New to the Protege

[Darrin]

Hey my name is Darrin,

I've been doing some research don't know much about them.

Here is some background. My girlfriend has a 97 LX, from what I see that is a Z5 motor? right?

I'm a huge Nissan guy. I have 2 sr20's in the process of being built, and I have a SRT. I'm not new to turbo's at all. So I want to turbo my girlfriend's car. I'm going to order a motor but I don't know if the Z5 is the right one.

Questions:

Is there any online store that has internals for this car or am I going to have to get some custom made?
It is currently an automatic and I want to do a manual swap on it, anyone have any experience with it?
What's the highest horsepower Z5?
How much horsepower will it handle?

Thanks in advance,
Darrin

[sanblaster1]

Darrin there are threads on most of those questions of yours. Search the forums and if you can't find anything re-post more specific questions and some of the members will assist you with them. Welcome to the forums and congrats on your first post. There is no turning back now. Peace, Santos

P.S. Some are just below this thread.

[JZProwler]

I'd like to welcome you as well..and as Sanblaster1 has already said, do a quick search and you're bound to find what your looking for, and much is just in the first page or two, we've been finding out a lot about the Z5 and what is possible. It hasn't been the engine of choice for modifications though, so finding parts will be hard pressed, most will have to be custom.

Alot of my buddies are big into Nissan's, what are you putting the SR's into? one of my friends has a DET in a 89 240SX coupe and another is getting ready to do a swap into his Nissan Truck...one has an RB20 in a 91 coupe and another has a RB25 going into a 93 hatch. And just to keep it going, my friend is looking for a G20t to do some work on.

[Shaun32390]

Welcome Darrin,

I would suggest you comb through TheMAN's Protege FAQ at the top of the forum. That will get you started and help you find out exactly which model and engine you are dealing with.

I might also suggest you read through the sticky thread at the top of this section entitled: "questions about motor swaps...".

Doing a search is a must as there is a wealth of info here that will require much reading.

You may find that the Z5 is largely unproven and will require custom work to turbocharge properly. It can be done with the proper knowledge and resources however as some have tried or are trying. If you decide otherwise, the engines you will want to consider are the BPT and BP. The potential of the B6-ZE, or B6T engines has been discussed recently also.

Enjoy your stay!

[strutman]

i am one of the few on here turbo-ing my protege... talk to me and I'll share what parts I'm using and how we're going to do it and everything...everything has to be custom for the z5, don't expect to pull more than 200 horses out of it even when it's turbo'ed. I'm going to set it for 7 or 8 psi which is all the stocki njectors can handle...
talk to me or project and we'll share what we can if you are looking to turbo your z5. I have hook ups on a lot of custom parts for the z5, so get in touch with me if you need something and I'll see what I can do.

z5 power!1111 woot.

[mannydingo]

Hi, definitely the best thing you can do is find a BP engine that came on the 2nd gens also. It was the more expensive model and few were sold so it will be hard to find.

[strutman]

you have 2 basic options

bp engine swap
pro: faster, reliable, more aftermarket support
con: still not very fast, hard to find, cost

turbo (if you do it right)
pro: can push faster than the bp - barely, unique, fun of finding junkyard parts and turbo's
con: everything is custom, frankensteined, not 1 successfully done yet (i'm working on that tho)

there's prolly more pro and con on each but thats the basics

bp = easy, fast, aftermarket, just harder to find and bigger one time cost
turbo = work, piecing it together, all custom, unique, harder to do, can be faster than a bp, more engine wear

bp is good stable and the best way to go

but i'd much rather have a turbocharged unique car... hell turbo'ed cars are fun even if they're slow! haha

[mannydingo]

Then again, Strutman, there's always the even more expensive and more work-ladened 3rd option: You swap in a BP and turbo that! Man, you would have to really love working on cars, have a lot of money and have loads of free time for finding the engine, parts and working on the car.