I dont think anybody makes a kit, but with that being said, If you have any fab experiance or have a buddy that does, you can do it a lot cheaper anyway.

 

All an FMU will do is boost reference the fuel delivery. There is still the issue of ignition timing to deal with. If not addressed detination will kill the engine in short order.

Vlad, the main thing I'm saying is don't do it by halves. If you really want to go forced induction and stay EFI you need a computer that see the increased boost and properly adjust the fuel delivery and ignition timing so that you don't grenade your engine.

I've looked at modifying my 88 and my research over the last three years says that a mild cam, mild porting of the head, cleaned up EFI exhaust manifolds, high flow cat and muffler with 2 1/2" single pipe, CR no greater that about 9.5:1, hotter coil and matching TFI module to control it are you best bang for the buck.

Do your own research and make your own decision.

 

It would be possible to run a turbo with just an FMU, but how smart is that at 12 psi? It's not. If you think a turbo will have better street manners than the build I outlined above you are sorely mistaken. Not to mention that to run enough boost to get 450 ft-lbs the entire engine will need to be rebuilt anyway and he'll have to install an intercooler to make it worth while. The turbo set up will also carry at least 50 more pounds on the front end, maybe close to 100 depending on the setup. The only pro for the turbo in this case is that it makes more torque. The cons of the turbo are reduced mileage, increased complexity, increased weight, reduced reliability and increased cost.

 

FMU takes care of the fuel problem, the timing is taken care of by getting out your ratchet set and backing off the base timing at the distributor, its all about cylinder pressure, detonation is pretty easy to get around, its guys trying to squeak every ounce of power out of their engine that have detonation problems. Besides its not like your going to be into the boost for extreme periods of time, you have the control with your right foot. The computer will not know the difference between being into boost and being at WOT, anything above that the FMU takes care of fuel wise and youve already backed your timing off. I would also argue that you can put a turbo setup together for WAY less than you can put an engine together with the parts you suggested, so as far a bang for the buck goes, I would have to disagree...

Believe it or not, 12 psi isnt that much and there is a guy on this very forum thats running a supercharger at 12 or 14psi on a 351w with cast pistons. Besides, you can back the boost off all you want, you have the control, thats the beauty of the whole thing. And as far as street manners go, Your no different than stock until you get into the boost and chances are when your into the boost, your not too worried about street manners. As far as the 450ft-lbs goes, you would reach that at a moderately low boost level on a stock engine (~10psi). At the same boost level (~10psi) your looking at close to 270hp. I dont know where you are getting this 50 to 100lbs garbage, a turbo should weigh no more than 20 pounds and an intercooler shouldnt be anymore than 10lbs, with that and a couple of pounds of exhaust tubing for charge pipes, and your signifigantly lighter than 50 pounds, not to mention that its a truck and you probably wouldnt even notice an extra 100 pound on the nose. As far as mileage goes, it doesnt change unless you got your foot into it, unlike a modded setup which will see decreases no matter what. And cost??? You could have have a decent DIY turbo setup for around $500, you cant even touch that with a modded setup that makes any signifigant gain.

 

now in exchange to all this modding junk who thinks i should do what i had originally planned and hunt down a nice '87 carbed 460 to plug in?? then i wouldnt have to deal with the computer, ill have a nice stock 230hp and 390ft/lb to play with, only problem being finding either a matching manual trans or a 460 bellhousing to match my 4sp, or snagging an '87 carbed 351w to match up to the 5sp on my parts truck to toss in with it but then id only be running 210hp and 315ft/lb, plus that lovely V8 rumble we all love to hear with both applications

 

or would an efi 460 work better?

 

Or, should you stick with the 300?

I think so.

 

Believe it or not we aren't talking about a 351, we're talking about a 300 that has much smaller bearings, a much poorer rod ratio, intake ports that are 1/4" from the exhaust ports, and a maximum usable rpm well under 4000. We also aren't talking about a supercharger that doesn't add any heat to the air other what is generated by compression of the air. With a turbo the air is also heated because the turbo itself is heated by the exhaust. There is a user on this forum with a user name amazingly similar to mine that runs a blower and intercooler on a 5.4 with no problems at all. The scenarios have nothing in common other than pressure in the intake.

Why bother if you have to back off the throttle all the time to keep it from self destructing? Not only that but you seem to want him to drive around with a midget under the hood making constant base timing adjustments so he can have decent mileage and power under all driving conditions.

You aren't going to get 270 hp safely out of a 300 without extending its rpm range. I guess you could just put the boost to it until it put down the number and then count the pieces you end up with. Oh wait...you said to back off the throttle before that happened. Sure, that's easy to do in the heat of battle. There is/was a user on this forum that turbo'd his 300 and split the block in half at around that power level on race gas. In a true street application how long would it last?

Well let's see. The turbo I got for my truck weighed just under 30 pounds with brackets, waste gate, etc. The PSD intercooler and all the piping is about the same. Last time I checked 30+30=60. You'd be surprised what you could feel on a vehicle. If I could knock 100 lbs off the nose of any vehicle I've ever owned I would do it in a heartbeat. All you have to do is move the battery to the rear of a vehicle and see the difference one time and you'll be a believer.

There's a statement made in complete and total ignorance. The turbo probably won't hurt mileage that much one way or the other although it does add some backpressure to the exhaust. The mods needed to safely get the power you are talking about from a 300 would probably include reducing the compression ratio which is a sure way to hurt mileage. Adding a point to the NA engine will help the mileage, as will all the other mods as long as they are chosen to work in a realistic rpm range.

Yep, you could throw a turbo on it for $500. Then in not too long you'll be building a new motor anyway. This has all been tried before. It isn't anything new. The 300 turns some numbers when boosted, but it doesn't turn them for very long. It's a great engine, but it won't take that kind of abuse.

