Turbo Talk

[FoxMustangLvr]

I'm creating this thread in hopes of having an informative thread about about turbos, hot and cold side kits, DIY piping, turbo/BOV/WG selection, and appropriate turbo sizing for engine size, and more.

I do not want this to become a supercharger vs turbo debate.

With some of the turbo builds that i've seen lately it's made me curious about them and info seems to be spread out all over the internet like a ship wreck. Turbo kits seem pretty nice but the quality ones are a bit out of my budget at the moment. This makes me want to do a budget build but I don't know where to start with sourcing a good used turbo nor do I know what to look for when inspecting them. Master Pro seems common but aren't those used for On3 kits which are hit and miss? Is there another car that I can take a turbo off of to install on my stock 302? What size turbo is too small or too big for my stock 302?

Also, do dual ball bearing turbos create less heat? Worth the extra cost?

I've seen a couple stock 302 Mustangs lately that put down over 400rwhp on 8-9lbs of boost and over 500rwhp with 14# of boost (but was backed down for a safe street tune). This really piques my interest and I'd like to learn more.

 

[hoopty5.0]

2 important pieces of information that I've picked up in the past few months that I'd bet a few people would argue:
1) Billet wheel turbos do not have a significant advantage over a cast wheel.
2) It's very easy to oversize your pre-turbo tubing
2a) you can run smaller tubing with a larger exhaust housing and not kill your spool.

I'd recommend going to the turbo forums and reading the articles and browsing some builds over there.

 

[Black1987]

There are turbo calculators for sizing for your combo.....actually think its a sticky on the turboforums
https://www.turbobygarrett.com/turbobygarrett/webadviser.

Personally if your on the budget (without a welder), ON3 has gotten better just remember to buy a quality WG/BOV. Its really hard for the money to put together a complete kit for their price, unless you have a welder already and all the parts. For the record the kit works, can it be improved yea, will it no.

I tried to piece together a kit using Ebay and CXracing, etc and we just ended up using ON3. Btw CXracing mild steel hotside kit was the same as ON3, idc what anyone says. I seen them side by side but that was last year,

Sloppymechanics has some cheap turbos that he has tested on 5.3s up to 700hp and stands behind them,

I agree with hoopty, read through the different builds over there and form your own opinion what expectation/goal you want. That way we can misguide to go the other more expensive, life lesson learning way.

 

[FoxMustangLvr]

There are turbo calculators for sizing for your combo.....actually think its a sticky on the turboforums
https://www.turbobygarrett.com/turbobygarrett/webadviser.

Personally if your on the budget (without a welder), ON3 has gotten better just remember to buy a quality WG/BOV. Its really hard for the money to put together a complete kit for their price, unless you have a welder already and all the parts. For the record the kit works, can it be improved yea, will it no.

I tried to piece together a kit using Ebay and CXracing, etc and we just ended up using ON3. Btw CXracing mild steel hotside kit was the same as ON3, idc what anyone says. I seen them side by side but that was last year,

Sloppymechanics has some cheap turbos that he has tested on 5.3s up to 700hp and stands behind them,

I agree with hoopty, read through the different builds over there and form your own opinion what expectation/goal you want. That way we can misguide to go the other more expensive, life lesson learning way.

Thank you, that was very informative. Honestly Stangnet is the only online forum that I have joined and regularly use. I didn't know about the turbo forums until you and @hoopty5.0 mentioned it. I will spend some time reading over there.

I don't mind ordering a cold side kit. I have a gas MIG welder and could fab up a hot side over a span of a winter. It's shopping for a good used Turbo, WG and BOV that I have no idea about but I will learn about it. I know some people have just robbed a turbo off a factory car before and go fast. Outside of a Thunderbird TC I'm not sure where to get something decent for cheap.

Goal: I'd be happy with about 8lbs of boost and be able to beat on it without the turbo catching on fire and burning my car down.

