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Turbo car repairs/upgrades

5K views 36 replies 14 participants last post by  irar 
#1 ·
Had a few problems with my turbo car at the Shootout this year. Biggest problem was it wouldn't make over 11 pounds of boost on the dyno and not much more on the track. Found out afterwards the main problem was with the fuel (straight 117 octane w/meth injection). I checked pretty much the entire turbo system over looking for the problem and never really found a smoking gun...just a bunch of little things. Fixed what I could and took it to a professional race shop to do the stuff that required fabrication.

Picked the car up from Dan Saitz's shop (Hyperformance) this afternoon and the differince is amazing. Turbo spools up much much faster and feels like it's making more power now at 12.5 pounds of boost than it did before at 15 pounds. Just rolling into the throttle blows the tires off in 1st, 2nd or 3rd. I'm gonna need to put the ET street radials back on it just so I can get a steady reading on the boost gauge.

Dan replaced the leaky Turbosmart 50mm wastegate with new JGS 50mm stainless wastegate, switched the .96 AR exhaust housing to a .81 AR, and went from a 3" mild steel downpipe to a 3.5" diameter stainless and fixed a few minor hotside leaks. While he had it on the lift I had him reseal the transmission pan, change filter and put some fresh JD hydraulic fluid in. Now I just need to install/rewire the new DCC Mrk8 fan and I'm ready to try racing or the dyno again.

Here's a few pictures before putting the turbo blanket back on.








David
 
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#2 ·
who fabbed your manifold's? anybody local? any pics of them off the car?
with the smaller a/r does the car tend to run out of breath up top or have you been able to stay in it long enough to tell? i know these cold temps and street tires don't help much with traction..
I have always heard good things about hyperformance but never used them.. i've dealt with htp once in the past and they did good work...
 
#5 ·
The turbo system was built back in 2005 by a company called ForcedFab in Dayton OH. They did a pretty good job on the hotside part of the system, but did a horrible job on the coldside and final assembly of the system. See this thread for more info and pictures. Since it was originally built I've changed/upgraded several portions of the hotside to larger diameter stainless and now the only thing that remains as originally built on the hotside are the headers.

http://forums.tccoa.com/showthread.php?t=68687

Yes...I expected to give up about 50 rwhp on the peak power because of using the smaller exhaust housing. Don't really think that is going to be an issue because the car/driver can't really handle the amount of power it is capable of making. Even with the smaller housing it should still make at least 750 rwhp.

When considering that 99.9% of the time I'm driving it on the street with around 550 rwhp ( plenty to scare the crap out of me), I think the quicker spooling turbo and resulting increase in bottom end power more than makes up for any top end losses. Until I get up around 650 rwhp, I don't expect to see any reduction in power from the smaller housing. Keeping the .96 AR housing just in case I want to switch back to it one day.

Yesterday afternoon when I drove the car home, temps were unseasonalby warm at around 66 degrees, so I'm sure it would be much harder to get traction on a cold day like today with temps in the 30s.

Hyperformance does some top notch work and the guy who owns the place (Dan Saitz) is one of the few people I trust to work on my SCs. He's not cheap but he does excellent work. Here's a link to their website.

http://www.hyperformanceracing.com/


David
 
#6 ·
Yes it does look close, but fortunately I've never had a heat related alternator failure. With the turbo blanket on it doesn't really get as hot as it looks like it would.

I've looked at relocating the alternator but haven't really got serious about it because it doesn't seem to be an issue. The bigger issue is throwing the belt when racing the car. I can do all the dyno pulls I want or tear azz around on the street without ever having a problem, but nearly everytime I take it down the 1/4 mile I throw a belt on one out of every four or five passes.

Still experimenting with various belt lengths and pulley arrangments to find something I can rely on.

David
 
#7 ·
does the car still have power steering and A/C?
if so, removing those will help from throwing belts.....seems like a shorter belt would be the ticket....but thats saying if you want to get rid of those things.
 
#8 ·
Still has power steering and the turbo system will accept the AC compressor, but shortly after installing the turbo I ditched the AC and used used a revised belt routing. Smog pump was deleted before the turbo was installed.

Yes....getting the alternator moved over to the driver's side, where the AC compressor was located, would be the best solution because the belt would be much shorter.

