the "My Camaro" post got me thinkin...
whats it take to adapt a turbo? how much time/ money? i wanna be that guy that everyone talks about...i know some grand prix 3.1L came with a supercharger...early ninties i believe... j/w...i want a turbo so i can finally have that 12 second car i have been dreaming about hahahaha just kiddin
didnt they make a 2.8L turbo tho?

mike

 

it'd take a lot. You'd need a lot of exhaust work to make a kit, and honeslty from what i'm told its easier to make it a twin turbo since you'd be building it from scratch. That's just for the turbo's, we're not talking the engine...not sure what the CR of a 2.8 is but to run a decent amount of boost you'd need to drop the CR a bit, run intercooolers if possible.

Next would be the chip, which is VERY VERY important. Tuning a turbo car is hard, i should know

You'd also need to make sure you fuel delivery system is more the able to handle the boost..its not running too much boost that blows the motor, its detonation, detonating with too much boost will blow it sky high, hell detonated with low boost can blow headgaskets too.

Many people have talked about it, whether it be a V6 guy or V8 guy..very few have done it, its quite a bit of work...though the results, if done right, are outstanding

 

I'd have to agree with Fly89GTA that a turbo mod would be pretty hard to do. I have considered doing it, but the sheer amount of time and modification is very daunting. I believe that the MPFI V-6 cars have 8.9:1 compression, which is a little bit high, but would probably stand 7 or 8 pounds of boost. I would be more worried about the pistons and the head gaskets than anything else with those boost levels. It is possible to do anything with enough time and money, but I really think that it would be about 5 times easier to go with a supercharger than a turbo on cars like ours, and you would probably get similar results. You would only have to fabricate the brackets for the supercharger, the inlet tracking, and then modify your fuel delivery system. You would have to do all of that, plus custom exhaust manifolds and exhaust routing with the turbo.

 

I agree with a supercharger than a turbo setup.....


Like pontiacguy1 said, it's MUCH easier to have a supercharger built than a turbo built. And maybe cheaper!!!!

For a supercharger...think of what you'll need:

Intake tubing,
boost controller w/gauge,
air filter,
supercharger itself w/housing, brackets, nut/bolts,
custom serpentine belt of some kind,
pulley ( different sizes maybe for different levels of boost),
some kind of adjustable fuel pressure regulator

That's why they sell a lot more superchargers than turbos because it's much easier for the backyard mechanic or amateur
to install one of these ( already made specifically for that vehicle of course!)

There's like three of four brands of superchargers for Camaros/Firebirds/'Vettes, Mustangs,etc.

All go for around 3,000 each. All easy direct bolt on parts.
Unfortunately, these are only made for STOCK or mildly modded V8s!!! You would have to research to see if anyone makes a superchager for a thirdgen V6 that's tried and true!!!!

Better off swapping that V6 with a 350 or 383 with a V8 trans.
Like I'm going to do!!!!

I'd personally rather put that money towards a nice fuel injected V8.

The one that I'm getting is good for at least 350HP, 400FT LBS.
That's like mid 13s all day!!!!!

 

I have toyed with the idea if I got a big turbo cheap and make the rest.

install it after the y pipe with no blow off vale or intercooler. run boost all the time.

Long enough hose that ithe air would cool on the way in.. the turbo would be down in alot of air flow. Give up part of the pass. floor trans hump.. batt box size.

Just need a turbo and a weekend. maybe a good friend to help brain storm and make everything from auto and hardware store.

it should last longer with less major mods needed maybe get 5-7 psi all the time.

but I would run a second wire off your O2 sensor and hook up a volt meter. only thing you need to tune a car right.

 

I have one thing to say to you all:

Talk to Jester. Twin Turbo 350.

2 turbo's custom made into a space that equals less than what you have to work with on a 6.

311 said it best:
**** the naysayers cause they don't mean a thing, this is what style we bring.

Turbo Style...