 

[Black1987]

Thank you, that was very informative. Honestly Stangnet is the only online forum that I have joined and regularly use. I didn't know about the turbo forums until you and @hoopty5.0 mentioned it. I will spend some time reading over there.

I don't mind ordering a cold side kit. I have a gas MIG welder and could fab up a hot side over a span of a winter. It's shopping for a good used Turbo, WG and BOV that I have no idea about but I will learn about it. I know some people have just robbed a turbo off a factory car before and go fast. Outside of a Thunderbird TC I'm not sure where to get something decent for cheap.

Goal: I'd be happy with about 8lbs of boost and be able to beat on it without the turbo catching on fire and burning my car down.

Roadkill's Datsun used an F250 turbo that got for $200 bucks, but then spent like $800 bucks on the WG/BOV(good episode to watch btw on youtube). Tial and Turbosmart are good brands. There is actually a junkyard list on here and over there for cars to rob turbos off of Volvo, Saab, trucks etc

It can be done right and somewhat cheaply, but I prefer not to reinvent the wheel unless I have too.

When it is all said and done you'll make more power for less boost, but for more initial frustration than a linear blower....but once its done it hard to go back,

 

[MikeH686]

For the money pony down headers are better then on3 I've seen the on3 and installed pony down on my car. My car only has a 70 I bought that kit a guy piece together off craigslist turbo was never used and it was a journal bearing master power before they became junky recommend Tial simply because I like them a bit more. Wish I got my turbo a little bigger but I don't have any problem with the 70 if you can afford it go 76

 

[srtthis]

2 important pieces of information that I've picked up in the past few months that I'd bet a few people would argue:
1) Billet wheel turbos do not have a significant advantage over a cast wheel.

dont agree with that one at all... weight and strength of the billet wheels over cast is huge. along with what you can do with a billet wheel vs cast wheel

 

[bird_dog0347]

What brand of jackstands does everyone recommend? I mean, I'm sure they have to be high quality so that they can be used almost 100% of the time you have the car right?

 

[Black1987]

What brand of jackstands does everyone recommend? I mean, I'm sure they have to be high quality so that they can be used almost 100% of the time you have the car right?

He has those roller ones he built already. He's already ahead of the game

 

[FoxMustangLvr]

What brand of jackstands does everyone recommend? I mean, I'm sure they have to be high quality so that they can be used almost 100% of the time you have the car right?

Only took 8 posts to get to the jack stand jokes, boy you guys are off your game today, ha!

 

[FoxMustangLvr]

He has those roller ones he built already. He's already ahead of the game

I guess deep down in my subconscious I knew one day I was going turbo

 

[tannerc91gt]

2 important pieces of information that I've picked up in the past few months that I'd bet a few people would argue:
1) Billet wheel turbos do not have a significant advantage over a cast wheel.
2) It's very easy to oversize your pre-turbo tubing
2a) you can run smaller tubing with a larger exhaust housing and not kill your spool.

I'd recommend going to the turbo forums and reading the articles and browsing some builds over there.

I sort of agree. There are advantages to billet wheel turbos, maybe not the ones people boast about on forums though. But when you consider how fast guys are going in classes limited to cast 76mm turbos, most people are fooling themselves if they think they need a billet wheel, race cover, etc etc turbo.
And 2.25" crossover ftw!

 

[srtthis]

harbor freight jackstands FTW!

 

[bird_dog0347]

I'm avoiding actually considering turbo as I'd like to first do a Coyote and T56... maybe then I'll do a turbo too.

 

[tannerc91gt]

dont agree with that one at all... weight and strength of the billet wheels over cast is huge. along with what you can do with a billet wheel vs cast wheel

My understanding of it was they're less prone to fatigue, a weight/RPM advantage and being able to have tighter tolerances due to wheel machining
But 15psi on a cast s475 and 15 psi on a billet s475 will net you the same power.
I think you're able to spin them a little harder before you run off the map and out of their effiiciency range. I'm sure you're more well versed than I am though.

