Hello group. I am in the process of building a Turbo kit for a 2006 Trailblazer SS. I am doing this all on 4k video. Every step. It's going to be a single 76mm turbo and it's going to run on E85. And the goal is 15+ psi.

This Trailblazer used to have an LS2 with a hot cam. The engine blew up within the first week of ownership. The truck was powerful and fast with this engine. For a short time, anyways. I made a video of the teardown illustrating just how bad things went inside the engine..



And also..



This engine completely destroyed itself. There simply is nothing left to rebuild here. Not even a core for exchange.

 

So instead of another 6.0L and NA camshaft we went with a smaller displacement 5.3L with an iron block that has more meat for cylinder walls. Specifically we went with a rebuilt LMF engine. LMF is a 5.3L used in 2009+ GM vans and trucks that has VVT but no AFM or DOD. It runs a static 9.6:1 compression and is a great place to start for a turbo build..



We tore the fresh engine down to prep it for boost. We are not changing pistons or rods or anything but there are a few key things we feel the need to do inside of this engine to prepare it for the turbo..



Going back together we tossed in a Texas Speed low lift stage 3 turbo camshaft and got rid of the VVT..



We swapped in a set of a set of PAC1219 valve springs..



The Trailblazer SS comes with a front sump oil pan that is going to be very bad for inertia from the boost. If this truck gets in power and stays there for any length of time it will starve the engine of oil so we installed a C6 Corvette oil pan and pickup drilling and mounting the -10 AN turbo drain to the front passenger side of the pan..

 

And we used a set of BTR small bore 7 layer head gaskets. Brian Tooley Racing has made these head gaskets that are similar to LS9 in that they have 7 layers and crush down to 0.055" but have a bore size correct for the 5.3..



Then we tossed it all back in the Trailblazer SS with some really cool poly engine mounts that will keep the engine positively located while the engine is seeing all the boost..

 

Fuel pump setup keeping the bucket that holds fuel. This Trailblazer SS will stay in fuel under power with a low fuel level in the tank. Something you won't get with a multi pump setup. As with a lot of vehicles the Trailblazer SS tank does not have baffling inside? It only has the fuel pump module with return dumping into it's own bucket and a one way check valve to keep the pump in fuel while the truck is experiencing inertia. Be it from throttle or brake. Food for thought.

Here is how you can get the most out of a single 450LPH pump..

 

A multi-pump system won't let you stay in full power when the fuel level is low?

 

Trailblazer SS has a fuel tank like any pickup truck. It is long and narrow and without baffling inside of the tank when the fuel gets low inertia will send the fuel towards the rear or front of the tank and starve the pickup at the center.

This problem might be less noticeable on sports or passenger cars with a fuel tank that is shorter and wider. Lesser still on cars with saddle tanks like Corvette. But vehicles designed with a fuel pump module assembly generally do not have baffling inside of the fuel tank so this is a truth and most that run multi pump setups understand they need to keep a minimum amount of fuel in the tank to prevent this from happening. Again based on the specific shape of their gas tank. With pickup trucks being the worst.

 

I see.

 

We finally got around to fixing the manifold. The Turbo Trailblazer SS is almost ready to run.

 

The crossover pipe and downpipe are made and installed. The Turbo Trailblazer SS is very close to being ready to start.

 

We are nearing the end of our project. The Turbo Trailblazer SS started today..

 

All the cool cars pull up to the yellow pump..

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I was out and about logging data and street tuning this turbo Trailblazer SS today and took a few pictures of this awesome truck..

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We still have some tuning work to wrap up but the truck drives nice and we are logging boost levels as high as 10psi.

 

We are only running it at 12psi for now. We will turn that up later. We are just being nice to the new engine for a few tanks of fuel. Here is the complete turbo TBSS just before delivery back to our customer..