David
 
#11 ·
Thanks guys. Sometimes this car seems like the never ending repair job....and other times (like now) it's hard to wipe the grin off my face. I'll let you know how it does on the dyno.

David
 
#12 ·
thats very nice david i never knew you were making that much power at the wheels.

I've scheduled the first post katrina meet in new orleans for february 21st. We'll have alot of supercoupes there and some exotic mn12s as well. I'm going to bring 2 of my supercoupes and my 351 5spd and my friend scott is going to bring his 89 cougar with an svo 351 and f1 procharger that made 1,032hp on the dyno. Should be a very memorable meet and is set for the weekend prior to mardi gras if you want to stick around and get drunk and see some boobies :) anywho, everyone is invited and we'd love for you to come. Estimated about 20 supercoupes as of thus far. Can't vouch for the n/a crowd yet because those figures are still up in the air but it should be a nice turn out none the less.

if interested give me a call and we'll talk
five oh four six oh six oh five three two
 
#15 ·
I'll let you know the next time we have a TBU meet at my house. Now that WFC/WSC isn't happening anymore, we need to find something else to do in May.

David
 
#20 ·
Found out why the .96 AR housing wouldn't spool the turbo worth a damn.







Chalk another one up to those jackasses at Forced Fab who built this turbo system. Apparently this piece of pipe has been in the exhaust housing since it was built back in the fall of 2005. It also explains why the turbo spools so much faster and why it feels like it's making much more power at less boost since switching to the .81 AR housing.

I'll try driving it a while with the .81 housing, but I'll probably be putting the .96 housing back on before spring.

David
 
#23 · (Edited)
hahahaha holy $$$$! Looks like you don't also get what you paid for:eek: Its almost like it was purposley put there? How ****ing odd! It would be a good questio to ask forced fab about its like someone put ti there trying to spool the turbo faster?
 
#24 ·
Those guys have been out of business for a long time, and no I didn't get what I paid for. After the screwed up job they did on my car, I made sure the entire turbo mustang community knew what a bunch of hacks those guys were.

I think it was just a case of shoddy work. Looks like a piece of the pipe trimmed off in the original construction of the crossover tube somehow got into the crossover or one of the headers, then dislodged after intallation. The heat and exhaust force likely caused the shape and location I found it in today.

I'm just lucky it didn't get into the turbine and trash the turbo, because I'd be on my own for that just like all the other stuff they screwed up that I had to fix.

David
 
#26 ·
I think I found out why it's throwing the acessory belt on the track. While installing a new line for oiling the turbo and replacing the mrk8 fan last night, I removed the belt and couldn't help but notice how little I had to move the tensioner to be able to get the belt off. This was a new belt so it wasn't stretched.

It looks like I've only got about the last 1/4 of the stroke of the tensioner holding the belt tight. Pretty sure that when I'm racing, it's stretching the belt enough to allow the tensioner to run out of stroke and then the belt get slack and jumps. If I can find a belt that is about 1/2" shorter, I think my belt jumping problems will be solved.

BTW...reason I was replacing the stupid leaking oil line is because it got damaged from the last time it threw a belt at 120 mph :rolleyes:

David
 
#28 ·
Drove the car to work yesterday and I just can't get over how quick it's spooling the turbo. It will roast the tires at pretty much any speed in any gear if you press the throttle quick enough to put motor under a load. I'm sure it will be better in warmer weather or with the drag radials bolted on, but as it is I can't give it more than 1/3 throttle without spinning the tires :D

Decided to give Precision Turbo a call and talk to their tech guy about if it was hurting anything to run the .81 AR exhaust housing and he said that it probably wouldn't be a restriction as compared to the .96 housing until I tried to increase the boost or the rpms (I'm at 14.5 psi and 6700 rpms now). He said the only way to really tell if it's a restriction is to take pre-turbo exhaust backpressure readings at various boost levels. If I'm not exceeding a 2:1 ratio on backpressure vs boost then party on...if I am exceeding that ratio I'll need to install the .96 AR housing to get max power from the turbo. Over the next few weeks I'll install a bung to check pressure readings and go from there.

David
 
#32 ·
Looks awesome David. I wish I would lived closer to you so you would give me a ride in your car... :D
 
#35 ·
No word yet, but it's usually held the first weekend in May. I'll get with Chris Lazzo and see if we can get the date nailed down for 2009.

David
 
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