I'm glad that somebody else understands the effect of pressure in the float bowl. As you stated, 6 pounds of boost has no effect on float level but will heavily affect fuel flow.

 

Outside of turboing a tired L48 I think the comments on anti-turbo are super ignorant.

have any of you driven a modded V8 with some boost thrown at it? Youll crap your pants and hate your heads/cam to the hilt 350. Set up right of course and it doesnt come cheap

There are cars out there running stupid fast today stock with moderate boost levels good mpg and can drive from here to the moon and back reliably withthe A/C on.

 

entertaining... especially the bit about fuel leakage and explosions from around the throttle shafts - I suppose it's possible, just like evolution is possible.

to the rest of the haters.

I suspect I have more turbos on my shelf than you've ever driven.... and I've installed and driven far more turbos than most


but flame on - I think the OP gave up.

 

not necessary gave up. more like i decided to get a better and new engine and build power on top of that later. whether that be turbo, supercharge, or n20 i have no idea but that will be a long time from now. Thanks for all the help guys. When i order my zz4 ill start a build thread with questions for when I get stuck. I defiantly will too since there is like no write up for doing an engine pull, and its my first one. Also gives me the option to clean out engine bay shave it from what can go and paint it.

 

fatcat did a first time build here http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c3-t...t-rebuild.html

while it's not a ZZ4, many of the issues he faced, you will as well.

 

Actually, I was wrong. Back in the mid 80's when Gale Banks Engineering was building 1600 HP SBC's (mostly boats) they were useing 22psi of Boost. At that kind of Boost presure the Floats were crushing !. So they started filling them with Foam etc untill better Floats were developed. One more dis advantage of a blow threw Carb. And one more plus for FI of today.

 

I wouldn't get to concerned about removeing the Engine. I would consider Turboing your last car way more involved. Think of it this way, how many people have pulled an Engine, and how many people have done a Turbo install. You will need a good and safe way of lifting both the Car and the Engine. You will have to decide if You are going to pull both the Engine and Trans as an assembly or just the Engine. Like most projects the Big Parts are the easy ones, and the small ones take the most time. I'd recomend that You have the new engine somewhat ready to go before You pull the old one so You can still remember where everything goes and what wrench fits what.

 

This statement stuck in my mind. I think some of us who are attracted to forced induction, would like to avoid spending the $$ for the proper internals. I just want my cake and eat it too.....

 

Super Buick Guy gotta agree. Guy named Sinister on Chevelles.com took a used 5.3 put a cam and some ported stock heads in his car. Dont know which turbo he had or # of boost but had it running 9s. It eventually scattered but lasted him qiute awhile as he experimented with the right tune. Thats fast. Now hes upsizing the motor a bit and turning up the wick as he understands the tune it will want. He still had some coin in it but 9s while being nice and driveable?

 

Maybe this will put things into perspective...some will get it. In 1972, after Roger Penske decided to stop trying to win the Can-Am series with modified versions of other people's cars, he teamed with mighty Porsche to develop a turbocharged Can-Am version of their world-beating 917 endurance racing sports car. At a cost of millions, they successfully managed to develop the 917's 600-horsepower, four-cam, fuel-injected 5-liter flat-twelve into a 1300-horsepower monster that was actually driveable enough and reliable enough to win the series that year after McLaren Racing had dominated it for the previous five.

The recipe that McLaren had used for four of those five years was simple-a mechanically fuel injected big block Chevy of anywhere from 427 to 509 inches. After losing to Penske and Porsche in 1972, they did some experimentation in the off-season with turbos on their big-block Chevys, and after awhile came to the conclusion that they didn't have the money to develop a turbo'd pushrod passenger car engine into one that could beat a turbo'd quad-cam racing engine. It could make lots of power, but couldn't be made to last the 200 racing miles necessary to finish races.

Since their entire program and recipe for success was based upon production-based powerplants, McLaren left the Can-Am series, having realized that there was a limit to how much horsepower could be reliably pumped through a big production-based Detroit V8, and that that limit was significantly lower than that which could be pumped through a purpose-designed racing engine developed at a cost of millions.

Many here have tried to make that same point to OP. Adding to the complication of just trying to make ANY turbo system work on a carbureted pushrod V8 is trying to come up with a plumbing system that will fit elegantly inside the cramped confines of a C3 Corvette engine compartment. I have yet to see ANY reasonably well-funded racer pull that off, and OP is asking how to swap an engine???

I am presently building an aluminum-headed, roller-rockered, balanced, blueprinted 383 for a friend whose total cost will come in at around $3000 and it will have horsepower and torque numbers north of 400. That will provide plenty of snap, and it will be RELIABLE.

Enough with this "How to turbo my C3" nonsense already...

 

Here's a LS1 turbo build.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c3-g...ged-build.html

Twin turbo big block

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c3-t...o-project.html

It can be done, but some questions being asked here are making me think it shouldn't be attempted.