 

i had once thought really deeply about doing a turbo swap into my bird. I have seen sites with turbocharged 2.8L's before though. One site had taken the 2.8L chevy, adapted twin turbochargers and slapped it into a 510 (not S-10, a 510) it's forgeign, not sure from who, but it is, and looks kinda funky. The chevy block was reworked, compression lowered, turbos attached at the sides (strut towers wouldn't allow that in a f-body), then they changed to a DIS Ignition (distributorless ignition system ---no distributor) and a Porsche Fuel Delivery system, amongst a bunch of other work. The swap apparently was very very difficult, but the car was very very fast. Can't recall the site though, do a search on yahoo.com for "turbo 510" you should get something. There was also a site where a guy put a single turbo onto a 2.8L fiero. W/o any engine modifications the car was able to run nearly 8 lbs of boost (non intercooled). Eventually the guy wanted more power, and swapped to a 3.4L , upped the boost to 10lbs, and was running 0-60 in like 5 flat, giving him an estimated "300hp" give or take some as he said. The site had all details on how to manage a swap, and the beauty of it was that nothing was modifed on the engines, well, nothing much. The normal stuff like addign the turbo, custom exaust routing, etc was in there. But, then the guy had added a chip from a company up in michigan i believe, the chip was made for fiero turbo cars (there was a kit in the past) and they would sell that kit, given that both cars are 2.8L v6's i'd think that both chips should be interchangable, (but i've never messed with chips). Also, there's another site that sells a turbo kit for the 2.8L chevy, but it's also for the fiero, wouldn't be a bad idea to see if theres anyway that this kit could be adapted to your vehicle. Try a search on this board for turbo (v6 board) and also try a yahoo.com searchalso, on the 2.8L turbo, you should yield some results. It's a difficult and tedious road if you decide to venture down it, but youll reap rewards that you had only concieved in dreams.


P.S.
I do understand you on wanting a 12 second car, I actually desire the same thing. Yet, i plan to do mine with an LT1 or an LS1 in my current engine bay, no lag time, tons of HP, and tons and tons of Torque = loads and loads of fun. (and tickets),

Oh and I (friend) can sell you a 12 second car.... A1966 Ford Fairlane, 351 Windsor v8, shorty headers with small tubes, turbo muflers, C4 (3speed) auto transmission with B&M shift kit and mega shifter, 700 CFM Holley carb, Air shocks, metallic blue paint with white ford GT stripes, and hood louvers. beautiful car, Drag radials included.......$7,500 firm. (very very very fun to drive)

 

nobody is naysaying, we're telling him its hard, Jester did a good job on his, but he also has a welder and knows what he's doing when it comes to welding...which puts him ahead of a lot of people right there...


Anything can be done with enough $$$ plain and simple...it being worth the time and $$ is a whole different story..

 

I have a friend that builds and races turbo FWD Dodge cars. He talked to me about building a twin turbo setup for my car, ya know, just to be different. The hardest part would be the manifolds/headers, I believe. I had an idea about taking a set of manifolds from some junkyard motor, swapping the sides (left on right, and vice versa)and mounting them upside down. You would have to cut them and weld on a mounting pad for the wastegate to bolt to. It would be a pain, but could be done. I have been thinking about it, but I still have too many other projects. The supercharger would be much easier, but more expensive. The turbos could be junkyard salvaged turbo 1 chrysler units. They go for about 50 to 75 each around here, and would be big enough for a huge amount of boost if running two of them. No matter which way you go, lots of internal engine mods will be needed to avoid shattering a piston, windowing the block, or some other calamity.

Like they said above, nothing's impossible, but it might be real impractical! If you have the skills, then go for it! If not, work on your welding and fabrication skills, then do it. Often, being told you can't do something can be a really good motivator!!

 

nicely put

 

(waves hand) I'm the guy that's always said it'll never be done to a 2.8 f-body. I'd love to see one, but I've been waiting, hm, oh, 5 years so far? Yep, still waiting for someone to stop talking about it and DO it already!

