After wounding my engine again in my turbo T/A (my fault,not my machinist) i have decided to put the fun factor back into racing for me! I have a bone stock 100'000 mile 2 bolt 350 and a set of used 487x heads along with a comp 268 cam. The engine has been bored .040 at one time and ran well when pulled out of a truck 3 mos. ago. How long do you guys think this time bomb will last? I did this years ago with a 350 from the local wrecking yard and it ran 11.10 in a chevelle with a roots blower for 2 years! I have ran a best of 10.10 in my T/A with a 350, dart 200's and a 224 duration cam at 22 psi. The motor has at least .025 ring gap which is a vital part of this madness to ensure against ring butting. My old junk motor laid down 504 whp and turned 6600 with no signs of distress except a few skirt tabs laying in the pan when i tore it down! Heh Heh. Im taking bets on how fast this pile of dung will go! It should only be airflow challenged by the stock heads compared to my current combo so i think it will still run 10.70's if it lives. Anybody else out there as retarded as i am? Im having fun just thinking about it! Plus it will help clean out my garage full of waaayy too much junk engine parts! Oh yeah, the oil in the back two cylinders is from being upside down on the stand for 3 weeks. It's actually in good shape......kinda!
(edit) For those of you who dont want to go blind reading all this, the old used up motor was pulled out intact and running perfectly after going 9.37@150! Best power number was 738 whp @ 25 psi and a 75 shot of NOS. Ring gap ended being .090 on the top ring when i finally pulled a piston out of the hole. Yikes!

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Re: How long till it grenades?

Go for it Marty!!! What happened to the other engine this time? I have been around you long enough to know that junk makes big HP and works great if you can dial it in! I will be statring on another kit for the stang soon and cant wait to get back on the street!

 

Re: How long till it grenades?

Wassup man? I hurt a piston and seem to be having ring failure across the board so now it's time to get back to my junkyard roots and pull the pin on this grenade! LOL Get that stang back together man!

 

Re: How long till it grenades?

Go ARP throughout and just get crazy with it
issuez

 

Re: How long till it grenades?

Hell ya, this WILL be fun, I can see the look on old Westburgs face now, , and soon after that will be followed by a 10.70 or 80 ish ET,lol.

 

Re: How long till it grenades?

I'll bet with new bearings and timing set it lasts at least a year.

 

Re: How long till it grenades?

Wow, Marty. I didn't know the rest of your car was so nice. I seen engine shots and a little of the car on your dyno vid, but the whole car is beautiful.

Your car is exactly my style. I've got the looks up to snuff, but my performance side has a long way to go before comparing to yours. I'm kind of using your combo as my guide, because I like the look of the TPI, and find it interesting that you can get it to make impressive numbers without running it over 5.5k. My current combo netted a 12.4 at 117 with 3.70 gears. Due to the gearing and ~25" tall street tires, I was pushing the old L98 past where it is really pulling strong. The other weekend I swapped 3.27 gears into the stock 9-bolt rear. Hopefully that will get my bone stock L98 into the 11's (though I'll probably need more than 6psi of boost to put those 3.27s to good use).

Do you have more pics of your car anywhere? ALso, you ought to consider posting your combo over on z28.com - there are a lot of people that would be happy to here about your ride.

EDIT- SOrry I have no actual input on your question.

 

Re: How long till it grenades?

As long as you don't spin the hell out of it, it will probably last six months to a year assuming you put a good head gasket on it

 

Re: How long till it grenades?