 

I agree with you... however, I feel compelled to point something out.

The OP is a kid with his very first American Sports car. I'd have sold my parents into slavery to have had a Corvette at his age - so while his question may seem naive; keep in mind, by now most of you have forgotten what it was like to have this awesome car sitting in your driveway and have absolutely no clue as to what is possible.

You'd read all the car rags about how they built 10 bajillion hp with a stock bottom end motor and you want that.... but you have no idea even how to pull a motor.

I have a good friend who, when I asked him what the world was like when he was a kid he retorted "I was never a kid, I have no memory of it." Don't be that guy (actually, be that guy cause he's one of the nicest people I know)...

There are no dumb questions.

 

SBG, trust me, it's not my intent to offend or dissuade OP in any way from youthful idealism, but I do believe that one reason God keeps old ugly guys like me around is because of some of the pearls of wisdom that are trapped inside our old, shriveled-up brains.

BTW, Bruce McLaren was the youngest-ever F1 GP winner until 2007, and he did it in a car he essentially built himself (I know, it was called a "Cooper", but before he built cars with his own name on them he built cars for John Cooper with Cooper's name on them. That's part of the 'price' he paid for his F1 ride with Cooper), but even HE decided that turbocharging big block Chevys wasn't the wisest proposition. Well, not him really...he was dead by 1972, but the guys that worked for him were pretty smart as well.

And believe me, anything I said to OP was a fraction of the abuse the monsters in OT handed my 19 year-old Eagle Scout ROTC College Student kid for having the temerity to offer up opinions about the Scion FRS in the "What do You Think About the Scion FRS?" thread...grrrrr. And if HE had suggested to me that he wanted to turbo a C3 Vette, I would have told HIM that he was crazy too!

I DO understand, having spent my teenage years in the hills of Washington State, that possibilities can seem endless to some. A V6 in a Fiat Spider? Seriously??? That's AWESOME...

 

There are many turbo pushrod V8 cars out there so, honestly, using that Penske story as "proof" that building a turbocharged Detroit V8 is not a realistic proposition is rubbish.

However, expecting to build a turbocharged V8 into a C3 for <$1000 with little knowledge of what you are doing is a recipe for heartache. Not because it can't be done or it can't work, but rather because the expectations going into the project are completely wrong.

 

You're missing my point, sir. First, I didn't offer up that Penske story as "PROOF" that a turbo installation can't work on a pushrod V8. I used the example of one of racing history's most unstoppable juggernauts- McLaren Racing-as evidence that putting such a system into a C3 Corvette would be an extremely involved task, requiring no small amount of sophisticated design and fabrication work, and that getting the details successfully worked out would most likely be more than a seventeen year-old who has yet to even remove an engine from a car could successfully accomplish.

Can it be done? Of course. Would it be fast? Absolutely. Would it be cool? I think it would. Would it be wise for a youngster who's just getting started in his automotive hobbyist-life to try and attempt such a herculean feat? Not unless his financial resources are limitless, and I seriously doubt that's the case.

That's all. For you to dismiss what I posted as "rubbish" smacks of narcissistic snobbery. Have a nice day, friend

 

Thanks for all the help guys. I didnt realize how much harder it is to turbo old muscle cars. I actually decided to just build my motor first. SBG has helped me put together a rebuild and helped me on parts. Im getting cams, lifters, intake manifold, heads, and etc. Ill put together a build thread when i purchase the parts. Also regarding how to pull an engine. I talked with my neighbor yesterday who is the lead tech at pepboys. He is going to walk me through pulling an engine and watch me as i replace the parts and install everything. He is only charging $20 an hour too. He runs a private shop in his barn so couldnt be free. Thanks for all the help and not blowing me up for asking "noob" questions. I am young and just starting and came from imports :p

 

You're on the right track and nobody can fault you for your enthusiasm-down the road you might become the all-time Corvette guru! Right now, though, it's best to stay withing the realm of good sense. These cars aren't all that easy to work on even when they're in bone-stock trim, so it's best to learn to navigate your way around the platform first before you start attempting something radical.

One word of advice (If SBG hasn't already mentioned this)-if you still insist on going the turbo route down the road, and you're gonna use this motor as a basis for such a project, keep the compression ratio DOWN...around 9:1 or so.

That is all...

 

Yep thats what we talked about. Just get familiar with her and how everything works. I already watched motorz video about striping, machining, building bottom and top end of engine. They were great videos. Also i dont plan on turbo. He suggested if i wanted even more hp. Which honestly going from 165 to who knows hoe much. Should satisfy me for a while. ive heard SC would be best route if i wanted even more. But before that im going to save for a new suspension and new transmission with torque convertor and shift kit. That would be next year though.

 

get rid of the Automatic and put in a 5 speed manual. You'll be glad you did

 

Ill decide all of that next year. Not even a question right now. Probably not though for many reasons.