Great Question!.....has anyone completely dialed in these turbo motors yet? How are they compared to a GM designed modded Grand National ?
Jay was the only one who was able to gain a consistent and reliable turbo Buick 350. We have had dozens of dyno tests and there have been both good and bad results. 1. Chassis dynos are a great tool however the absolute number they present is not very accurate. There are too many factors and reasons for HP loss that it’s a poor measure of performance. 2. The best measure for actual HP is the MPH in the quarter mile. The on line calculators will determine the actual HP. 3. Based on the track testing Jay completed it was an easy 600 HP crank engine with very little internal modifications. The chassis dyno testing I completed backs this up. 450-580 rear wheel HP was documented however we had head gasket failures on number 3 cylinder a number of times. there is also a fellow in Puerto Rico who runs a turbo Buick 350 and it’s been running reliably with a carb since the 90s with no fancy parts. Cap screw rods, TRW forged pistons, iron heads. He runs low 11s, good street manners and it is dyno tested I don’t remember the numbers. the most recent advancement has been the E-85 fuel, I will be running 11:1 and the turbos on top.
this fellow has thousands of hours under boost and no issues. capscrew rods, TRW forged pistons, no fancy parts or girdle.
This car makes 515 HP to the tires on 8 PSI and 630 at 10 PSI. No engine issues since it was built in the 90s. It’s street/strip used often.
This is another mild setup from a fellow in Sweden. He used a Fitech TB that is self adjusting and went super conservative on the turbo sizing to gain max drive ability and mid range TQ. He had no major engine $ invested. with a close to stock engine a single turbo. You can see by the power curve that the engine would work great on the street. The intent of this engine was not max hp it was low and mid rpm torque and manners.
I never did any chassis mods but 7.60 at 93 in the 1/8 with a 2.01 60 is pretty quick for a bone stock car with full exhaust (mufflers), full interior, nice audio system, subwoofer, etc.. I kept the cooler and chairs in the trunk for traction. The car was freakisly quiet. (think electric). You could putz around like grandma and drive anywhere. With sticky 315 50 DRs it was a beast on the street. The car went to AZ for a while, but I'm told it is in the Netherlands now. I believe that immense bottom end torque is probably more fun that high RPM horsepower on the street
So here’s a run down of my set up. Stroked to 369, I call it 370. Block was zero decked, squared to the mains. Custom pistons, Nascar take out rods, compression came out to about 8.7-1. Ported heads, 1.65 roller rockers, sp1 intake, c&s blow thru carb & Mark Burton twin turbo kit. Old stock motor with 178,000 miles ran 8.064 in the 1/8th, with 1.979 60 ft at 89.65 mph. Couldn’t really get it to hook. I took the car out for final tune before track & broke a drive shaft. Fixed that, but car seemed off. Chased gremlins all fall, finally notice both wastegates pipes were cracked, looked like tooo much heat penetration...... so never made it back to the track. Also, did not like the dual inlet carb hat that came with the Burton set up, so I had to repair the manifolds & now I’m redoing turbo piping to single inlet carb hat.
I will definitely get it to the track this year. Plan is to take it up to 14lbs of boost. Hoping for real nice time slip. Will update accordingly.
I broke the pinion yoke. Which in turn broke the driveshaft, transmission, etc. and made a hole in the floor. When I looked in the mirror there were two guys coming up behind carrying parts.
