I figured I should start a thread on my car now that i'm going to try and put a turbo on it here soon. I started redoing this car by sending it to the body shop over last winter. I just finished assembling it this summer and got to drive it for a month or two before i parked it. This is my first car and i intend to keep it for a very long time. I will start with the basics it was a 91 Camaro RS with the 5.0 TBI with the T-5, and T-Tops! bought it with 94k. This is what I've done since august of 2010.

Engine:
-summit racing 383 vortec block
-fully forged eagle h-beam rotating assembly
-mahle forged pistons 16.00cc D dish
-procomp 64 cc heads with 200 cc intake runners
-comp cam 502/520 lift 224/234 dur on 113 lsa Hyd roller cam
-Holley stealth ram w/58mm TB
-Harland sharp full roller rockers 1.5
-Holley Hp efi stand alone tuning system

Trans
-stock t-5
-ram powergrip hd clutch single disc
-lakewood blowproof bellhousing
-TA to body mount cross-member
-hurst pistol grip shifter my girlfriend got me

Rear axle
-Moser bolt in 9 inch
-Moser third member w/3.50 locker
-Moser 35 spline axle shafts
-Draglite disc brake kit

Suspension
-tubular k member with tubular arms BMR
-front coil over conversion kit BMR
-kyb ajx front struts
-koni yellow rears
-tubular everything else UMI
-subframe connectors UMI

Interior
-grey cloth seats
-full cobalt gauges and pillar pod
-kicker 6x9 and pioneer 6x4

Exhaust
-Magnaflow Cat-back 3"
-hooker shorty with y pipe 1 5/8
-No cat

Power Adder
-turbonetics 78mm turbo benita
-t4 flange .96 a/r
-comp in/out 4"/2.5" non ported shroud
-turbine wheel f1-68
-turbine out 3" vband
-wastegate racegate RG-45 from turbonetics
-BOV godzilla 45 from turbonetics
-oil cooled only
-headers havent figured that out yet..

please give me knowlegable advice on my choosing of the turbo and parts, ive been doing alot of research on here and it seems ive got the right stuff. The turbo and stuff should be here in a week or two. I also plan on keeping a/c.

 

What she looked like the first day i brought her home and then a week or so later when we changed the wheels.

 

Me at TGO 10th aniversary with a sbc 400 though. Starting the teardown of the car for a whole year :/

 

Not going to fill this up with photos of small things, ill just show maybe a few of the complete restoration? Had a body shop do the blue parts, then i got it back and redid the bottom side!

 

sanding..

 

down to bare metal due to paint peeling off

 

sanding some paint, thats chris working on it not me

 

sandblasted the engine bay color is coming next

 

ground effects man i love this color! it really pops in the sunlight

 

fresh paint obviously lol

 

assembly, im really starting to like how its coming together

 

day of reassembly! i get to take it to my shop and tear it apart now

 

grinded the underbody of the car down to bare metal with a 2" cookie wheel..this took a while. too bad most of my photos wont load for this section its pretty cool

 

then i sprayed the underbody with a sealant to prevent rust and to turn all the rust black.

 

and here is the paint. silver metallic base/clear hows it coming? gotta take a break for a while be back later!

 

This is the moser rear end assembly, along with the tubular panhard bar relocation kit and the on car adj panhard bar. The koni yellows add a nice touch dontcha think? almost everything new is being put on this car, no old parts unless there powdercoated.

 

More assembly. I had problems with the aftermarket TA mount on the axle not being welded straight, so we oblonged the back hole on the red piece so to adjust the arm where needed so it wouldnt be bent. As you can see in the first picture is is slightly bent. Now in the third photo you can see it is not bent anymore and lines up nicely.

 

Motor cleaning with soap and assembly! unfortunately none of the piston pictures will upload, sorry guys.

 

Motor is complete! although this looked like it went really quick, we had lots of problems with this motor assembling it. To start with the bearings would not fit into the rod caps smoothly! the tang on the bearing was to wide and wouldnt fit into the rop cap. so we used a file on the back side of the bearing to get it to sit smoothly. I was so shocked when we pulled this motor apart after 1000 miles of use to find the corners of the bearings copper. that was the first time i put it together, this time we are doing it right. the second time.. the bore in the block wasnt exactly .30 over so we had to have that sent out and redone, lots of headaches that i wish i would have seen the first time..

