anyone heard of putting a turbo on an FE block?

 

Yes. It's done like any other engine. I have a friend who is going to be turbocharging a 390, once he finishes building the engine. He's hung up right now because wiseco apparently can't read, and made his pistons incorrectly, and he's arguing with them as to whose fault it is. Ooops.

But yes, it's been done, and can be done. The turbo my friend chose was a single large turbo out of a huge Volvo turbo diesel box truck. Not because it is perfectly sized or anything... just because it was free, and in good condition

Free overcomes many faults.

His plan is to use the factory log manifolds, and make his own "Y" pipe, and mount the turbo just under the firewall on the passenger side, then continue the exhaust back from there. He wanted it closer to the engine, however that will require him to fabricate exhaust manifolds, or headers, custom for this. He wants to minimize the fabrication as much as possible, so he's only going to make a "Y" pipe with a turbo mount on the end. The "Y" pipe will be 2.5" downpipes from the manifolds, siamesed at the turbo flange, and made of 3/16" wall mild steel, just to start out.

The EFI he's using is stuff I sold him from a project that I sold years ago. It's a custom EFI wiring harness (that I made) with a GM 1227749 ECM, custom code and data tables, a 2-bar MAP sensor, and all the normal GM sensors.

He'll have a little tuning to do since the setup I sold him came off a 451 dodge stroker engine, twin turbo. So he'll have to scale things down a bit, as his engine is smaller in displacement.

How is that for too much information? LMAO

He's putting it into his home-built late 70's 4-door "excursion". Essentially it's an late 70's bronco "tail" welded to a late 70's crewcab, on a custom frame he finished last winter.

 

Factory log manifolds??? ACK! I'm sorry, but IMO those are the worst flowing, worst designed manifolds ever conceived by anybody. I just cannot see using them with a turbo setup. Not only do they not flow good at all, they tend to crack.

There is one possibility, have them extrude honed. See here.

 

Thanks frederic, boy alot of info there. I'm just toying of the Idea. I my motor goes to &#$!, I think I will do more research and put one together just for fun - just so I can chase down those Dodge SVT's.

 

I'm putting a turbo on my 390 right now. I have pics in my gallery..today starts the one off header fab...

 

cool, thanks skinsey

 

I won't disagree that homemade headers of some kind would be better than the stock manifolds, but my friend is looking to do this quick, and cheap. He's not going for an "ideal" situation, but instead make his truck into a testing platform for other ideas. He/we can always make headers later, much like what I'm building for my twin-turbo stroker. He just wants to focus on other things first, to get the truck back on the road.

He's like me, in the sense that his daily driver, is also is "experiment". A little at a time, so every monday, the truck can move on it's own!

 

If you build it right, it will be a ton of fun. years ago I built a twin-turbo 451 stroker for my Dodge D200 extended cab (essentially, a '75 dodge version of an F250 sorta kinda), and once I put together a tranny and a driveshaft that would survive, there was nothing in my local area that on a straight away, I couldn't beat by a mile. Imports, Mustangs, Vettes, no problem. Left them in the dust every time. Only going straight however. Any kind of turn, cornering, or such non-straight roadway I'd lose by a mile, unless there was a huge straightaway before, or after, the turn(s). The old girl couldn't corner worth a darn, and any attempts to do so resulted in a slide, or a spin until I slowed way down. Even with dot-legal drag radials on the back (which are great for straights, just not so good for a 5500lb pickup trying to take corners).

Depends where you like to play.

 

as far as headers on a "forced induction" setup, I dont believe that they need to be "tuned" I think that the difference on a very high horse setup yes. But for the power gains we (I) am getting the log or open chamber manifold concept will work as the engine is not trying to push the exhaust gas out it is getting blown out. So I am making my own 3" chamber manifold's and should have them done this weekend....yes I will post pics of them when completed...

Scott
65 "Orange Crush"

 

Scott's on the money. What matters more than "tuning" of the headers, is that they can flow enough, and are as short as possible. The shorter the exhaust before the turbo, the more heat and velocity makes it to the turbo, which is what makes the turbo spin in the first place.

This "doesn't matter" also applies to the intake manifold, under forced induction.

Years ago friends and I did experiments on Buick V6's. And we found that longer intake runners, or *shocked face* NO runners, gave the same results within 1/2 HP.

No runners as in when you make the intake, the plenum essentially is metal you weld across the intake ports on the heads, and the lifter valley, and box it in on top, and feed the turbo through a throttle body into that.

Yep, no runners.

Which was an interesting discovery, because a large box with holes in it is easier to fabricate than something with runners.

 

Not to mention... Less lag too, as the air has to flow a shorter distance.

 

Yep, that too.

 

I posted more pics in my "turbo proj" gallery. The new pics show the starting fab work for the exhaust manifolds. The passenger side (which will easily adapt to a second turbo next year) will turn down 90 degrees and turn another 90 and follow the crossmember under the crank pulley over to the driver side then 90 again up into the bottom of the elbow going into the turbo. I'm gonna fire it up when i get the manifolds built to see what it sounds like through one 3" pipe. so the entire exhaust system is 3" from the heads through the 40 series flowmasters, undoubtedly it will sound pretty good. And with 5lbs of boost and the NOS this should be an eye opener. (((This is all 3" mandrel bent tubing))) I'm thinking I may duplicate all of this so I can have a template in case anyone else wants to try this.

 

yea, Skinsey, I checked out your gallery - Pretty cool stuff. BTW, is that an old streetmaster intake. I've got one of those on a shelf in my garage. Oh, also, since I don't know much about turbos, are you saying you are using just the driver side to turn the turbo, and the other side going out the tail pipe?

 

I'm using both sides...added new pics (turbo Project) gallery today all fab work done except for about 2' of pipe that runs under the engine.