Can I boost my 2.3?

[~Barn~]

I say give it a try!

[Operator]

So are you saying the OP should just buy a MS3?!? ;-)

[RXMiles]

I vote against boosting your 23. For years I had pondered the idea of boosting my N/A RX7's and there is quite a bit of people who have done so successfully. At the end of the day the cost of boosting a N/A engine outweighs the cost of having a platform that was engineered for boos from the factory, but if budget, reliability and cost are no concern you can have great deal of fun by going turbo. My plans changed over time, the more I learned the more I realized boosting my rx7's was not affordable. I ended up adding a Turbo II Rx7 and have not looked back. Now my plans are to build one of my other cars with full bridgeport to make a killer NA

[erod550]

I'm guessing if budget wasn't a concern, they wouldn't have made this thread. We've all been there. Wanted more speed when we were stuck with a slow car. I looked into boosting my POS 1996 Neon back in the day. In the end it will almost always cost more than it's worth though. It's more than just the cost of a turbo kit. Chances are you'll need a clutch, you could end up breaking half shafts that aren't designed to handle the power, you'll need to do suspension work, motor mounts at the least, to get any kind of traction. It adds up and is never as cheap as you're hoping it will be.

This is not to say that no one should ever boost an NA car. Just if you're doing it because you don't want to/can't spend the money on the higher model that's already boosted, you probably shouldn't because it's guaranteed to cost more money than you're expecting and you probably would have actually saved money by just trading it for the already boosted model. If this is not the case for the OP then I apologize for jumping to that conclusion. No offense meant.

[OrangeVirus]

at the end of the day, if you don't build that 2.3L engine, you're not going to be satisfied. 8psi /220-30whp is not that much faster.

[whobeyou]

Someone told me the best advice ever.

If it's your daily driver and you want it boosted, buy it boosted. You'll put too much money and stress into the car that it wont be worth it.

If it's a track car, the goal is to blow up the engine each race so do whatever the frack you want with it.

The problem with boosting your NA M3 is that you WILL eventually want to put more than 7-8 pounds through the thing. This means that you'll have to drop around 3 grand in the thing to get it to 8 PSI. Then you'll need to drop 5 more grand into it to go past that point (pistons, fuel, head, tranny, mounts, ecu, exhaust, new turbo, etc...). By then you could've bought a first gen MS3. THEN, when you put it all together, there's no guarantee that it will work right and you'll be without a car for a while...

Basically if you want to drive a boosted car every day, buy it boosted....it's cheaper in the long run.

[AuroraAxela]

I went through the same debate with my N/A Mazda 3. I wanted to turbo it, because I loved my sedan. After much deliberation over the cost I would spend to boost it, I decided to convert it to a Mazdaspeed3. This would have required me to buy a wrecked Mazdaspeed3 to serve as a donor car, and I would have had to swap absolutely everything in the car to make it work.
Then my car got totaled. Decision was made for me. Bought an MS3, and I have never been happier.

Getting a Speed is definitely the best advice in this case. Either keep your 3, and be happy with good gas mileage (I miss that), or buy a Speed and be happy with go-fastz.

[mOOsE]

Then my car got totaled. Decision was made for me. Bought an MS3, and I have never been happier.

Getting a Speed is definitely the best advice in this case. Either keep your 3, and be happy with good gas mileage (I miss that), or buy a Speed and be happy with go-fastz.

I was able to hit 38mpg in my speed 3... so mileage shouldn't be an issue if you really try But the go pedal makes it tough:D

[Mortose]

best mileage i ever saw on the speed was like 32 on a long distance trip.