 

Popped a K&N air filter on the beast. Fashioned a short ram intake for it. The adapter I made for it is interesting in itself. Have a 2.5in magnaflow that pops out before the wheel.

I can attest that this works out pretty good.

 

First of all, yes we are talking about the 300 six, and even though it doesnt have BIG bearings, it does have 7, not five like the 351. Plus, if you knew anything about rod ratios (aside from bringing up baseless arguements), you would know that rod ratios on the lower end of the scale are actually better for forced induction than higher rod ratios. As far as the ports being a 1/4" from each other, wow you got me there, but Im willing to bet it wouldnt make a whole lot of difference with the giant aluminum 4.9 heatsink manifold under the hood. And as far as getting the air cool, a decent intercooler will get temps down to ambient with no problem regardless if its a supercharger or a turbo. And the Mod motors have a few things in common with the 4.9 (and even of lesser quality). The Mod motors also have poor rod ratios and are also hindered by the fact that the rods just plain suck.


Im not saying make constant timing adjustments, back a few degrees out of the base timing, and thats all you need, like I said, its all about cylinder pressure after combustion.



Nope, the horsepower and torque curves will emulate the stock curves on a stock application, the only thing you are doing is effectively raising atmospheric pressure. If you can have 10psi at 2000RPM, your going to have 270hp at 2000 RPM, end of story. And your crazy for saying that 10-12 PSI would leave parts under the truck, the only thing that can happen at 10psi to damage anything is detonation, and with the timing backed off and a decent intercooler, there is hardly any worry to that, If you split the block, its because you have a bad block.


I can tell you first hand that a T04 turbo does not weigh 30lbs and since when does an all aluminum intercooler weigh 30lbs??? Thats all BS. Besides, even 60 pounds on the front of an f-series truck will have absolutely no effect on the ease of driving at least for the average person who isnt as **** about nose weights as you obviously are.



No ignorance here aside from your obvious lack of knowledge in forced induction. The backpressure created by the turbo being just downstream of the manifold is minimal, especially when you have a free flowing exhaust behind the turbo. The energy required to push the gases through the turbo is exponentially less than the energy the piston has on the exhaust stroke, not to mention the extreme low pressure on the exit side of the turbine housing. With an 8.5:1 CR on the 4.9, you wouldnt have to lower it at all, that is a very ideal CR for forced induction. Yes, you are right about adding a point to the NA engine (or any engine for that matter), but the amount of power you are going to get with those mods, designed to work in that power range, is going to be extremelly minimal, and not even close to the bang for the buck the turbo gets you.



Any engine can be boosted and survive, its all in how its tuned and treated. The 4.9 in most cases doesnt survive cause the owner gets to geedy with the power he wants, yes there is a limit to what the engine can take, but the parameters I have set forth are no where out of the reach of stock components.

 

And retarding base distributor timing isn't going to help low rpm operation on the street. If this was going to a strip only application maybe. In the end the computer will be out of limits even faster. It still doesn't have the programming to adjust for positive pressure, only vacuum. All your doing is making a bad situation worse.


Sorry your wrong. Even at 100% VE and 100% compressor efficiency you'll still be south of 200hp at 2000rpm with 10psi of boost.

Except that every instance, that I've read, of someone adding a turbo to a stock high mile 300 has at a minimum busted pistons. Most have gone on to putting the rods through the block before they could shutdown. Adding forced induction to any engine that hasn't been prepped for the added cylinder pressures is asking for catastraphic failure.


it's called drive pressure that is entirely dependent on the turbine wheel and housing. If too small, drive pressure is driven up which inturn drives EGT's up, which drive intake temps up do to thermal transfer in the turbo, etc etc etc again this is dependent on the turbine selected What? As long as the pipe has enough volume to accomodate the air mass being pushed into it there is no effect. If it's too small your back too driving drive pressures up because the air has nowhere to go. minor quibble, EFI is 8.8:1 The bang for the buck in SS and my suggested mods is longevity of the build. If all that is done is an improperly added turbo is a lot more work and expense when that engine fails. Not if, when.


For a stock 300cid/4.9l your suggestion will end in an engine failure. We're talking about an approximately 20 year old engine. Unless it's never been driven it's going to be high miles. This engine is natorious for having partially failed pistons when torn down for a basic overhaul. (skirts, compression ring lands are most common) Adding boost to the equation, without building for it, will guarantee total failure of at least one piston.

If the engine is rebuilt to handle the added cylinder pressures, 15psi might be sustainable. 8-10 would be more realistic. But there is still the issue of engine management. Going with just and FMU and additional timing retard is not a substitute for a system designed to handle the job. Even a swap to V8/MAF/SFI system that can be reprogrammed to run an L6 is preferable to your solution.

 

Thank you for putting this statement in your post. Because of it I don't even have to talk about the rest of it. This one sentence proves that you are a complete idiot. 270 hp at 2000 rpm would result in 709 ft-lbs of torque. That is an absolute truth and you can't wiggle out of it. The 300 will die at that output.

 

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hey guys, im back on this again. i ended up buying a '76 460 to drop in but now im deciding against it, im going to build the 300 and save the 460 for another project down the road. now im on the focus of how difficult itd be to convert to carb so that i dont have to deal with the computer once i upgrade the internals, any input??

 

Is this guy even gonna get a turbo? I think that's enough turbo talk. I wouldn't want a turbo on a slow rock crawling/mudding vehicle. You want instant, responsive power in any of those situations. I've had a few turboed vehicles, 3000GT VR4 with twin 13G's and a Stealth R/T TT with twin 15G turbos. Sure... they are probably bigger than what you are talking about, and I ran 19psi on a built 3.1 DOHC 24-valve V6 (500 horsepower), and turbo lag is nasty at low RPM.