 

[hoopty5.0]

dont agree with that one at all... weight and strength of the billet wheels over cast is huge. along with what you can do with a billet wheel vs cast wheel

I figured this statement was coming from someone. I should have added - "for a non-race application light duty street car".

 

[srtthis]

you can do a lot more with the billet wheels with fin thickness and angles. also better materials... anytime you have to cast something vs a billet forging you are going to give up material properties.

there is a reason they banned all the billet wheels in ultra street.

 

[srtthis]

I figured this statement was coming from someone. I should have added - "for a non-race application light duty street car".

yea for a stock block street car is do a cast wheel and let it eat. if it was dart /world/ boss block id run a billet wheel deal just because i know how i am... and id have the gate shut letting it eat

 

[hoopty5.0]

Thank you, that was very informative. Honestly Stangnet is the only online forum that I have joined and regularly use. I didn't know about the turbo forums until you and @hoopty5.0 mentioned it. I will spend some time reading over there.

I don't mind ordering a cold side kit. I have a gas MIG welder and could fab up a hot side over a span of a winter. It's shopping for a good used Turbo, WG and BOV that I have no idea about but I will learn about it. I know some people have just robbed a turbo off a factory car before and go fast. Outside of a Thunderbird TC I'm not sure where to get something decent for cheap.

Goal: I'd be happy with about 8lbs of boost and be able to beat on it without the turbo catching on fire and burning my car down.

Having built a couple of hot sides now I feel comfortable telling you what I learned and what I wouldn't do again.

1) I learned to buy extra material. If you think you only need 4 of one kind of bend and 2 of another, buy 6 and 3.
2) Skills are good, but having the right tools to make your tubing fit together well enough to cleanly weld them together is more important than having skills. Perfect practice makes perfect. As an example, no matter how I tried to cut tubing with an angle grinder, it never was precise. I upgraded to a porta-band saw and while it took some learning, the results ended up being fantastic and it showed within the work.
3) study builds. I have pictures of dozens of turbo setups on my computer that I saved and noted what I did and didn't like about each. What I currently have built is most of what I wanted to end up with.
4) Understand that you're going to have to build stuff only to cut it apart several times to make it fit right, and at times, no matter what you do, it's still going to look like ass.
5) Welding is a lot like painting in that you spend more of your time in the prep work. You have to clean the material inside and out - and thoroughly.

Most of this I'm sure you already know, but maybe someone else will find it useful too. Quite frankly, if I had the time, money, and material, I'd cut my hot side apart again and redo everything the same way, just cleaner. I obviously haven't finished my car yet, but the satisfaction of doing it yourself is irreplaceable.

 

[CarMichael Angelo]

I've said it before. Knowing what I know now I could build one of those "expensive" turbo systems from scratch for around 1500.

That includes the twin scroll Gt 45 r turbo, a pair of cheapie headers, waste gate (s), bov, the entire cold side w/ silicone couplings, band clamps, and the A2A intercooler.

The missing element is the capability to fabricate what needs to be "made to fit". I agree, getting stuff to fit together nicely makes for a much better end result, and the right tools are required to do that. But I believe that a sawzall and an angle grinder fitted w/ a flap wheel trumps a band saw and a tubing notcher everytime.

Speaking of essential tools, I'm more of the "Mig is the solution" than a Tig for anybody that wants to stick stuff to gether and doesn't mind the hours that need to be spent chasing the weld beads down,..but hell, I even grind the tig junk I do. At least with a mig, you can tack stuff together in a matter of a second and it barely takes one hand to do it.
Medusa was built with a Mig,..and it looks good enough to sit up high and proud thanks to a bazillion hours spent flap-wheeling the weld beads flat on every welded joint. Well,...that, and the fact that I used .140 wall steam pipe els to build the thing. ( I didn't want it to warp).

Actively sourcing the right Chinee stuff will net you the required products to build a "too cheap not to" turbo system. Probably the exact same stuff that's in an On3 system is available out there under a dozen different brand names.

Make one,..add rocket fuel, polish it with turtle wax, be the envy of the collective.