Has anyone messed with or considered mounting a turbo under a car, like what is offered for Camaros and Firebirds? I know one of the limiting factors in a cheap, junkyard type set up on a Buick V8 is that you can't just turn an exhaust manifold upside down for the turbo like you can on a chevy.... might be a way to solve it? what do you guys think? 1970 skylark 455 1975 century 350
I think it's a good idea, but I bet it wouldn't be cheap. You have to get the RIGHT turbo for it to work. I would contact the company that makes the Camaro kits and see what they have to say. ________ LadiDi
Really I posed it more as food for thought, I'm nowhere near commited to doing it right now but I don't see why you couldn't do it. You would need to talk to some turbo gurus about turbo and pipe size, distance, etc. I saw an article on a guy who did a junkyard turbo on a pontiac 455 and used a radiator cap as a blow off valve! Its only low buck if you get the rad cap out of the junkyard too :grin:
Twins.... It would probably be best to run 2 twin small turbos like a pair of 60's and run the mufflers after the turbos next to the gas tank. Then use TA shorty headers so you have enough room to get the intake pipe back up to the carb or intercooler.
No intercooler for a setup like that, it would drive your plumbing volume through the roof into levels till your booste responce would be crap. You could do it with junkyard turbos and a blow through carb though EFI would be easier to tune. I'd like to see someone do it in a Big Body with a pair of huge turbos to give the car a scarey top end punch. Its honestly an ineffient, low pressure setup that does a wonderful job of recovering some of the waste energy on a stock motor. Just some comments from the turbo peanut gallery,
Actually STS (the company that started the rear mount turbo on F bodys) has start intercooling their setups with good success. I went to School with Rick Squire (the owner / operperator) of the company. He's a pretty good guy. They are doing quite a bit of stuff now, new mustangs, lots of trucks, SUV's you name it, they are running around here with an STS system on it. Great idea from a plumbing stand point, but the lag is pretty bad, and when the boost hits, it hit very hard like N20. I agree with what Rick said, two small 60's would be the way to go with shorty headers if you were going to do a rear mount system. They would spool up alot quicker and be a bit easier to control. --Rich
Raer turbo I think the hardest thing to do is the return oiling system. Just because the oil pump on a buick is the worst design. A chevy has more than enough oiling volume to get to the turbo. You would need to put a oil PSI gauge on the back of the buick block to make sure you don't starve the engine. Correct me if im wrong.
