Saigon_bob,

No problem. Sorry I misunderstood. I don't have an endless supply of money and could not have afforded to buy the boat without selling the car - at least not without sacrificing something else in my life - like saving for retirement, my daughter's education, etc. My wife and I had just had our first child when I finally finished the car, so between that and spending most spring, summer, early fall weekends at the lake, I didn't have much time for the car anyway.

Dustin Mustangs,

I don't have real-world dyno numbers for below 4000 rpm. I don't really know all the specifics, but when we dyno'd it, I was told by the dyno operator that because the engine made so much torque at so low rpm that the dyno wouldn't "grab". Maybe someone else can explain why?

The car and engine were built primarily for the street and was street driven 99% of the time, all except for two Test and Tune evenings at the track. The engine idles smoothly at 850 rpm, off-idle respsonse was nearly "production-quality", no lag, bogging, etc and it never ran over 185*F even in summer stop/go traffic. The thing to remember is that most turbo engines have relatively mild cam profiles and compression, so when they are not under boost, they behave relatively mildly. The PT-52 turbo's have 60-1 compressors which are pretty conservative turbo's for a 427ci engine, and the engine displacement alone will produce very good torque when not under boost, while the larger volume of exhaust energy ensures the turbo's spool up very quickly. Honestly, turbo lag was undetectable and the majority of my driving was street driving in "suburbia" in traffic at speeds below 45-50 mph, but I could light the tires up at any speed.

The only thing I would change about that setup would be to flip the turbo's over so that the downpipe is on the inside, next to the engine, and the compressor on the outside next to the inner fenders. I never had any problems with heat, even though the downpipes were about 1" away from the fiberglass inner fenders, but it probably would have been smarter to do it the other way, which is how Troy Trepanier did "Chicayne".

All dyno testing and driving was done on Mobil 93 octane. I never ran it on race gas - it was built as a street car/engine

 

Crazy Hawaiian,


I haven't spoken to Jason since about April or so, but last I heard the car was still in some chassis shop here in the Chicago area getting a cage and back-half. Any idea when he expects to finally get the car? I think I would be very annoyed if I were him and had bought the car and still hadn't actually seen or driven it yet after almost 10 months...

 

Monty, I just want you to know that you were MY inspiration to jump on the turbo bandwagon, and my FRIENDS inspiration to buy a 1982 C3 vette (all original) and we are going to be tearing into that this year as well. nothing as crazy as what you did, but not a DAY goes by that my friend Joey doesn't say "Let's build a Monty's special!!"

may I ask how much you sold the car for? My friend is curious, He would have liked to buy it himself, I'm sure.

 

Kingtal0n,

Thanks, I had alot of fun building that car, I do miss it sometimes. I sold it for $30k. Needless to say I lost alot of money on it, but cars are not investments anyway, neither are boats, LOL. I basically sold the engine and gave away the car and everything else for free...

 

Heh, considering what some of the neilson, lingenfelter… TT crate engines go for I’d say you gave away most of the engine also.

 

I have to commend you on the fact that you kept the car a street car, first and foremost. I'm building an N/A car right now, and I'm building a 468 stroker pontiac in my basement. I was gonna go with an 8-71 roots, but after seeing this, I may just change my mind. all my friend bag on me for keeping stuff like a radio, A/C, a decent street cam, and generally keeping the car as a fast street car, but the thing is, if I wanted to build a race car, I'd have bought a hardtop. even when i finish my poncho i want to eun the motors on pump gas. it's so much more fun to smoke some one at the track, right after they saw you fill up at the BP across the street, and they spent the money on race gas.