 

its sooo true, and I'd love to see one done. Like i've said b4 in here, ive seen turboed 2.8L cars, and apparently the results are really good, yet i've still never seen it done to an f-body. Like that 510 you could place the trubo on the side of the motor, can'tdo it in an f-body. It takes initiative to get something like that done, and i'm hoping that eventually i'll see someone make a 2.8L 3.1L car go really fast, not just mediocre fast, lol. Good luck, oh, and i just found a chrysler turbo in a yard here in st.louis pitty i wasn't looking at doing that swap now. lol.

 

Does anybody have a list (or know of a website that would have one) of cars that would have turbos that one might find in a junkyard? I'd never really thought about doing a turbo or s/c setup, just because it's so expensive for new ones. But 50-75 aint' bad at all. I know CHC has talked about taking a turbo w/ a bad exhaust side and converting it to a s/c, but has it ever been done before?
85f-bird, I've seen that website you're talking about. It's like a 1974 porsche 510 (that's why there's lots of porsche and bosch stuff in the engine.)

 

it's never been done on an f-body, hopefully it will be done in the future. as far as cars that use turbos, there are some turbo t-birds that use a garrett T3 same as the grand nats etc, t-types from buick will have them, grand nationals (u'll never find one in a bone yard) , some turboed chrysler products, (they'll say turbo on the side of them), and a bunch of rice burners if ur lucky enough to find one of those too. Good luck.

 

to TOMP....yea...ya always said it couldnt be done...but it can be done my friend haha. when i go down to FL for school...im gonna save the money and have one put on...and ill show you haha. so look for it next year my friend....you motivated me
by the way...you da man

 

I have seen a site that tells the compressor and turbine displacements that came on production cars and trucks. I can't remember where it was, but maybe you can do a search and find it. The FWD turbo 1 Chryslers would be the best donor car for the turbo and wastegate, IMHO. The engine was a 2.2 liter, ran at about 12 to 15 pounds of boost, and they were standard in all 1984-1987 Chrysler New Yorkers, 1985-1987 Shelby Chargers, some 1985-1988 mini vans, and some 1985-1988 Daytonas. The aluminum valve covers on all of them said TURBO really big on it. You can find those things in the junkyards pretty regularly. The Shelby Dodge guys won't even fool with anything from a Turbo 1 motor, so the hot rodders aren't interested in them either, and that is what makes them so cheap.

I think that CHC's idea about making a cheap blower out of a turbo would work, but you would probably have to fabricate an intermediate shaft to drive it that would gear it up. I am not sure that you could get enough RPM's out of it and still have enough surface area for the belt not to slip if you were running it straight off of the crank. I believe that most turbos spin at about 75-100KRPM, so you would have to really get some RPM's to build more than a couple of pounds of boost.

Heck, I could be wrong though, so if it isn't going to get you hurt or killed, try it and see. The problem with the turbo conversion is not the cost, but the amount of stuff that has to be fabricated. Also, remember that mild steel headers will not last very long feeding a turbocharger. They will burn through in short order, so you have to either use iron manifolds, really thick steel, or stainless. All of the above is probably why I haven't tried one myself.

 

I honestly hope I do! I'd even be happy if certain people I don't talk to anymore on here would get it done.

 

If you planned on running like 15+ pounds of boost, you'd need to lower the compression, right? So what's the easist way to do that? Do you just change the heads, or do you have to get new pistons and end up doing like a full on rebuild? Since we're talking about going all out on the 2.8 here anyways, could you add a shot of nitrous on top of a s/c or turbo?

 

easiest way to lower compression is get dished pistons, anothe way (that works on smaller engines, not sure about ours) would be to increase the size of the gasket between the head and the cylinder, would effectively lower compression. The safest way to run this turbo on an engine of our size with a stock setup would be to simply run 10lbs of boost and possibly think an intercooler. You could probably run about 13 lbs with an intercooler, but you'd most likely get only an effective 11lbs once the intercooler had lost what it will in effeciency.

