Motorcycle Repair: Turbo?, gsx 250, combustion area

Question
Gidday Randy. I am from way down under in New Zealand. We have some silly laws in place over here (No doubt passed down by some greybeard in england who has not even seen our country)

I am trying to work out the best way to slap a turbo on my GSX 250 to give it a little more power, at present it is underpowered and quite frankly dangerous on the open road when wanting to pass. I have modified the air filter to some degree, and was going to design a new one for it, but then thought of the idea of a turbo.

What do you think, and could you point me in the right direction so I can look at some net based info on this type of surgery.

Thanks in advance,

Andrew.

Answer
Hi Andrew, I am afraid that your engine size may be a bit too small to benifit from a turbo charger. Turbo chargers are intended to significantly increase air/fuel flow into the combustion chamber, driven by the engines exhaust pressure. This assumes the engine/vehicle has substantial volumetric combustion area to take advantage of. I suspect an engine of this size (249ccs) is at or near it's volumetric capacity with little to no room for additional boost pressure to be effective. Coupled with the additional weight/bulk of a turbo charger and its plumbing would probably in fact slow your machine down. A more effective approach would be to increase the engines displacemnt. When seeking horsepower there is no replacement for displacement.
Look into options for installing a larger bore piston or possibly swapping the entire engine out for one it's bigger brothers...like a 500cc. I hope I didnt discourage you but I believe you would need 650ccs minimum to attain significant performance gains with a turbo upgrade.
good luck with your bike and thank you for asking

           randy