Hi!

Unfortunately I´ve sold my Lada and moved on with new interesting projects, but I´ll be glad to tell you about my Lada-project.

I was running 100% stock engine except for the cylinder head porting. The turbocharger was a Garrett T28 from Nissan 200sx S14.

I made the intake/exhaust manifold myself and practised a lot with the mapping of the Megasquirt engine management system. I sell and install them so it wasn´t too big problem with it.

The MOST IMPORTANT thing to do if you are looking for lots of power in a small engine is the engine management system! Trying to laborate with carburettors and different ignition settings using a normal distributor is just a waste of time!

It doesn´t matter what brand you choose, the important thing is where you can get help with your system in case of troubles. Some use Autronic, Haltech, Motec, CIVINCO, Hestec, Tatech, Nira, Vems - systems. No matter which one you take as long as you can get help nearby your place.

By using an engine management system that is fully programmable you open lots of new doors to find the power in your engine. And once you tune it on a dyno with wideband AFR and knock sensor you will find the horses. That´s when you start to figure out what is the weekest part and what needs to be upgraded next to improve performance.

I have tried it the hard way by blowing a whole lot of pistons while trying to tune it on the highway.

You can push lots of power out of a "bad" engine as long as everything is working exactly the way it should, but you will break it immediately when something goes wrong!

When people build, for example, Nissan or Toyota engines they install forged pistons, rods, steel headgasket and so on...
That makes it possible to be more careless with the engine and for example sometimes run it a bit lean, too hot, knocking and so on...

You don´t have that possibility when you use a fragile engine. You will brake it very easily. That´s(again) why a good engine management system, well tuned, is very important.