I was curious if anyone had ever heard anything about a Prototype Turbo V6 Iroc? I was digging through some old magazines and found an article on it. The article is from the March 1990 issue of "Turbo". It used a Turbo and intercooled 4.3L an made 295 HP and 385 TQ. They ran a best 0-60 of 5.98s (using something called a Vericom) and a best quarter at 14.77 at 94.6 with a less than purfect launch.

Anyways, I wasn't sure if everyone knows about this and I missed it or what. If yall want I'll try to get the article scanned in the next few days.

David

 

It is completely possible that GM would consider doing something as a trial in a car not to ever see production... It would be like the Firefox T/A that had twin turbos and an independant rear suspension (I AM NOT SURE ON THE SPECS OF THE FIREFOX DONT SHOOT ME)

John

 

Sounds like a Syclone powerplant.

 

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um... that is ****ing sweet is all i have to say. i would've bought tha car in a second, i love everything about it

 

That article is very interesting.

I cant quite understand though why the trap speeds are so low for a 300hp car.

 

Thank you for posting that, it was a very interesting read!

Wow 8.0 compression, with only 10 lb's of intercooled boost? The new EVO VIII runs at 8.8:1 with 18 PSI of intercooled boost.

This would have been the ultimate IROC, just pump up the turbo more, and make sure the rest of the car could handle it...

 

Seeing articles like this makes me wonder why Chevrolet ever stopped building Camaros. All the go-right pieces were there, all they had to do was put them all together. Man what a runner that car would've been. I'd have bought 10 of em.

 

never seen another write up on that....I have a M/T issue with the same car. I would imagine little engines can run more boost then a V8---and besides this was 12-13 years ago---no factory 4cly had 18psi.

 

Sweet! I actually like the look of the car. And a v6 turbo IROC would have rocked to meet up with the TTA's. The numbers put out by that V6 turbo Iroc seem low for what could have been done with it. Oh well.

Sometimes I dream of building a 302 small block with low compression and lots of boost, then I wake up and realise I know nothing of turbo's, have little experience working on engines, and know nothing of PROM programming and say, "damn."

 

What REALLY surprised me is the low 1/4 mile numbers, What they turned from that 4.3 A typical 350TPI could do, I would think it would be better than the 3.8 Buick Engine because of the extra displacement, but I guess they probably were not serious about the project.

John

 

Thats not a pre-production SY/TY setup by any means. The intake manifold for one, is totally different.

 

I would have bought one right off the show room floor if I could drive in the 80's.
GM fumbles the football again

 

i have an ad somewhere for gm performance parts that has that engine in it, not in a car, just the bare engine

i'll scan it when i find it again.

 

I'm happy everyone is enjoying the article. I'm with yall though, I wish this would have been an option! It looks like it would have been an awesome car. I'm confused about the low quarter mile too.

David

 

You wouldn't happen to be a fan of the movie by the same name now would you? You know, the one with the Dodge/PPG 2.2 Turbo Interceptor?

 

slow times are just a reflection of the limited development time the engine had.

 

That's what I said before I saw the article. You can see the differences now.

 

While I opted to support the Firebird, which got their turbo, I still think these factory build ups can be replicated to an extent by third parties. I think I saw about this car too as well. Forgot it though.

I've seen superchargers also used and they don't have the lag that turbos do, but can be more costly and require some space mods.
300HP is modest these days though hehe

The reason for dropping the project that I saw (relatively official, I might add) was that the engine was always seen as Buick and was dropped mostly for that reason, rather then share among GM divisions
Bill

 

I've seen it and with Charlie Sheen and a pretty good car selection, it should be on R1 DVD by now. Also features Ron Howard's brother.... CLINT!!
hehe

Bill

 

After reading about the small versus big engines, I have to add, while fuel and weight are issues, nothing compares to big bore V8


My friend wants a Hemi Dodge!
hehe

Bill

 

I find it funny that Buick has a rich racing history, yet for some reason they get the shaft when talking about racing and performance. I imagine not many if any of you know that back in the 60's Buick Seriously considered a Twin Turbo set up for their big block that was producing 700HP??? They droped the project when they could not keep the engines from twising off the input shaft in the transmissions.

