So you’re saying that I can just slap a turbo kit on the 7mge and run low boost and it will be fine? I was afraid of doing that because of all the mixed opinions online, some say to swap pistons and drill oil squirted holes others say oil squirters aren’t needed and even some say the pistons don’t even need to be swapped to 7mgTe pistons only reason for this post was to get a parts list and maybe an experienced person such as yourself to help me out with this...
I’m not looking for a huge power difference I would love it if I can just run low boost and push close to 220-230 hp so if you say I don’t need to totally rebuild my motor with gte pistons and cams then I’ll go with the method you believe is easiest to successfully turbo a 7mge, any advice would help because this is my first “build” if there’s a way to push 220hp without turbo please let me know that as well sorry if I have asked ridiculous questions hahaha...
btw my motor is an 89 7mge with 50k original miles not sure if mileage makes a difference but it’s an all stock granny x8 and I have yet to abuse it myself so it’s a pretty well taken care of motor
No, the adjective (less) applies to all items of the series (less power,
less reliability, and a lot less money). There have definitely been people that have done it (look through the archives over the years). If you want to go that route, have a spare engine and probably a spare car to drive most of the time while the cressida's down. Though your engine may have low miles, it has just as many years and that few miles over that many years is worse than 300k highway miles. That also means you have an original headgasket at the original torque.
Reliability and longevity are up to how careful you are and what you put into the build... time and/or money as well as how you treat it afterward. A lot of things is building an engine can have a lot of side effects and sympathetic reactions.
-NA pistons with higher compression up the power output but also mean you're closer to the knock limit.
-oil squirters cool the pistons, not required but hotter pistons brings you closer to knock. on the other hand, if you don't pair them with the GTE oil pump, you might have oil pressure issues.
-The NA AFM only has so much range of measurement. you can bypass it or use an interceptor to trick the ECM but how far can you push it?
-You can retard the timing to avoid knock but that also decreases power (only way on the 7m is to turn the dizzy which has a global effect, aftermarket ECU and ignition system can do it wherever you want)
Sure you can make 220+ without a turbo but you have to spin it to 8 with a lot of supporting mods (probably more expensive and definitely more sensitive to problems). There was a guy who went that route maybe 15 years ago, not sure if he posted about it here or just on the now defunct ToyotaCressida.net forum.