Boosted guys, little help?

[shobe]

Alright. So I finally got some money together, a good chunk of it, and I'm ready to turbocharge my SHO motor. Don't try talking me out of it, the motor is already out of the car

I stripped it down to the bare block, and I'm ready for some internals.

The real question I would like to know, is what you guys went on, TIM (toolman) especially, for compression ratios and what/where you got your pistons/rods from. Did any of you use different bearings as well?

Also, After the internals, come the head. I don't know what luck you have all had with this, but I would like to run stage 2 cams, figuring the longer duration should help cram even more boost into the engine. An intercooler is a great idea of course, but I was also thinking of a stage 2 water injection set. They are pretty in expensive, and from what I've learned, work wonders.

Intake wise, I wanted to hone it out, I saw shoshop did some good work with that. Just wondering why one is so much cheaper than the other?

Larger valves I think would be good for the head too. Not sure if anyone ahd any luck with this, but would love input.

That's about all I can think of off hand for hte basics, until I get some more $$.

Tranny wise will be expensive (quafe and cyro'ed gears) but all in good time.

I wanted to run about 8.5 compression, I figure it should be enough with the waterinjection and intercooler to have no knock, and still have a good spool up time. I don't want to run too low, and have too much lag, but I don't want it too high either and get pre-detonation.

Turbowise, I was thining a 60-1 like Tim is running, or possibly a 62-1. I still wnat to do a bit more research about that, but it seems like a good turbo, good size, but I don't know if TIM gets alot of lag with it.

Thanks for any comments, I really want to get this project going now that I've got everything.

Jake.

 

[Toolman]

My JE's are 9:1, but 8.5:1 would be great as well, and would allow for more boost safely in the future. JE (and other companies) will make the pistons to match your rod, so you will need nothing else except rings for your bottom end (of course, and entire rebuild would be great, new gaskets, bearings etc)

Stage II cams are not ideal on a blown motor. Cams designed for a NA application may have more overlap than a turbo will want. When you are cramming the air into the engine, you do not want excessive overlap. FWIW, I would save the $2000 head work and cams will cost and apply that money to Josh's gearset, as you will make plenty of power with stock head/cams to toast your cryo'd ans Quaifed trans. Remember, I make over 500 crank hp with my untouched heads and cams.


My intake is EH with BBB's, but again, I recommend saving the dough and applying it to the gearset. Modifications geared toward helping the engine breathe better on the intake side are not nearly as important when you have a turbo. Getting the air out is what is important. The exhaust manifolds are plenty good for 500whp, so all you have to worry about is your turbo piping not being a restriction.

As far as water injection, sounds good, but a adequate FMIC can be had for less, and there is nothing to worry about. If guys are running 18psi non-IC'd, then I feel very good running 13psi with my IC.

As far as lag, it is non-existent with my 60-1 hifi. And I feel a 62-1 would work very well and it has a slightly higher potential as well.

Best of luck, and again, with stock head/cam/intake/etc you will not have a problem making 375whp and at least as much tq. So my advice is spend every extra penny not going to the turbo/piping/IC/fuel/tuning on the gearset. Once you have a Quaife and HD gears and axles, your enjoyment will only be interuppted by your local law enforcement!

 

[Yamabull]

couldn't he use adjustable cam sprockets to reduce some of the over lap and still get the lift and duration he wants?

 

[Toolman]

couldn't he use adjustable cam sprockets to reduce some of the over lap and still get the lift and duration he wants?

Yes, but I still do not think the Stage II's would be ideal for boosted apps. And even then, you are paying $550 or more for the cams, $200 or more for the sprockets. So, $750 and all the labor involved, for what will only amount to more tranny eating torque. My suggestion is this. Save the money cams and head work, EH and BBB's, and every normal NA mod, and apply that to a gearset. A simple fact of the matter is this. turbo sho = grenaded trans. There is simply too much tq and it comes on too quick. So save yourself being stranded, save yourself possibly damaging your Quaife, save yourself the hassle of dropping your trans every few months, and relish in the joy of never worrying about your trans, powershifting at the strip, stomping every car that challenges you at a light, etc, etc. Just my two cents.

 

[Lupo]

Yes, but I still do not think the Stage II's would be ideal for boosted apps. And even then, you are paying $550 or more for the cams, $200 or more for the sprockets. So, $750 and all the labor involved, for what will only amount to more tranny eating torque. My suggestion is this. Save the money cams and head work, EH and BBB's, and every normal NA mod, and apply that to a gearset. A simple fact of the matter is this. turbo sho = grenaded trans. There is simply too much tq and it comes on too quick. So save yourself being stranded, save yourself possibly damaging your Quaife, save yourself the hassle of dropping your trans every few months, and relish in the joy of never worrying about your trans, powershifting at the strip, stomping every car that challenges you at a light, etc, etc. Just my two cents.