I seriously think that Chevrolet, or whoever made this car, did a weak job on the performance aspect of it, the HP should have been way higher than it was and to get a meager 14.8 1/4 mile? Come on... As far as I can tell a well built 4.3 with no turbos should be able to pull a 14.8 1/4 mile in one of our cars...

John

 

Special projects division... hehe
I saw mention of a twin turbo third gen Bird. Damn.... wish I had the pics from that book!!
Killer, eh?!

Bill

 

that's where the name came from. in fact i just got the movie on dvd this week. had it on vhs before. I'll probably pop it in tonight


and in regarding to my last post, i found the article, i just need to get off my lazy *** and hook up my scanner now :lala:

 

FYI http://www.gtasourcepage.com/ has articles on the firefoxes. Neither had power adders they just made good power. Around 350HP if I remember right.

David

 

There must have been something wrong with that paticular car. If the engine was rated at 300hp and almost 400ft-lbs of torque and was only trapping 95mph; considering when the LT1 first saw production in the F-bodies it was trapping almost 100mph out of the box.

 

that is slick as hell.
someone should take that pic and make one themselves.

 

This thing is sweeet!

Do you have this article in full size images? If so can you email it to me?

 

I'll try to do so on early next week. I don't have the images with me right now.

 

Does anyone have access to this, or another article about this car to scan and upload?

Would be nice to rescan this article with better equipment.

 

Great looking seats. The article states that those are on other GM cars. Which one's could they be?

 

glad they did, ive never seen this and that setup makes mine look like a turd

id buy that car today

 

Indeed, a modern version of this using the 3.6L out of the new camaro and a turbo would rock.

Heck, the newer turbo Ecotech motors would probably out run an L98 in factory condition if you swapped on into a thirdgen.

I've often through about making a v2.0 of a TTA, but $$$ and my lack of fabrication skills make this project a long way off, or simply a pipe dream all together for me.

 

I'm stunned...

that thing is amazing

 

BTW, if anyone wants this version, I did a little clean-up and PDF'd it.

 

yeah that would be cool...i love turbo cars

however i mean i would buy that exact thirdgen off the lot today if they offered it new

 

saved to my archive of junk...thanks for the pdf

 

those 3.4L v6 back in the 80's i heard were the most indestructible blocks chevy has ever made. supposively you can run the same motoroil in it over 200k miles and still run like a chime. Also there was a test too i heard.. never seen the video but they ran about 3.5k miles a day and 5k rpm and did that every day.. but this is what i heard..

but this would have been a great production model for gm to make, i bet it would of sold sooo many!

 

there was no 3.4 back then

the car in the article used a 4.3 and its just a 350 with 2 cylinders cut off.

this is kinda like a early gmc syclone/typhoon

 

my bad i think i mean the 4.6?

 

4.3.

The only other GM 4.6L I know of is a northstar motor. Then there is the 4.6L ford which is only good with boost, otherwise its a fail.

 

Chevrolet also did a Turbo in an earlier 1982 HOT ROD article...





Enjoy

I suspect it may have been the same car, just redone, Several concepts like this were done in this fashion, They would simply take an older car, update it cosmetically and then make some changes, and call it something new. There have been several instances of it honestly.

Interestingly out of the test cars, the Sunbird (the cousin to the Cavalier) actually got a turbo in the late 80''s and so did the fore mentioned 3.8L turbo got dropped in the TTA for 1989.

 

Love it, love it, love it!

Thanks for the pics, articles, and pdf pages, guys!

 

"cyclonic induction port design" ugh......... swirl ports.

they run like a fat kid with asthma

 

Well, forced induction would take some of the fat kid out of them hahahahhaha.

 

Forced induction is kind of like a laxative, it'll get the cake out of that fat kid through the exhaust no problem

 

Ummmmm......I've seen this car in person and I have pictures of it at a local camaro car show from 1991. It was at the Marriot Hotel of Wendy Hill Rd. in GA. I remember seeing and just being in awe of it. I don't have a scanner, so can only take a pic of the pic (gay I know) with my cell phone, but enjoy!!