What engine upgrades would make the Crossfire kick a@! I was thinking turbo-chargers, but I would appreciate some suggestions.

 

The word on the street is that our engine, stock, doesn't take well to FI. Compression is 10.0:1 which is a bit too high to run any kind of reasonable amount of boost. You'd want to get at least forged pistons and drop compression to around 9.0:1.

Then there's the rods. Generally they're strong enough to support more power than what the engine produces, but you could always cryo-treat them to add some strength.

Then you might want to take a look at the crank. It's got to be up to the job of holding the added power.

I'm assuming the heads flow well enough and the cams are decent enough to accomodate boost, so that shouldn't be much of a concern.

From here a new clutch is probably in order. It's got to be something strong enough to hold the extra power without slipping. The stock clutch should hold up to about 6psi or so, but I don't know how long it would last.

The gearbox should be up to the task already. It could probably handle another 80 horses or so, but if you really wanted to spend some money, you could cryo-treat the first 3 gears. They're the ones that will take the most abuse, so it makes sense to strengthen them.

Once you're certain the mechanical aspect is taken care of you'll need to dive into the electronics. MB has all kinds of sensors all over the place and it's guaranteed that you can't just slap on a turbo and expect them all to play nicely with it.

Your air/fuel ratio will be off which could cause all kinds of problems...Too lean you blow your engine, too rich you make no power and get horrible fuel economy.

Your timing will need to be adjusted to help prevent detonation and maximize power output. If the timing is off by too much you could end up blowing your engine.

Timing and air/fuel are the two big concerns with the electronics. Additionally you might throw a barometric pressure warning which is the ECU's way of telling you there's a ton more air pressure (boost) in the manifold and it doesn't know why it's there.

There are several devices on the market which can help you tune your engine, but as far as compatibility goes, I'm not sure.

Remember, though, that anything can be done if you put enough money into it. If you've got the cash, the engine bay, although cramped, would lend itself nicely to a twin turbo kit.