 

How much of a power gain are we talking about with ~13 pounds of boost? In another post someone brought about about a supercharger made for our cars but it only added like 60hp. Would we be looking at the same thing here?

 

I would think that you would probably get about 65% more power or maybe even more with 15 Lbs of intercooled boost. What you have done, in effect, is double the pressure pushing the incoming charge into the cylinder (atmospheric pressure is 14.7 PSI). My guess would be that you would be able to do about 7 or 8 pounds on the stock 8.9:1 compression without any trouble. The ideal comp ratio for a supercharger is 8:1, according to guys who are involved in doing that stuff. Once you go over a certain power level, the amount of changes you would have to do to keep the rotating assembly from flying apart would be quite extensive. The mains would need to be studded, you would probably have to get the crank worked on, would need high strength rods, forged pistons, and you would probably have to stud the heads and o-ring the block to be able to keep a head gasket.

Once again, nobody is saying that you can't make 300 HP out of the thing, but it is going to take some serious mods. The engine was originally designed to sustain about 150 HP, so many of the components won't stand up to more than doubling the engine's initial output. If you have the means, then by all means, do it. It would be really cool. Hey, if the import guys can get 150 HP/liter, then why can't we? Main reason: most people won't fool with the 6 in our cars and simply 'put in a V-8' so nobody has done any research or product development.

 

One could also increase the size of the combustion chamber on the head. But that would require machining

 

hell yea tom, and the firs thing im gonna do when im done is drive to your house and put a turbocharger on your car cuz you have helped us all out so much.

 

In what post did Camaro_hunter_c talk about converting a turbo to a supercharger? Link please?
After seeing that he was talking about such an idea, I am interested, especially if I can find a cheap turbo in a junkyard (say, chrysler turbo 1?) to fiddle with.
I wonder what it would take to do it. Obviously it has be on the serpentine belt - I suppose I could remove the A/C compressor, A/C is not working on my Camaros anyway.
I would really like to look into doing this, I think it could be fun. I'd love to get even just a few pounds of boost, although from what has been posted in this thread so far, it sounds like 5-6 would be good. Guess I will have to brush up on some stuff if this is every going to happen.
Any ideas for existing equipment that would be useful to drive the turbo?

 

Hey LinuxGuy, I think that you would also need a blowoff valve or something like that to release the pressure when you are at full boost and let off the throttle. I have seen a supercharger that had one that was routed to dump the excess pressure back into the inlet side of the compressor, and thus it made little to no noise. Actually, you might not have to get one, but it would probably mean you aren't pulling nearly as much load from the compressor when you are driving normal (a complete oxymoron for a 3rd genner).

The larger the compressor, the less RPM it has to turn to make boost. I believe that to make any boost at all with the Chrysler Turbo 1 Garrett unit, it probably should turn at about 30K rpm, which means you would need a 6:1 gear up from your crank pully. That pully on the shaft would be pretty small, so it might tend to slip on you. You will probably also need to put an oil line and a return to and from the thing so that it gets oil. Another thing, these things weren't designed to have any side load on them. You might have to machine an adapter or the housing to hold a support bearing to take the radial load. I'm just doing a little speculating here, so don't get discouraged.

I would think that even 4 or 5 pounds of boost would add 40 or so HP to the engine. You would definitely feel that. Hey, go for it, and let me know if you have any luck.

 

In the case of an A/C compressor, it has a clutch that is engaged or disengaged when the A/C is on or off, right?
Could a similar setup be made so that you could engage and disengage the turbo with a switch? (Maybe even use the clutch from an A/C compressor?) Would that aleviate the problem of letting off the throttle at a high speed? Maybe some sort of braking so when the turbo's clutch is disengaged, some braking is applied so it is brought to a stop fairly quickly?
Besides, you could engage the turbo only when you want it. Say you are just driving to work in the morning, you don't really need that extra power. But if you are in the mood for some fun, etc. - just turn it on. (Betting it would be a good idea to engage it only at low RPMs) In a case where the turbo is disengaged, I suppose it might impead normal air flow that the engine would have otherwise - may need some sort of dual intake setup where when the turbo is disengaged, the intake is switched to another source or the turbo is bypassed?

