Ok, this may be long winded, but please bare with me and give your advice/input.


Here's the deal:

Just recently I stumbled across a couple people's twin turbo setups for thirdgens for sale. I was very interested/excited and wanted to buy, but I missed out. But this sparked my interest in actually doing a twin turbo setup on my car (something I always thought was too difficult.....). And I didnt realize how many people here have started getting into turbo setups.

So...

Had I been able to buy either one of these recent turbo setups up for sale, I planned on doing it as cheaply and easily as possible. I know the "right" way to do it would be to build a bad bullit proof motor and then slap some huge turbos on there and take your time and make it really nice. However, the idea that I could do a simple, budget setup that will do for the time being is very intriging.

My motor has 130k on it, runs fine, blows some smoke (oil) at startup. But as far as I know is pretty strong.

Talking to a friend we figured that we'd take the motor apart, put new piston rings in it, ALL new gaskets and seals, work the heads over, valve job, hmmmm think that was about it. Just freshen it up and leave it stock without doing a real rebuild.
Then put the twin turbo setup on it and push 5-7lbs per turbo through the stock TPI. Figuring that low of boost and mild driving would allow the motor to hold another year or so until a real turbo motor can be built. We figured I might spend roughly $500 on the motor re-fresh. Leaving the rest of the cash for the actual turbos and equipment.

I have access to a shop, and friends with the knowledge. I would also have another vehicle to drive while the Camaro is being worked on.

And I dont want an ongoing project that sits and I can never drive. I want to do this and be done with it (for the time being). So thats why I want to know if this can be done relatively easily/simply?

I know there is a lot involved like the custom piping that I'll need to do, but I have resources so that is workable.

Also, I need to pass smog. Lets say I can get around the fact that I have two turbos sitting under the hood of a car that didnt come with them, but I still need to be able to pass a sniffer test. So I need to keep all the smog equip. on. However, I am pretty sure I have to lose A/C.

So now the question is..... can I do this? Or is this idea totally ridiculous?

And if I can.... where do I start? What do I do?

 

just to let you know, i think that LIL QWIK bought some turbo headers on Ebay so he might be able to sell you those gale bank manifolds.....

that is really half the battle, getting the exhaust routing done

 

I think a guy could do a really cheap header design.

One thought is to purchase a pair of T3's from a junkyard and have them rebuilt. Thats a couple hundred at best there. I know at a yard here we can buy misc stock turbos for $50. As is. You could pick up a pair of those. a pair of mitsubishi turbos. 2.2 chrysler motor turbos. Just make sure they are the same thing.

Then, make a flange to match the inlet to the turbine. Not hard. You could even rough plasma cut it to match. Bolt it to the turbo. Hang your turbo where you want it to sit in the engine compartment. You could use a wooden jig with wire to hold it. Cheap and cheesy but it would work.

Then get soem thick wall (sch. 40) pipe. Probably a 2" or 2 1/2" piece. Also a short radius weld elbow. Weld the elbow to the 2 1/2" piece. Take this to the plate that you have made for the turbo flange. Cut a whole in the flange to match the pipe. Use a hole saw.

Then, you could probably even use a nold short header or cheapy or set from auto zone. I think they sell headers for under $100 a set for most cars and trucks. Cut off what you dont need about 2" from the flange.

Bolt it to the engine. Then, match up your 2 1/2" pipe to it, tach weld and mark out lines. Grind it off, and use a hole saw and cut holes in the 2 1/2" piece. Reattach and weld. There you go.

Cheap header for one side.

Things to lookout for:

-Hood clearance
-valve cover clearnce
-downpipe from turbo clearance
-spark plug wire routing
-ease of drain back to oil pan

This is just a cheapy idea i had in my head that would probably work.

 

if you are gonna go thru the trouble of replacing the rings I would at least put in low compression TRW forged pistons. they are cheap and will work fine

 

What Guido said is what I'm planning on doing. It's been done several times by the Ford guys, and I think Jester did his like that too. Even though the headers aren't the greatest (not stainless) I've heard of setups like these lasting for a while with no problems.

Oh yeah, if you don't want to make your own flange I think Turbo City (or someone) sells them for pretty cheap.

 

Ok, so lets say all that works...

Is the rest of my plan ok? Especially the motor "rebuild" and all?

 

Run what you got. The smoke at startup is more than likely bad valve seals. Heck, to a compresion check and if all the numbers are good, skip the rebuild.

You are running low boost so don't worry about the internals for now. You will be making, modding, and designing A LOT of stuff. Concentrate your efforts toward the turbo gear, plumbing and so forth. You probably spend months just tuning it up and working out the bugs.

As for the turbo, sounds like the best match would be the junkyard 2.3 T-birds and Mekuri (sp). The standard trannies have turbos with larger exhaust housing (A/R .63). These are also water cooled.

The older Garrett found on carbed Buick Regals have a larger exhaust housing (A/R .82?) and a A/R .60 on the compressor, but no water cooling.

Go here to map out Garrett turbos. Treat a 2 turboed V-8 engine like two engines.

 

Thats another thing...

I dont have a clue about the different turbos themselves. I have no idea what I need, what works, or what is out there.

 

If you're looking to do this with junkyard turbos then check out the jy turbo site. Just go to yahoo and do a search for junkyard turbo and it should come up. Theres something like 30000 posts there, so I'm sure all the info you need can be found somewhere. If not, just sign up and ask. HTH's.

 

Anybody have anything else?

 

What else you looking for in particular? If you haven't read Maximum Boost and Turbochargers I would strongly recommend them. Theres a lot of good information in those two books.

 

Books? I'll look into them.

I am jut looking for a confirmation that this will work according to my guidlines.

 

What else do you need to know???


Go check out www.turbotechnologyinc.com

All their manifolds look pretty much the same as what I described.

 

Thanks dude.