I have a 2000 Sunfire LN2 with the 3 speed automatic.

The current engine is aging, 111,000 miles on it, and I'm looking to gain some more performance.

My current idea was to:

Buy a "new" LN2 with around 20,000 miles on it.
Add an Eaton M62 supercharger to it, running around 8 PSI of boost, making around 200hp. + J body performance Forced induction cams.
Swap the new blown engine into the current vehicle, using the current transmission (which will be rebuilt).

Does anyone have any words of advice as to the supercharger manifold, and the ECU tuning? Also any ideas as to if the 3 speed will be a good match for this set up, or should I do a 5 speed conversion / 4 speed auto conversion.

Well first, the LN2 only has one cam. Second, the Eaton blower won't bolt on without a ton of custom work. The only supercharger that's available as a bolt-on kit is the RSM Vortech cintrifugal unit, and that's about a $4K kit. There was someone talking about making a manifold to put the Eaton blower on an LN2, but whether he got anywhere with it or not I couldn't tell you. Personally, I'd go with a turbo. There's a lot more kits or you can build your own kit for much less than the cost - or at least headaches - to make that blower fit, ECU tuning is wide open, there are plenty of stand-alones and piggybacks, or your easiest bet is HP Tuners software t otune the stock ECU directly.

Can you even get the 3 speed auto in '00? I have no idea, that's why I'm asking.


15.3 @ 89.97mph, 14's on the way?

I'm looking to be cost effective here.

The problem I'm worrying about running into with the turbo is, that it isn't simple.

I need a turbo, intercooler, a bunch of piping, wastegate, blow off valve, oil lines, etc etc. Supercharger (if there was a manifold) would bolt right up, and just need a larger belt.

I'd really like to spend less than 500$ on the F/I part. A rebuilt M62 is ~200$, and a turbo would be at least a couple hundred, plus a lot for all the supporting things it needs.

Turbo=more potential
The supercharger may be cheaper initially, but unless you can do your own manifold fabrication, it will cost a fortune for the custom intake mani (since none are availible).
If all you're looking for is the 50hp the SC will get you, a budget turbo kit can be used. Honestly, I had my car boosted for <$300, and half of that was for the Cartech fuel pressure riser.
Your cheapest choice (initially) would be a dry 50shot of the go-juice.



fortune cookie say:
better a delay than a disaster.

Putting that supercharger on your car and actually making it work will cost 5 times as much as turbo charging. And if you only wanna spend $500, buy an intake and a used catback cuz thats about all you can get for that much.

You also cant slap on a charger with a onger belt and call it good, you still have to make the appropriate fuel modifications as you would with a turbo setup. By the time you buy just the charger and fuel modifications(not including the custom intake work), you'd only need to add another $1k or so for all the other oil, piping, intercooler, and BOV provisions and you'd have something that will work. And, if you dont do the custom work yourself you'll be spending some of the hopefull savings on labor. Good luck...

Jim Mitchell wrote:I'm looking to be cost effective here.

The problem I'm worrying about running into with the turbo is, that it isn't simple.

I need a turbo, intercooler, a bunch of piping, wastegate, blow off valve, oil lines, etc etc. Supercharger (if there was a manifold) would bolt right up, and just need a larger belt.

I'd really like to spend less than 500$ on the F/I part. A rebuilt M62 is ~200$, and a turbo would be at least a couple hundred, plus a lot for all the supporting things it needs.

I'm only trying to help. It may sound pretty complicated, but honestly, doing a turbo is really pretty straight forward if you understand how it works. And since you have a 2000 version of the LN2, you have it even easier when it comes time to add fuel. On the older versions like mine or Stevefire's, you have to get creative in order to fit bigger injectors.

Honestly, a turbo will be so much cheaper than that supercharger no matter how you do it. The fabrication to make a manifold for that blower will probably be EXPENSIVE and it makes my head hurt just trying to visualize how it could possibly work. If you FAB a turbo kit, yes, it can be daunting because you have to source everything yourself and make it all fit. If you really want to be cost effective and drop a bunchj of money, you'll either be building your own turbo kit, running nitrous, or staying all motor.

If there was a 'theoretical' manifold, it would just be the M62 + longer belt + fuel management, right?

I'm wondering if I could custom fab something for the intake manifold - I have a pretty well stocked machine shop, lathe, mill, tig welder, etc etc. Has it ever been done?

Yeah, theoretically you would need essentially a plenum with the individual runners and a mount for the blower, brackets for support, injector bungs, room for the fuel rail, etc., the throttlebody for the blower and all the related items...

LIke I said, there was one guy that was talking about trying to do this but I haven't seen or heard anything about it recently. It was back earlier this year.

Good point.

Well it looks like i'll go turbo.

It's not that I don't have the money, I just don't want to spend 2000$ on a 2500$ car.

If you guys think I can get a stock internal (+ maybe cam) 2200 (without Nitrous Oxide) to ~200whp for under 1000$ total, i'm open to suggestions.

