Modified 1992 Saturn Trike
 

My put up a picture of my custom trike built out of an old 1992 Saturn. Here are a couple of pictures during final assembly. I would also like to know if anyone has any information in regards to an aftermarket ECM. I plan to overhaul the engine this winter as it has 145,000 on it. I does not use very much oil but I am running really hard. Can't resist the right grip (throttle). Also I am planning to turbocharge it using whatever I can get either at a junk yard or on craigs list. I figure a turbo off a similar liter engine 4 cylinder twin cam should work. If anyone has any info in regards to what type of car I should buy the turbo off of it would help.

Differentracing.com will give you the best info on how turbos were done back in the day, along with the internal and external mods you will need to make to have a reliable setup. Many parts were custom made along the way. I think there is one vendor out there who ordered a few too many kits and is still trying to clear inventory,. I have no idea of the quality. Most people built them piecemeal.

As for the pcm there are no hacks for the s cars. 100% of the chips you find on ebay are **** and do nothing other than look pretty and remind you that you got ripped off.

You've done some excellent fabrication on this trike. I am impressed. Did you do all of it yourself?

Assuming you are using the 2 wire ECTS in the head (Engine coolant temp sensor):

Depending on who owned it before you, they may not have replaced it with the newer brass tipped design. The originals were all resin tipped and failed, causing massively rich conditions, starting problems, stumbles on accel, all due to bogus A/F ratio values derived in part from the inferred temp of the coolant.

If you have not replaced or if you do check it and find the dead resin tipped one in there, replace it with a GM sourced 2 wire ECTS sensor and change out the connector too as they they are terribly sensitive to corrosion. About $45.
(The single wire temp sens in the head drove the dash gauge.) Aftermarket sensors often suffer from calibration issues.

Also, I would not rebuild until either the compression is way down, the oil burning gets really bad, or you are actually doing the turbo since the internals will be swapped out anyway.
Supposedly you can run low boost on stock internals, but I would rebuild rather than try it on a tired engine
Nice work, sir!

Modified 1992 Saturn Trike
 

I stumbled on to the different racing site a little while back and looks like he went all out. I think that is way more power than I need, and am sure it would be out of my budget. I would guess it is pushing 400HP. I would be happy with 50 or 60 more. Thanks for the tip on the E Bay chips, wouldn't be the first time I got ripped off. I do have the original coolant sensor in the head but so far I am not having any of the problems that you describe. I have all of the original engine controls hooked up and in Greene County OH we don't have E-check but it would pass if I put a converter on.


This was a long project and I had plenty of advice from some good friends, but I made all of it in my garage. If you are interested I have a few Youtube video's. They are all titled ( Trike In Process ) I think there are 7 of them.

Damn, all homemade...

Where is Sugarcreek?

I live south of Pittsburgh and have always wanted to learn how to weld.... :)

Your ECTS is toast. You won't realize it until you replace it how f'd it was. If you've never known differently, then there's no real way to explain it other than it will run even better than it does now with a new brass tipped ECTS and connector in there.

Google it (ects failure saturn) and you will find things like http://www.saturnseries.net/DIY%20Gu...eries-ECTS.htm, indicating I am not the only one who has given this advice to owners of used saturns

If you are talking 50-60 HP, you MIGHT be able to do it on stock internals...further net research is needed but it definitely needs to be done on a fresher engine.

You don't have to go all out like he did; Bones could probably tell you much better what is needed internally to withstand the stresses that running with boost puts on the internals of the engine.

Bones?

I think we're talking 3-7lbs of boost (guess)

Goalie -- please chime in and argue with Bones -- I miss it