2.5 rebuild opinions

[austinskylar95]

I'll be getting a donor truck here soon so I won't have to park my current truck until the new engine is built and ready for the swap. I'm debating on whether or not to add a turbo or go old school and build 100% motor. I know what it will intel for the turbo but, has anyone just mechanically built up the engine and left it N/A? Possibly bore it 30 over, better camshaft etc. Would the computer handle such engine mods? Or would I need a tune for it? Just trying to get an idea of what would be best for a prerunner/daily driver.

 

[Mark_88]

I think what you are asking is kind of a personal level thing that only you can answer...based on what you want to do with the truck mostly, but also what your budget allows.

You can get pretty good results from just building up the existing engine as long as you don't expect tire burning power that will impress only some of the people some of the time...but it will require a tune to extract that power most effectively.

Turbo is the way most people who want good power without too much diddling with the internals...and others simply want to swap in a bigger motor...but I would vouch for turbo over building an engine...even though you can do both to get insane amounts of power out of these little engines...it then becomes extremely expensive...

My suggestion would lean towards building it with a better cam, shave the heads, put in rear gears that will give you a better jump on things and be happy with that...and I'm sure you will hear from others that will inspire you...

Main thing is to have fun and enjoy the ride...

 

[Mikel89us]

So, it depends a lot on what you want to do with the truck.. If you're just using it for driving, you can build a 150-225 HP NA motor. However, you will hurt low end and torque severely. You will need forged pistons, which you will also need for a turbo build.

If you want to pull or haul anything, you're looking at a max of 140ish HP before you hurt the torque, idle, and low end power enough to make hauling difficult.

Adding the turbo will up the horsepower and torque, and keep the stock rpm range. You can run about 6 psi on stock internals, after that you need a set of forged pistons.

Both options will require a tuner of some sort and dyno time.