 

Car looks awesome! Love the color lol

 

Ram clutch and flywheel installed, along with scattersheild, and blow proof lakewood bellhousing transmission is attached and ready for the car to be dropped on the motor and transmission.

 

Thank you for the compliment camarodave!

Everything is bolted up! It all went pretty smoothly to add too. heres a nice picture of the coil over set up installled. and no that is not the height i set them to ride with.. figured that out later lol

 

Here is my engine wiring harness. only needed a few things that the holley hp efi wasnt going to run, like the a/c and the starter, and the alternator. thats pretty much all the wiring i have left in there. then we wrapped it in nice loom.

 

Pretty much the car is ready to run at this point, i dont have any further pics of the engine bay.. idk how but i have a few videos? not sure if i can upload them on here or not. This shot here is of some CNC brake line. hopefully itll stay nice and not turn green? also SUR&R fuel line 3/8 feed and 5/16 return. Oh ya and a picture of me on my birthday back in october.

 

Finally I get to drive it a little bit before i have to store it for the winter! i love this paint in the sun! Now I am ready to do this turbo thing! I need alot of help with these headers. im looking at sandersons headers either 1 5/8 or 1 3/4 or 1 7/8 but i think the last one is overkill? or should i make my own? not a very good welder here but im gonna have to learn on this one!

Thank you for letting me blow up this board full of photos I really love being able to show what I've done for the past year to people. Not to many shows that are huge around here.

 

... now this is the way to build a third gen, excellent work!

 

THANK YOU!!! that made my morning at work just so you know!

 

beautiful!!!

 

eager to see how it turns out . great job so far !

 

Nice work! Subscribing

 

Thank you! The turbo and parts should be here next week! And now I am thinking about the headers, to put the turbo in my engine bay with a/c on the passengers side I am going to have to get some block hugger headers and flip them upside down. Any thoughts on primary tubing diameter? 1 and 5/8 or is 1 3/4 better?

 

 

1 5/8 should support everything you could want but use 1 3/4 if it covers your ports better and if you have high hp goals

 

the stock T5 will be a weak point, IMO

 

I've pushed it behind a built sbc400 and the previous built 383 before this. I don't drive it like a mad man I ease into the launches. May not get the best times but I sure wont be breaking the trans on a hard impact launch. Plus I've done everything to make it not break without upgrading it. Such as moving the torque arm mount off the tail shaft and using a blow proof bell housing just incase my clutch wants to explode. But long rant short I don't think I'll be breaking it.

 

What are the details on the Holley EFI system? Does that particular one work with boost? How will you go about tuning it? I'm just curious because I would like to go to a stand alone someday on my next build.

 

Well for starters buy the kit, it was more expensive to buy it separately like I did, although I didn't have the funds to buy it all at once. It does do boost, you just have to change the map sensor. Once I worked out all the bugs, make sure you have great grounds, it works great. After I fixed the grounds it was plug and play, I clicked all the options I had in the software and told it was size motor injectors and ignition I had and it fired up and ran first time. After I found the bad grounds of course. Was well worth the money. I don't have to worry about tuning. It tunes itself off the WB. And obviously you can customize your tune. I don't know a whole lot about the features and things like it can run boost meth juice a/c fans like you name it it can do it.

 

Looks awesome!! You've done an amazing job on this car!

I'm jealous of your Holley EFI system. I originally installed my fuel injection setup quite a few years ago so I went with the Commander 950, as it was one of the few standalones available at the time. The new Holley systems sound great, and I wish I could justify upgrading mine!

I'm anxious to see your build progress. With the quality of your work so far I'm sure the turbo setup will be top notch!

-Paul

 

its time for an update! thank you paul and everyone else for your compliments on my car, it really means alot. there are hundreds of man hours probably building this ride.

on the upside my parts have come in from turbonetics!! again so you all know its the hurricane turbo called benita. 78 comp wheel 68 turbine wheel .96 ar. 4" intake 2.5 out and a 3" v band downpipe.

Also aquired a godzilla bov from them as well. 45mm on that should be good to 750 hp? anyone have any numbers? Also a racegate wastegate 45mm as well 750 hp numbers?

Here is the pictures!

 

And now for the turbo. i was very happy with how everything looked! the shipping took a little while but its ok i guess im not in to much of a rush. The next thing i need to do is order my headers from sanderson.