 

It sounds to me like what you're looking for is an electronic wastegate. Then you just have a controller inside the car, and you set how much boost you want. That way when you're say, doing your daily commute, you could run 1-2 pounds of boost and when you want to go all out crank it up to 5 or 6. Of course then you'd need a more advanced system which means a lot more $.

 

electronic boost controllers will run anywhere from 500-1500 bucks and even more, stick with a vacumn driven one, much cheaper

 

The electric clutch from an AC compressor sounds good, and there is a big bearing behind that, but it probably would be a lot of machining and adapting to put that on. Most people do not have a lathe or the skills to run one, so it would have to be done by a shop at approx. $40 per hour! It would probably work, though. My AC will engage at almost any engine RPM, so I don't see why you couldn't simply throw it on at cruising speeds. Like I said, the whole thing would be a lot of machine work to make all the brackets, adapt the pulley/clutch, hoses, etc... Oh, i just thought of a reason why that won't work without something else being done.... look at the size of the pulley on an AC compressor. Your turbine would spin so slow that it wouldn't make any boost. Those are my thoughts on it.

 

Back to the original post.
Some Grand Prixs came with an SC.
I have only read about 89 TGP's (Turbo Grand Prixs) and 90 STE which were also Turbo'd.
The odds of finding one is very rare. Productions #'s are uncertain. I read somewheres there was 7500 over the 2 years and another place states they only built 1000.

In 91 the GTP came and it was a DOHC 3.4 L. I never seen a turbo or SC listed for that motor. But the site I got my info may be incorrect.

If you going to turbo your car I would say your best bet is to find one of these rare TGP's or STE in a bone yard and try to turn that east west to north south.

The 89-90 turbo used was the Garrett T25 turbo. If you can not find the car(which sounds hard), maybe you can find some great engine bay pictures, and break down pictures. Buy a Garrett T25 turbo off e-bay andtry to adapt it to your 92. But once again this is going to cost an arm and a leg.

Speaking of Engine bay pics, I have looked for a while and never been able to find a picture of the 89-90 Turbo engine bay. I was wondering if anyone has found any pictures?

 

May want to look into swapping a 3.8 Super coupe Eaton supercharger. I'm finishing one now on my Malibu. Just had to make up some mounting brackets and get the correct belt. Oh.. don't forget injectors and may want a intercooler too. cheers, Bob

 

Well, that is not much of a problem, you see, my grandfather has a machine shop in his living room. (A joke he always uses because one end of the building is the shop, other is living room, kitchen, etc. (soon to move into a new house though!). I should be able to get his help (and finally try to do some work with the machines myself - just never really used them).

I don't know if that will be a problem if I try to use a gear setup to get a 1:6 (or whatever) ratio. A planetary gear setup would be nice - have the A/C pulley drive the ring gear, and run the turbo off of the solar gear in the center, holding the planetaries in place. The ring gear spins once, the solar will spin 6 times.

Going to have to get a clutch from an A/C compressor, make a housing for a planetary gear setup or find an existing setup (or make a gear train setup instead of planetary). Also going to have to make a bracket for it all, shafts between the clutch, gears, and turbo. I also need to figure out how fast it is going to have to spin.

Today my friend and I went to the local junkyard and poked around under the hoods of various Chrysler vehicles. We found quite a few with turbos and looked around at some third gens. When we were looking at the Chryslers, I said "Man, it sure would be nice to find a turbo just sitting on the ground eh?" - well, after awhile my friend said, "Hey! Look at this!" There was a Mitsubishi TD04-09 Turbo sitting on the trunk of one of the Chryslers. We tried spinning the shaft by hand and (with light pressure) with a screwdriver - it seemed to be seized from sitting in the weather - but we set it aside anyway. Then we decided we were a little hungry and ran off to grab some lunch. We came back and started to work at pulling a turbo off of one of the cars. Well, it's not easy, the turbos on the Chryslers are in the back of the engine compartment under the intake manifold and throttle body (this car was missing the TB though). We ended up giving up because it was getting REALLY hot. When we go back to try to get one, it may not be easy because the bolt locations for the exhaust pipe and some of the bolts for the turbo-to-engine manifold are in bad spots. Anyhow, we went to the main office and set down the TD04-09 turbo, and the guy gave it to us for $10 since it was in the weather and could not be turned by hand. We took the thing home and sprayed it with some penetrating super lube. Now it spins quite well, and works - we put the exhaust end against the pipe on a truck and reved it up - works fine! For $10 too!

