Mountain TT car - 250whp - Turbo or NA???
 

Naturally, I had to have a question that fit in two different forum topics at once... So I am creating two joint threads for this one. Turbo guys can post yay's and nay's here while you NA guys can do the same on the other thread: http://www.club240.com/forums/showth...threadid=22574

First, a bit on what I want my car for... For all you Togue fans out there, that is what I do. There are a good 20 choice mountain passes from the Bay Area down to LA that my friends and I frequent. 3:00am time trials sometimes for an hour at a time through windy backroads. I am not much for top-end highway racing, nor for off-the-line sprints. An engine with good response and some nice mid-range power is my bag.

So on to my question: I am looking at purchasing a 91-93 240 hatch, and while my budget for the whole car is in the teens, I want to spend roughly $4k on the engine. (engine alone - doesnt include exhaust/lsd/tranny stuff)
*I am looking for ~250 whp, 240 would be ok.
*With a budget of $4k, I plan to use the KA24DE - since swapping to a SR20DET would cost me 4k just to get it in the car and in stock trim would only produce ~180 whp.

Because I am new to the KA24DE motors, I am turning to you guys who know about the engine's potential.

So, would it be better to purchase a full turbo kit and have it installed, or to go about some form of NA tuning to reach 250 whp??
I would love to hear as much input as possible and as many ideas as possible.

Keep in mind that this is a 250hp time attack car, not a highway runner or a drag racer, and that $4k has to include labor (though I can find labor for fairly cheap)

I am quite willing to modify this criterium and to consider alternate methods upon suggestion

Thanks!
-Ryan

Look at what i put on your other thread.

Turbo is deffinately the way to go here it seems, but at roughly 250whp, how will the engine hold up? Assuming that you are using all the correct size injectors, more than adequate intercooler, etc.

searching would be great ya know

turbo it man... you can squeeze that out of the ka24de-t stock internals with a T3 turbo at about 8 - 10 psi.... infact... you can prolly get lower compression pistons and rods if you were to spend maybe a grand more on the engine