Im lookin at having them coat them for an extra 200 ish? is that too much? and thoughts on the headers? total cost came to 475.. shall i get the cc1 with 1" 3/4 primaries or should i get the cc2 with 1" 5/8 primaries. both headers have a 3" collector. my main concern is losing to much velocity coming out of the heads. its just a 383 with procomp heads.

 

Wastegate size has nothing to do with hp,

Big turbo + low boost= big wastegate
Big turbo +high boost=little wastegate

Its all about how much air that needs relieved

 

Also if you get compressor surge you need a lighter spring or to take shims out if any are in there. You will be fine with both, they are overpriced pieces but are very nice. Godzilla bov will hold whatever you throw at it

 

Big turbo + high boost = little wg? what if i have big? will it cause problems? and how much do you consider high boost? over 15 psi? 10-15 psi?

I'm pretty new to the turbo setup, how does one aquire compressor surge? the rg-45 was 350 and the bov was 250 is that really too much? As you can see i have not spared too much cash on this whole project.

 

the turbo is run off of exhaust gas...obviously

it takes more exhaust pressure to spin the turbo to a higher boost level, now if you are running less boost it has to send more exhaust through the wastegate. if you have too small of a gate you will have a boost creep issue. meaning the wastegate cant keep up and your boost will spike. but you will be fine with that wastegate.

as far as compressor surge goes, it is having the wastegate spring set too tight or having too stiff of a spring in it. after you shift or let off the throttle it will try to open and literally shutter open and close. all of the air that cant escape goes back into the turbo trying to sping the turbo in the opposite direction it is going making a distinct noise.

so that one will be obvious to you.

dont overthink it though, your parts will be just fine. as far as price, im going to be using a turbo xs $116 bov and most likely ebay wastegates for under $125 for the pair of them

 

Okay very cool thanks for the input. As Long as what I have will work very well ill be happy. Explaining that helped. Just thinking about the headers now. And the reason I went with turbonetics stuff is two reasons. One it had a warranty and two I figured those are the main points in the system, and I didn't want anything to fail on me, on my bad for not spending too much.

 

I ordered my headers today! Bought them from Sanderson headers, I purchased their cc1 1 an 3/4 primaries with 3 inch collector. I wanted to change to 3" vband but they wanted an extra 150.00 to modify them, instead I got them ceramic coated silver. Should see by the end of next week!!

 

WOW! They only charged me an extra $50 to install the header mounting flanges upside down AND weld on my v-band flanges! I did send them the flanges, but still....I wonder if demand for the v-band mod has been high enough for them to jack the price way up like that? What made you decide to go with the 1 3/4" primaries? I will be interested to see how they fit in relation to your spark plugs. I know my 1 5/8" primaries are very close to the front spark plugs and when the wires are installed the boots are virtually touching the tubes. I put heat insulating boots on the front couple of spark plug boots to make sure they wouldn't melt.

What are your power goals?

-Paul

 

Yeah I remember you saying 50 bucks in one of your threads and I was like holy cow! It was a total of 300 extra bucks for flipping the flanges and v bands so I told them no way. Just got them coated and left with my wallet feeling slightly empty..

I went with the 1 3/4 because I'm curious to see the difference between yours and mine with just different primaries. I hope to one day gasket match my heads and make it breathe better than it does already! I hope it doesn't slow down spool time with bigger tubes causing less velocity.

My power right now big three racing guesstimated at 340 to the wheels, I'm hoping with the turbo set up to be somewhere between 500-600 wheel. And honestly to be a 10.99 or faster ride in the quarter.

 

Very reasonable goals I am hoping for about 500 at the tires when all is said and done with my setup. I can't wait to see how your setup comes together!!

-Paul

 

so i am starting to work on it again this week. i should be getting the headers on wednesday. tuesday taking front bumper off for fmic measurements and removing the headers ad y pipe that is currently on the vehicle. i need to order pipe and am concerned on which sizeto go with.

my collectors are 3'' should i go with 3 inch crossovers and a 3'' dp or 2.5''rossover and 3'' dp?

also a 3'' or 4'' core intercooler? im thinking 4" with 3" in/out?? opinions are much appreciated. i want to try and take this car into the 10s and roughly 600 hp prefered??