Hey All,

I've got my 85 TransAM with LS1 torn down again to do some more mods with electric power steering pump, wiring tidy-up and a C5 brake upgrade and got to thinking about a twin turbo setup.
I'd be on my own as I have yet to find a right hand drive twin turbo swapped LSX thread to borrow from, so trying to route them with the RHD steering shaft and box is going to mean custom everything.

It also means trying to make some space for the turbos and headers in the engine bay, so I'm looking to try and move some of my relocated accessories back into stock space to make some room up top.
Looing at the motor from the front of the car,c urrently I have the A/C compressor relocated from the bottom left to the top left becuase I didn't notch the K-member, and even if I did the steering box is in the way.
The power steering pump is relocated to the top/middle in front of the right head, and the alternator is another relocation bracket to the top right because it hit on the k-member triangle brace when in the stock lower right position.

For a turbo setup I'll have to just give up on the idea of A/C, or at least belt driven AC, but the alternator is the the real PITA, as I'd like to have both top sides of the motor clear for the headers.

So my question is, has anyone tried cutting these and welding in some tubular reinforcement, or some other kind of mod to keep the strength and shave off some of the space the triangle uses up to clear the alternator?

 

I made a custom K- member for different reasons, you could do the same with a few minor changes.

The lower control arm brackets are 3 X 2 rectangle tube that were welded to table at the proper width and track width for the car. 1 3/4 round tube is used to fill in the gaps and mount the K-member to the frame rails with 3 X 3 angle brackets bolted to the frame rails. The front and rear gussets are 1 inch tube with the rear picking up the original aft k-member bolt location.

The steering rack and motor mounts were added during mockup. My application required new frame rails and upper control arm brackets inset 1 inch on each side. Your application would not require any of these, so you would mount k-member to the original frame rails which would give you an additional 2 inches in the engine bay.

I hope this helps and gets your creative juices flowing.

 

Spohn Performance sells tubular K-members. I also watched "Car Craft's Battle of the '80s - Mustang vs Camaro" recently, and I noticed that they used Speedtech's front subframe to make room for modifications. It's worth noting that Speedtech's frame mods are very expensive.

 

Yeah that looks amazing!
Way out of my abilities though. Custom is probably the way to go though, seeing as all the aftermarket ones aren't road-legal and still don't seem to manage to be one-stop solution, be it not fitting, hitting on certain accessories etc.

I did notice with the Power steering pump not needed anymore, I might be able to get away with a bolt-on porcharger isntead. Not as fancy as a twin turbo setup, and doesn't look like it'll make quite as much power, but it doesn't take up much room. Bit more pricey though too.

 

Yeah they all have their issues though, and none of them are road legal so it sort of defeats the purpose, at least for a daily.