Finished Turbo Project!!!! Vids & Pics look look!

dfroirvde

Registered User
before any of you see this, know that the project total was around 300 bucks. we are a bunch of dudes with no money so the rule was "hey we need this" "can we make it?" and if we could...we did. the turbo was free, and everything else was fabricated by my friends and i. so basically you are looking at a cheap and dirty turbo project that is in no way show room quality or done professionally. so go easy on us. we mainly used a recipricating saw, a bench grinder, a welder, and some basic tools.

we rebuilt a motor from a 94 sc and dropped that into my 89. we picked up the upper and lower NA intakes from the junkyard. made some steel motor mounts. the original plan was to flip the manifolds around and run them out the front of the motor. but they wouldnt clear the mounts. so we had to run them under the subframe and into a single pipe and then up to the front of the motor and into the turbo. the downpipe just runs down the passenger side of the motor and exits behinds the pass front tire. we used the stock intercooler with the help of some creative flange work (i now have to name a child after the guy who came up with the idea).
i know the turbo is undersized but it was free. the plan is to pick up a holset hx40 when i get some money. i looked at the compressor maps for it and it should work fine.

*vid* http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=1815990044 *vid*






 
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I am always amazed at the ingenuity of youth. Congrats to you all. Always nice to do what cant be done.
 
I don't think anyone ever said it couldn't be done. The questions are, how well does it work and how practical or reliable is the result. :) There are others working on similar projects. I just wish more of them would get finished.

Good job guys!
 
thanks for the feedback guys! the project took so long because i go to school in central illinois and i live on the southside of chicago. i make the hour and 45 minute drive every weekend so i was only able to work on the car fridays, saturdays, and sundays.

i dont know how...but the car is really reliable, i turn the key and it starts up every time. it died on me once and left me stranded for about 10 minutes, but that was because my friend forgot to tighted down the cam sensor mount lol. i have been driving it all over town and it runs like a champ. its only making 8psi max right now, because the turbo is the wrong size. the one on there now peaks out at 3grand. the main purpose was to see if it would run on the stock ecu with no tuning. we just put everything on and turned the key. she started right up (to our relief). i dont want to really start beating on the motor until i weld in a 2nd o2 bung. my buddy has the lm1 sensor and i dont wanna blow everything up until i know where we stand as for the air to fuel ratio. we just used the stock ecu because i am a broke college kid and i have no money lol. once i pick up a tuner i can get the bigger turbo and then the car will really move :D

only problem i had with the build is that the only gauge that works now is my temp, nothing else works lol. it says i have low fuel (i put in 8 gallons last night) and everything else jsut sits there. but if that is the only problem i have...i am willing to except it.

also, the car has been that low for a while...and it rides awesome. ill take some more pictures today, it was too dark last night for any good still shots.
 
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very cool, glad to see you got everything to work. It's really cool having such a unique car, Things like that are truly one of a kind, and you and your friends should take pride in it.
 
Congrats..Should be a hoot even with only 8psi. You dont have a SC robbing HP from ya..Peak boost at 3,000 seems nice as well....

I'm curiosu though...is 8psi max with wastegate fully opened?

I cant listen to video now as I am at work...But when I get home I sure will
 
We don't have a boost controller so the wastegate is just hooked straight to the vacume line. The waste gate opens at 8 psi stock. Unfourtanately the turbo peaks around 2 grand and maxes out around only 3000 rpm at 8 psi. After that it's just all realy hot air. I plotted the points on the compressor map.
t3compressor9xt.jpg


I looked into a holset hx35 from a cummins engine and it should work alot better at 15psi, but it doesn't leave me too much room to expand so i might look at a hx40 which is a step larger.

compresormap8gj.jpg


Even though it still needs some more work we are very proud of it. More pix later!
 
:confused:

What was your goal for this project...? I'm asking because I don't understand what it is you have proven or accomplished to this point.

David
 
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David I think its very obvious..he stated he wanted to do it to prove a point and to see if the stock EEC would handle it..And apparently it did...So now when he can afford to he will upgrade the turbo

Or did I miss something?
 
Ahh and that thing sounds cool as heck haha..I;d like to see just how far you can take this setup

How did it feel compared to teh SC? OR have you not really gotten onit at all?
 
damon you hit it on the nose, we just wanted to see if we could do it. we had the idea but no money. so we made it happen with what we had laying around and 300 bucks. more upgrades to come later. i didnt want to spend money on a big expensive turbo if it wasnt going to work.

i havnt given it a lot of gas yet because i dont want to break anything. i need to put that o2 bung in and get the lm1 on it. i have been driving it too much and not working on it lol.

my buddy ran the alcohol injection on his svo and it worked really well. and i have an extra fuel pump laying around so the plan is to run that as soon as i get around to it.

midgetchaser: im in mt. greenwood
 
:confused:

What was your goal for this project...? I'm asking because I don't understand what it is you have proven or accomplished to this point.

David


why does he have to prove something? im 20 years old and i think its great that he did this. especially since i read countless threads on people mocking up turbos for an sc, and so many say thats its not possible, while others say it is but way too expensive, and god knows what else. these kids did it, and with 300 bucks just proved that you can turbo an sc and its not as difficult as so many have said it was.

and as far as turboing, i know david is the man, ive seen your turbo sc in action, so i figured out of everyone here youd have respected these guys the most, especially with all the time and effort you had into yours.

way to go man. :D
 
well i didnt do it alone. i had 3 friends helping me. weve all been working on cars since we started driving. (i know thats not really long compared to a lot of people on the forum) but the guys that gave me a hand all have their own niches. my buddy andy knows turbos, louis knows engines and rebuilding them, my buddy rice knows a little bit of everything. and i love making stuff. so you have 4 guys from 20-21 that did it. and im not trying to boast or anything like that. im just clearing up how many people worked on the project, how old we were, and where our knowledge lies.
 
David I think its very obvious..he stated he wanted to do it to prove a point and to see if the stock EEC would handle it..And apparently it did...So now when he can afford to he will upgrade the turbo

Or did I miss something?

Yes...I think you missed something. I asked what were the goals of this project for a reason. If the goal was to simply make the car run with a turbocharger and stock EEC...mission accomplished. If the goal was to install a turbo on the car the cheapest way possible to prove it would work, before installing a larger unit that would be capable of providing enough air flow to make more power than stock....nothing has been proven.

Using a stock EEC with no tuning isn't proving anything when you are moving less air, consuming less fuel and making less power than a bone stock SC. It's no different than pulling the supercharger belt off and driving the car around...it will run fine only slower. It won't be proven that a stock EEC or the rest of the turbo system will work until he tries making some real power with it. That is why I tried to tell him not to waste his time using such a small turbo.

I think it's great that these guys built this turbo system and I'm sure they will eventually get it developed to a point that it makes great power. But to be high fiving each other and declaring this project a sucess, is premature. These guys still have a lot of stuff to overcome once a properly sized turbo is installed. This is just the first step of the project....they haven't even reached the point at which most of the others who have attempted turbo installs give up.

For the record...I'm confident that a turbo system can work with a stock EEC and a custom SCT chip/tune. I'm also confident that any problems encountered on this turbo system can be resolved...it's just not there yet.

David
 
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