GU Patrol TD42. To Turbo or not to turbo

hi jimbo
i would suggest you may find this article of interest thread 83987
as
there is imfo in it relating to a 4.2 nissan patrol that has been supercharged with the owner being very happy about its towing performance
cheers

If you check on here http://www.patrol4x4.com
GU/GR section in the sticky TD4.2 Engine failure you will see what can happen.
Cheers Dave.

My GQ had an aftermarket turbo fitted at 80,000km by the previous owner. It was quite early in the scheme of things 1990 I think. It was actually used by Safari snorkels in the development of their GU kit.

The car was fantastic. I sold it with 385,000km on the clock an no problems with the engine. A couple of other things were a bit tired but the engine was fine.

I have only ever once driven a GQ TD42 without a turbo once and I was amazed at how slow it was.

Duncs

Hi Jimbo,

I have a 92 4.2 diesel patrol, had the same problems as you, tried extractors, bigger exhaust, and oil filters, they all helped to a small degree, but not what i was looking for. I tried a few patols which were turboed, but still was not happy with what they put out. I then tried a supercharged of road racing patrol and it offered exactly what i was looking for.

The tourge that is on offer is what a 4x4 really needs, at idle i am getting 8psi, and then that goes right through the revs , but starts to petter out after about 3200 revs unlike a turbo which keeps on winding up. Towing and slow driving in the bush is were this set up comes into its own. Out of this i have also lost the chatter at low revs, common to the 4.2.

Around town i can stay in fith and go right down to 900 revs and put the foot down and she pulls away no problems.

I get about 12ks/100 around town and about 14 towing the camper.

The S/C runs its own oil so i can service it when needed.

I also still have the extractors and bigger exhaust and foam filters.

This set up has done close to 300,000ks trouble free.

Two downfalls, more expensive to set up, and the fan is 20mm closer to the radiator, which can be aproblem when crossing deep water, but i have had no problems there, and have had water crossings going over the bonnet and no blind.

My opinion its worth while looking into if you intend to keep the wagon.

The S/C is the same unit fitted to the early commodoers.

Hope this helps

Cheers Col

Thanks everyone so far for your input. The patrol forums horror stories still left me uncertain whether to take the turbo step for more power.

Do the engines in the non turbo patrols in the GU differ at all from the GQ??

Does the GU turbo engine have different pistons, larger gudgeons, con rods etc despite the modest increase in power the vehicle gains?

The Super charger option sounds good especially due to lower heat build up but I agree is quite costly.

Getting back to the turbo option, I have also read that over fuelling as well as under fuelling a diesel when turbocharging will both increase engine temp to unacceptable levels and is the main culprit for GU turbo charging catastrophes. Does anyone have thoughts on this?