whats involved in turbo and ecu install?

hey,

very new to the forums. i have a 95 240 and frequent nico, but now i am looking at a 1986 200sx ca18et. i was told it needs a new turbo and ecu in order to run. the car is fairly far away from where i live so i was hoping to install these parts and be able to drive it home.

my question is would i be able to swap out these parts myself without going into major work? i would be replacing them with the same stock equipment. i am hoping it would only be an under the hood job and i wont have to remove other major parts to get to these or lift the car. any help would be appreciated, thanks a lot

I've had to remove my turbo a couple of times and even though it gets easier every time it still sucks. It can be done in a couple of hours with the right tools. You will need to remove the exhaust from the downpipe, the pipng from the airbox and I found it much easier to remove the turbo with the exhaust manifold and downpipe still attached, those nuts at the back of the turbo are a nightmare while still on the car. You will probably want to get a new manifold gasket and maybe a turbo gasket for the project but its not a must have. If you have a set of open end 16 point wrenches they will help a lot for the oil and water lines, mostly the top oil line. (@#$%*& oil line!) I would suggest a full wrench and socket set, penetrating oil, a flashlite, screwdriver set, a couple of valium and a whole lot of patience. Good luck I hope that helps. Oh yeah, bring a jack because the inside coolant line can be a bit tricky from the topside and I hope you have about three elbows in each arm, haha.

It might be easier to try and just fit a new ecu and drive the car back with the bust turbo still on it, changing the turbo isnt a job id want to do in a rush (if you have never done it before) and not in my own garage or driveway. You will need to remove the whole turbo maniflod and theres a good chance that some of the head studs that hold it on are knackered.
If the turbo thats on it is burning alot of oil you could just keep stopping and topping up your oil, just use cheep shit stuff and drive gentley and it wont do any harm then when you have changed the turbo you can flush it and put good oil in.
Changing the ecu is a 10min job just a couple of trim screws and two bolts that hold the ecu to the body.

i have been driving my 84 with a seized turbo since i got it around july as long as the oil seals are not gone you should be ok.

Yeah, odds are you might break a hard line too, then you're pretty screwed.

yeah ive actually decided if i go with this s12 im just going to trailer it back. i would rather take my time installing the new turbo and replace the gaskets while im at it so i dont have to go back and reinstall things later on. so ill be on the lookout for used parts.

ive always wanted an s12, cant wait to strip it down and put it back together =) thanks for all the help

where's the car located. Can you also update you profile with your location

the car is in new jersey, about 140 miles one way.

i would rather take my time installing the new turbo and replace the gaskets while im at it so i dont have to go back and reinstall things later on.

well there's plenty of talk on this board about replacing turbos. depending on how much time you have and how much effort you want to put in to it, maybe you could upgrade the turbo and some other parts in the process? just a suggestion...

Would it be this one :mrgreen: ?

http://images.autotrader.com/images/2004/9/1/169/681/1001962095.169681330.IM1.MAIN.565x421_A.562x421.jpg

140 miles huh so that means you're only ~120 miles away. yaaaayy!!!

have you already looked at it? that cars been painted the side shirts aren't suppossed to match the car

haha, you got me =) yeah thats it, yeah he said it had a new paint job...im planning on eventually painting it 'rallye black' myself (just a slight gloss, between satin and semi gloss sort of). it has a grey interior so thats a plus for my color choice. no i havnt actually had the chance to go and look at it yet, but it seems like a good buy. my 240 has 185K on it so it would be nice to have a car that isnt going to quit on me in the next couple of years. im still weighting my options tho, i wasnt really prepared to buy another car yet but i dont want a good deal to slip by.

If you want I could try and check it out for you. it's only 22 miles away from me. I'd get it but we have too many cars in our yard as it is. Besides it could only suck out more money I don't have.