained on YouTube, and it covers the solid groundwork that you need to think about when preparing to turbocharge your engine.
The video focuses on a Volkswagen VR6 engine, but the same basic elements apply to any engine. We look at the turbo itself, fuel system concerns, cooling necessities, tuning and timing, and finally a quick overview about secondary items to think about like spark plugs or radiator fan changes.
The video runs a little long at 15 minutes, but it provides a wealth of knowledge. Most importantly to us, they spend a lot of time talking about how to be safe and prevent blowing up your motor. They cover fuel octane and how that can affect things, discuss the proper way to keep your timing and AFR on the safer side when tuning, and they even talk about considerations for lowering compression ratio to build in extra safety if you decide to increase power later with a larger turbo or more boost pressure.
Got a turbo Jeep? Talk about it on the forums.
It’s not an end-all, be-all explanation of turbocharging, but if you are considering the installing a snail under your hood, it’s the perfect video to learn the ropes.