Thanks for the compliments 89 JY! You are pulling some darn good numbers out of your setup. Dropping your gears should put you back in the sweet spot and pull all the way to the end. I ran around 118-120 at the street drags (no timers) on 7.5 psi and a 3.00 gear so you aint doin bad at all! Here's the clincher on my grenade scenario. Im not actually rebuilding the bottom end at all. Doin a new cam, timing set and the hi volume oil pump and pan off the existing motor. I never touched the bottom end on the last one i did either. I figure if it's happy, leave it alone! If i even took one piston out i would lose the "MAGIC" and screw it up. My crazy buddy Joe and i call this "seasoned". LOL. I honestly think the bottom end will dump if i boost it hard down low as i now am making a tad over 800 ft. lbs of torque at 4000. Thanks for all the input everyone! I will post progress pix as i go. The heads are at the machine shop now as they were so gross i couldn't step THAT low!

 

Re: How long till it grenades?

Here are some pix for ya 89 JY TURBO. These show the inner workings a bit more and may help with some construction ideas. Best thing i ever did was make the crossmember unbolt for oil pan removal!

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Re: How long till it grenades?

Well that makes me feel a little better, but I really feel as though I have a looonng way to go to get into the 10's (or even close). The 117mph was at a 6psi wastegate setting, but the boost would creep up to 8-9psi on the top end (even though the boost was creeping up, you could feel the power creeping down, LOL). This was also with a decent amount of tire spin (which I'm told makes the track act longer) and on a very cool friday night, so the conditions were pretty good for high trap speeds.

Thanks for the pictures

 

Re: How long till it grenades?

So what do you have done to the engine? Time for some pix of your car! How did you route your downpipes and all the B.S. that goes with a TT car? I'd like to see the layout.

 

Re: How long till it grenades?

Ok. New deal. Im going to run small valve commercial 991 casting heads with the 1.74 intake valves. Why ruin a good set of 487x heads when the piston impales itself into the heads anyway. Might as well make this experiment educational. Lets see the effect less head flow has on horsepower. The buick GN guys routinely make 600 HP with puny head ports so let's see how a SBC runs with a high velocity small runner port combined with a 218 dur. at 050 cam and 484 lift with 1.6 ratio rockers. This setup would merely be a GN motor with 2 extra cylinders. Crap, a 231 v6 with 2 cylinders added is only 308 ci. So 350ci. just sweetens the pot! Turbo buicks break all the rules when it comes to making horsepower out of nothing so im going to go against the bigger is better theory and see how much the heads on my real motor really are contributing.

 

Re: How long till it grenades?

hahahahahahahaha, If crap will run Marty, you can do it, you have proven that with the Chevelle, Pull & Sve short block and a 420 Mega blower running 11.13 or something loike that is bitchen for 3800 pound stock suspension TANK.

 

Re: How long till it grenades?

[hi-jack]

My engine was stock from the TB to the exhaust manifolds when it went 12.40's. Thats right, stock exhaust manifolds plugged in the back and turbo flanges welded on up front (talk about junkyard builds ). It also used two small Volvo T3's (.48A/R turbine housings and 50 trim compressors), along with two Ford probe intercoolers.

When I had the engine out for a (very) serious repaint project, I installed larger turbos (TO4E 57 compressors with T3 stage III turbines in .63A/R turbine housings). I also decided to try 1.6 rocker arms to help the stock cam, which I think brought lift to arond .465"?? The turbo system kind of lost it's junkyard roots after this repaint, as I spent a lot of time and a bit of money making it look good. I like making stuff look nice (and you obviousely do as well), but now I feel ashamed to have it at the track and it 'only' goes mid 12's. Looks like there is too much money in it to be that slow, even though at this point it is still a fairly budget concious build. I had more fun at the track when it was a seriously 80's relic with fadding black paint and gold wheels (not to take anything away from the IROC-Z, as I think even in stock 80's trim they are beautiful).

I only had one pass with the new combo. It went 12.6 at 113 on 18" street tires with bad tire spin on the 1-2 shift (which is odd, because it launched like no other street tire I've ever driven; 1.9 60'). Also, the low profile tires had me choking the engine up near 6 grand throught the traps. My new goal is very solid 11's on a stock L98 and the 18" street tires. I think the new 3.27 gear and more boost make it possible. I'll find out over the course of this summer.

