I'm in the process of rebuilding my 87' Buick Regal with a Turbo Buick 350, I'm looking for either a turbo header flange or a manifold that will fit. Any info on where I can find these parts at?
Hi there, TA performance sells the exhaust flanges so you can have a set of manifolds or headers made. Unfortunately the guy who used to make turbo kits for Buick 350s is not making the kits anymore. He built my kit but you could have someone make a setup like mine without too much trouble I would think. Being single turbo would just be a little trickier but not a big deal, you would just need a crossover and find enough room for a large turbo instead of two baby ones. http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?255611-Twin-Turbo-Skylark-350-Progress The good news is that the Buick 350 responds really well to boost: This is a low comp bone stock smogger 74 350 that made 170 HP at the crank and the rear wheel HP converted to crank HP gives 350 HP. So at low boost andno inter-cooler the HP doubled! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui8jMXTJeOU And here is a Buick 350 that was built by a 16 year old as his first engine build.It made 421 HP at just 8:1 compression and 630 HP under low boost: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zktYYQhCtqU
Sean, how weak is the bottom end of the Buick 350 when turbo charging with light boost. In other words, turbocharging a stock engine would require the bottom end to be rebuilt/ strengthened up? Thanks.
Anthony, the bottom end seems to be solid to about 500 HP bone stock... over that it may or may not be reliable unless it is gone through and sone stronger rod bolts added... So if a person took a run of the mill, worn out 350 that had 9:1 compression we would expect about 250 HP from that. With 10-14 PSI that engine would make some good power and should be reliable... Leave the bottom end all stock or do a re-ring and new bearings and then slap on a set of well ported heads then you can easily make 350 HP before boost and with 10 PSI it would be a monster. All of the above assumes a good tune up... Even my $900 diamond pistons would fail if I had a bad tune up or too much timing...
So a set of TA Recon rods, forged pistons and race bearings, along with a .030 overbore and good cnc on the heads will sustain 500rwhp?
Best bet for turbo setup now is to biy header flange and weld els or go eith an sts turbo setup...turbo in exhaust
Look in the for sale section there is a set of TRW forged pistons for sale. Yes i would say that re-con rods and forged pistons would be fine for 500 HP. I have never heard of anyone doing CNC porting for Buick 350 heads, just a normal clean up smooth out of the passages would be fine as the boost would make you the power.
As long as they are at least the 73 and newer rods with ARP bolts. A better alternative would be an after market rods,if you think you'll evenually want to crank up the boost. If 500 rwhp is your max goal,that should be easy to get with minimal port work with a turbo. For an all out build,there are a few different ways to go,but if I were going to do an all out,I would start with a set of 7.00" Flat Head Ford rods,or the after market LS7 rods,and shop around for custom pistons that are made out of forged 2618 alloy. This rod even takes a Buick bearing,with only minor narrowing at the big end,or the crank rod journals can be ground .020" per side wider.May also need clearancing for the cam.); http://www.ebay.com/itm/23080543849...X:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649#ht_1438wt_1063 These rods have the ARP-2000 rod bolts,and have a .750" pin diameter,and you would need a shorter compression distance,so pistons should be ordered accordingly(on either set of rods). Or if you want a little more stroke(+.100= 3.950" stroke) these could be made to work also; http://www.ebay.com/itm/19078166500...AX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649#ht_1834wt_764 The big end would need to be narrowed,but these have the standard sbc pin size of .927"(may be able to hone for a Buick size pin,if the bushing is thick enough?),and cam clearance would still need to be checked. These come with ARP-2000 rod bolts,and are rated to handle 1,100 HP!(I have read that the block and crank should handle 850 turbo hp,not sure if those were rwhp numbers or crank numbers?) Even with a mild build with a turbo,it should make most BBB 455s look like a punk.:Brow: Derek
Ok what would be the best turbo for an application like this? Also could I take a SBC single turbo kit and cut the flange and eweld the Buick 350 flang to Make it fit?
for single setup go for a y2004k gt45 turbo S475 turbo is another great choice can always see if Masterpower or precision has a similar turbo too ---------- Post added at 07:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:26 PM ---------- also check out wastegates and particularly their BOV http://www.synapseengineering.com/ I consider these better then the Turbo Smart and Tial brand which are the top brands
I think the kit on e bay is a waste of money... Most people who buy the kits end up regretting the purchase and starting over. I would spend some time reading and looking at builds on the turbo forum and then buy a welder and build yourself a kit. http://www.theturboforums.com/forums/234-The-Turbo-Builds-Board http://www.theturboforums.com/forums/236-Newbie-Tech-Forum
Wow a gt45 don't those type yield 600-700hp? I'm along the lines of 500rwhp. As for the Bov, the synapse model I'm familiar with it, I drive turbo powered Subaru's
Just because a turbo can support a certain HP with high boost does not mean it may not be a good turbo for lower HP goal at lower boost. Have a pro select the turbo for you, either contact a turbo supplier or go on the turbo forums and give them all the info about what you are looking to do... Otherwise most of us can just give you a general idea of what would be a ballpark for you. Lots of variations of the same turbos.... Lots of variable involved.
This is true, Think of different turbos like one would with camshafts one can make same max hp/tq as other but the powerband will be slightly different..even power shifted to topend or midrange and so fourth. But anything smaller then a gt45 wont support a 350 cube engine in single format only thing really smaller is gt35 and the to4e variants.. best thing to look at with turbos on matching what you want it to do is turbo maps..but lts of cheap turbos dont have them so got to get somewhat of an inclination of what it'll do with the trims of the wheel sizes and a/r size You can also get a same houseing turbo (shell is same, different wheel sizes for exducer/inducers) Perfect example is the to4e or to4b..or 60-1 or 62-1 turbos...same exterior, different internals to make them have different power output and/or spool properties
if the car is non ac just run the stock manifolds as they would normally then take a 2 1/4 in cross over around to pass side y into the pass side manifold yes this will require a tight turn back up from the manifold but will not affect anything at such a mild level then run 3in merge or dual separate 2 1/4 in to a T6 flange s400 s480 etc or if the budget allows a t88 with a .96 ar would hit like a ton of bricks, I done my turbo trans am this way , you run all your stock alt ps brackets etc just an easier way to do it, im seriously considering building a couple kits and selling them time is just so hard to come by
I just did this in my skylark 350 I am doing a basic setup kind of ruff initially. If everything works im doing it again in ss and pie cut it to be more flow
