jhenty wrote:i plan on supercharging or turbocharging in the future and I know a lot of guys here have run into problems with the weak stock internals. Mainly I'm asking what parts are weak and should be replaced or upgraded so that I don't run into major problems after I boost. I kinda want to get that out of the way first before I break anything and have to spend even more money.
If you are going to stick with the TRD Supercharger as a power adder, you will be safe with replacing the pistons with forged. They are really the weak link. They are some really flimsy cast junk! The rods seem ok but I personally wouldn't trust them past about 350-400fwhp. While you're in there it only makes sense to replace the rod bolts with good ones from ARP and the other normal stuff. The short answer is pistons. Trust me that you will not be able to use smaller than a 2.2" sc pulley reliably. That is 9psi nominal and registers 13psi. Any smaller and it is all heat and you take a big risk of damaging the sc.
If you need a good shop to build your motor, I highly recommend Arrieta Motorsport. Carlos Jr there has built 3 of our engines and cares for them like they were his own. It's a family owned and operated business and they take a lot of pride in their work and back it up. Carlos has more experience with our engine than anyone.
http://www.arrietamotorsport.com/
For custom forged pistons, rods, cams and head work, call Brian Stoid of Stoid Racing. He has done some very high profile work in the racing community building cars with over 800whp that I know of, maybe more. He also worked on the MR2 with a 1MZ-FE that won the SCCC this year.
http://www.stoidracing.com/index.html
Now we've only talked about your engine, what about tranny? Are you auto or manual? If manual, you'll DEFINITELY be needing a clutch! If you're auto, I STRONGLY recommend talking to John at IPT Performance Transmissions. He has done more with our transmission than anyone and very good with race transmissions. He stands behind his work, I can't say enough good things about the business I've done with him and the professionalism of the company.
http://www.importperformancetrans.com/ . I hope that helps, feel free to ask if you have more detailed questions. -JoeB[/url]