200HP? Stock bottom end? Easy. There's a few around her that's done it already. If all goes according to plan, I'll be among them shortly. For keeping it under a grand, I highly recommend factory DSM parts wherever possible. I'm going that route - since I'm in the VR4 club - and things like DSM blowoff valves, factory turbochargers (I recommend 16G), sidemount intercoolers, etc. are always up for sale. We've upgraded a lot of our VR4s to the point that the factory stuff is useless, but for a 200HP Cavalier, it's perfect. And since you have a 2200, getting injectors and all that will be much easier for you. Be glad. I've got the older motor and like many before me, I gotta get creative.

Since you have access to a pretty well-stocked shop, buy all your piping and fab the plumbing yourself. It'll save you a bundle.

I'll get a list together for you of what I'm using to give you an idea of what it'll cost. Some spend more, some less. Just depends on your resources.

Why not NOT waste your money on a $2500 car, and buy something already with power?




14.330 @ 96.37mph

You wanna go turbo for how much? Less than a grand? Good luck. I believe you can get an electric supercharger for about $30. Get 4 of those, maybe that will get you to 200hp.

BlownBlackZ wrote:Why not NOT waste your money on a $2500 car, and buy something already with power?

Please don't think this as picking a fight, but who are we to judge? This argument of "Why waste your money on this car or that car" gets thrown around all the time and it's getting tired. When you get asked "Why did you bother to waste time and money on a Cavalier", do you say "Hey, you're right. I'm a retard. The money I spent on rims and body kit and supercharger could have been better spent on a far superior car that will blow the doors off my Cavalier, supercharger or not"; or do you say "It's my frickin car so get back in your (insert favorite car to hate on here) and p!ss off!"?

Thank you for your helpful response ln2johnny.

I'm not trying to set any records, I just want to do something with this car besides donate it to the purple heart. It's really not worth anything any more, and I'd like to restore it's worth and make it more fun to drive, without spending 3X what I paid for the car.

I'm guessing I could fabricate things like the downpipe, milling a flange and welding it up to some piping shouldn't be that hard. The more parts I can make myself, the better, I'd like to actually "build" this, not just buy things and blindly follow the instructions and bolt them on.

Any time., man, I'm always glad to help if I can. As far as the fab, that's really what I'm doing. If I can't adapt a given part from the Galants or DSMs, then I'm either modifying it to make it fit, or making it. Actually, the only hard part to find premade - in my experience so far - is the manifold. There are plenty of manifolds out there for T3 style flanges if you go that route, so don't worry. But if you want to do like me and use a factory Mitsubishi turbo, it's a bit harder. The newer ones I think use a T3 flange - at least the Hahn units do - but the older flanges from the first gen DSMs and the GVR4s are a 4-bolt and I have yet to find a manifold for them that will fit my car. One option I considered was to actually buy a 4G63 stainless manifold, cut off the flange, and reweld it with a flange to fit the LN2. But there's also a strong possibility we'll be doing a Squires-style rear mount on my car anyway - that'll be fun - and I actually think it'd be easier given what I've got to work with.

Excuse me for asking such a stupid question, but would a budget way of tuning be just to throw on an FMU and call it a day? Or will that not work?

Some do it that way. They do an FMU and an adjsutable FPR, bigger injectors, and tune it that way. Either way you go you'll need a wideband O2 to get it right. Personally I think the FMU is a bit tricky but that's because I'm a laptop tuning kind of guy. It's a matter of preference, I guess, but yes, the FMU route would likely be cheaper. I've never done it that way so I can't really give you a definitive answer. If you know how a mechanical FMU works, and feel comfortable using one, by all means go for it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edited Monday, September 18, 2006 6:22 PM

Well unfortunately, any electronic tuning device is going to be 500$+...

My goal is to get 200whp without nitrous, the cheapest route, lol.

Do I even need a BOV with the automatic? I guess I would considering if you let off the gas while accelerating hard...

gtpsunfire wrote:You wanna go turbo for how much? Less than a grand? Good luck.

OHV notec wrote:Honestly, I had my car boosted for <$300

I wouldn't suggest mechanical tuning methods, that's what killed my car (when the signal line hose barb broke off and it stopped adding fuel). HPTuners is what? $500? get that and some larger injectors.



fortune cookie say:
better a delay than a disaster.

Well, I think I know what I'm going to do.

I'll buy a T3 turbo off ebay for 169$, one of those log manifolds for 160$, a cheap bov, a cheap boost controller, a cheap set of 2.5" piping, a cheap intercooler, bolt it all up on the current 111,000 mile engine, run about 8 PSI until something breaks, then do the engine swap.

Is there like a turbo step by step guide or something to installing one on an LN2?

$169 for a T3 turbo? I hope its not one of those SSAutochrome turbos.

A REAL turbo that won't blow seals after 10 miles of usage will run you minimum of $500.

Remember.....You get what you pay for.


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'97 Z24
2004 JBO Bash Quick 8 Qualifier