Pictures:






[/hi-jack]

 

Re: How long till it grenades?

Cool. Your 'new' project engine sounds like it could be about as short of breath as my old L98. So if you go fast, I know its because my turbo system needs work, as in larger down pipes and a better intercooler system.

 

Re: How long till it grenades?

Wow 89jy! Nice ride man! Impressive layout with the dual intercoolers mounted down low. What engine management are you running? Looks like you still have the MAF in it. Im pretty jacked to see what my crazy combo will behave like.

 

Re: How long till it grenades?

Dude, the more i stare at your car, the more i like your layout better than mine! You still have a heater and power steering too i bet! I now officially have a ton of questions for you. Stock compression? Aftermarket throttle? Did you build headers? What trans? Injector size? Down pipe diameter? How do you direct air to the intercoolers? Any mods to the fuel rail plumbing? I have info on those crappy stock rails you may not know too.

 

Re: How long till it grenades?

This has become quite a hijacking. Your asking the questions, so I'll assume your cool with it

Engine management is another area that seriously needs attention on my car. It is a bunch of gizmos tacked together, but it does work and it drives pretty well. It runs the stock ECM and MAFS, 24# Ford SVO injectors, and a Vortech FMU. It uses a MSD 6AL and a seperate MSD BTM. It gets crazy fuel milage for what it is. Last fall I got 21MPG on a trip, doing 10 over the whole way.

This was my first turbo experience, and really my first serious performance mod of any type. I would have done a lot of things different if I knew then what I do now.

Me too!

I don't know how you can say that when your car is so fast. I've been admiring your set-up for a long time now.

Yes, heater and PS, but if I had it to do over again, I would have also kept the A/C. It would be tough, but I think now that I could have done it. The engine is totally stock, stock throttle body, stock cast pistons (9.3 CR), cam, headgaskets (I didn't even pull the heads), stock intake, and so on and so forth. I didn't replace the bearings or anything internal, as the engine was well maintained (only had 90k miles on it).

The turbo manifolds are the stock L98 manifolds with the rear outlet ports blocked off and turbo flanges weled on up front (see pic below). The down-pipes are pretty small at 2.25" diameter.

I swapped a Tremec TKO 5-speed transmission in place of the 700R4.

The intercoolers have no duct-work, though I have considered building some. They are angled forward and I opened up the plastic inner fender liner to allow free airflow out the rear of them. The back edge of the intercoolers does hang down a little below the front spoiler.

My fuel rails and plumbing is also stock- I'd be happy for some tips on the stock fuel rails (you can PM me if you don't want to butcher this thread anymore ).

Modified stock manifolds for turbo (this pic was taken during the initial build, before the orange paint obviousely):

 

Re: How long till it grenades?

Thanks for the info! Hijack away, i dont mind. Very cool car. Some things i noticed though. I wonder if the MAF gets confused with the pipes merging together so close. I would think the turbulence would skew the sensor. Maybe not though. I would love to see your car with a standalone system on it but it's cool that you did it on stock electronics! 24# injectors severely limit you on fuel. I run 55# and seem to be ok. The stock rails have potential problems. I cut my original inlet pipe off and was surprised to find a restrictor inside that would severely limit flow. I dont know why GM did it that way but it is scary ! I am plumbed from the back and ditched the stock reg. and hung it next to the upper plemun so i can get to it waaaaaay easier. Keeping all the accessories like you did seemed impossible when i was starting my project. I am all about streetability and although you may be a bit compromised in headers and down pipe size, i think you have a well rounded car there! I bet if you addressed the fuel issue and a few other details, you could see 600 HP without breaking things except maybe head gaskets! LOL. Can you have a chip burned for 36 or 42# injectors? It would be sweet to keep the ECM except the stock MAF is a bit of a restriction. 600 ponies would put that baby in the low 11's and that's about all the stock rearend could handle anyway. 21 MPG, low 11's? Sounds badass to me!