I don't know if any of this is going to work or if I am going to be able to get any help that I need. I wonder what RPMs this turbo has to run at to produce around 4-6 pounds (don't feel like running more, would rather just give the engine a little boost right now)...
I think it might not be a bad idea to have the gearing setup so the turbo is putting out 4-6 pounds at, oh, 2500RPM? 3000? - then use some sort of pressure relief valve to keep it at 4-6 pounds at higher engine RPMs (5000RPM). Man, if 30,000RPM is needed at the turbo, then the gear ratio has to be 1:12 (pulley spin once, turbo 12 times) at 2500RPM. A gear ratio of 1:8 would put the engine at 3750RPM to run the turbo at 30,000RPM - that doesn't sound bad for hard acceleration since shifting up at 4900-5000RPM puts the engine back at around 3500... I don't know, this is going to take a lot of guess work and tweaking. (Also, pontiacguy1's guess of 30,000RPM was for the Chrysler Garret 1 Turbo, I wonder what RPM the Mitsubishi Turbo needs to output decent boost....)


Edit at 9:36MDT, 8/24/2002:
Hmmm...I was just thinking a little more about the gear ratios...
Should the ratio be setup so that the turbo reaches 4-6 pounds at lower RPMs (3750 in this case) and use some sort of pressure release valve or regulator that would release any extra pressure to maintain 4-6? Or should 4-6 pounds be achieved at the peak of the powerband (4900RPM in the case of the 2.8L)? Achieving it gradualy and at 4800-5000RPM would make the gear ratio smaller and it seems to me that it would be more like normal engine operation - more air as RPM increases....

I'm sorry folks if I am asking a lot of questions (stupid or otherwise)...I would really like to do this though, it'll be fun. Thanks for any help.

 

Congratulations on the turbo! Did you happen to find out how much the chrysler 1 turbos are? Also, was this just a pick-a-part yard? I'm just wondering how much I should expect to pay, cause I think that the local pick-n-pull really overcharges for parts. Thanks, Joe

 

Thanks! $10 is a great price, that's for sure.
The guy mentioned that it is usually something like $50. Pick-a-part yard? You mean the kind where you wander around the yard yourself, taking any parts you like? In that case, it was.

 

The RPM was just my EWAG (engineering wild @$$ guess)at what would be correct. I am not sure about that. I would try to see what size the engine was that the turbo came off of. The Chrysler Turbo 1 cars are 2.2 liters. I would guess that if the car's displacement was smaller, the turbo would need to turn faster and vice versa.

Good luck to you on your project. Glad that you can do the machine work, but it will still be a pain. Let us know how it goes. I had though that using the compressor clutch on an intermediate shaft, and then using a 3/4 or 1 inch wide toothed belt, like a timing belt, to connect the intermediate shaft to the turbine shaft would be a good way to do this. The toothed belt does not need much tension either.

1 other thought. Most blowers don't have a bypass on them, they set the boost at the maximum RPM that they run. If you are making 6 psi at 5000 RPM, you will probably still make boost at less than half that, because your engine is turning so much slower and thus can take less airflow. Just my .02 worth. Good luck, and let us all know what happens!

Oh yeah, the price i quoted for the turbo 1 turbo units is the average price they go for in a junkyard around here. The easiest way to get the turbo off is to find an engine already out of the car, or take the head off of the engine. They are a real pain to get to.