Tim, do you have the gearset already, and how many 3rd gears have you destroyed before you got it? Just curious.

 

[Toolman]

Tim, do you have the gearset already, and how many 3rd gears have you destroyed before you got it? Just curious.

I got the car from JPrine with a recently installed 3rd. I blew that one and put in the cryo'd unit. I blew the cryo'd unit and either just replaced that and my ring gear, or put in an entire new low mileage gearset (like 50k), but I am not sure which. Does not matter. I have a number of trannies, all of which will be getting cryo'd, just in case my stock SHO ever has a failure. The turbo will get the HD gearset as soon as my finances allow. With the death of my grandfather I will be taking over his estate and so I am not in the market currently, but soon.

There simply is no other way to avoid tranny failure, as I shift the car very lightly, and have maybe 10 passes total at the strip, and only 1 day at the road course. All failures have simply been a result of third gear roll on's. There is just too much torque. If we ever do see more turbo SHO's, and I hope we do, we are going to see many more blown 3rds, there is just no way the stock gear can handle 400ft lbs for very long. In fact, I would consider that $6000 as a required part for any turbo buildup. If they do not see the benefit initially, they will after swapping out a few trannies (and not being able to find any more 3rds ).

 

[RJ-92]

Listen to Tim, he knows of which he speaks. Ideally, I believe stage I cams would be perfect for boosted applications. Oversized valves and a decent port job would free up some HP as well. There is a little room aorund the chambers to remove some materal on the heads, particulary around the valves which could use a little unshrowding. This would also bring the comp ratio down to around the proposed 8.5 : 1. This all ofcores being cost no object. I would defintely invest in the gears first though, as Tim suggested.

 

[shobe]

It really is sick to think of it that way, just a nice roll on in third takes out the gears like that. I guess I really didn't think the transmission would be THAT important, but I'm glad you said something. I love slamshifting the **** out of my car now, but its got like 140HP, so it doesn't go anywhere anyway.

When doing the transmission work, did you just have it stripped down, and the gears themselves cyro'ed? What about the selectors and syncros? I head the actually cyroing isn't that expensive, and I wouldn't mind tearing down the transmission just to save a few extra dollars. The quafie is a great idea, always wanted one.. but never had the $$ until now. The quafie solves the problem with the dif pings too right? It makes sence that it would.

Thanks for the info, and input tim, you were just the guy I was looking to talk to. I like the compression your running, 9.0:1, and I see why you have no lag either The guy at the local performance shop down here told me I wanted to go with like 7:1 if I wanted to run 15PSI. I was like.. That low?? I'm thinking 9.0 should work just fine, I've got a saab 9000 turbo, all stock with a T3, and its got 9.1:1 and the turbo spools up nicely.

I saw a few posts where you were running 15PSI, was that on 93? Also, Do you, or anyone else know of a good place to get LC pistons? I forgot to ask, do the stock rods hold up to the kinda power you're making? Did you have forged installed in your car, or just hyperbolic? I've head the latter works very well, and it really doesn't make a difference, but I'm not sure.

 

[Lupo]

I got the car from JPrine with a recently installed 3rd. I blew that one and put in the cryo'd unit. I blew the cryo'd unit and either just replaced that and my ring gear, or put in an entire new low mileage gearset (like 50k), but I am not sure which. Does not matter. I have a number of trannies, all of which will be getting cryo'd, just in case my stock SHO ever has a failure. The turbo will get the HD gearset as soon as my finances allow. With the death of my grandfather I will be taking over his estate and so I am not in the market currently, but soon.

There simply is no other way to avoid tranny failure, as I shift the car very lightly, and have maybe 10 passes total at the strip, and only 1 day at the road course. All failures have simply been a result of third gear roll on's. There is just too much torque. If we ever do see more turbo SHO's, and I hope we do, we are going to see many more blown 3rds, there is just no way the stock gear can handle 400ft lbs for very long. In fact, I would consider that $6000 as a required part for any turbo buildup. If they do not see the benefit initially, they will after swapping out a few trannies (and not being able to find any more 3rds ).

There are only 4 gearsets that have been made so far. 2 are being used on the road, and I do not know if the other 2 sets have even been installed. Have you got a hold of Josh about availability?
The trans will be overall noisier, but at least you will have peace of mind knowing you won't strip third or twist the input shaft.
Even with a lift, and no stuck bolts or anything, I thought changing my trans was a PITA. I can't imagine doing it more than you have to!

I had a scare and thought I blew my input shaft. Turns out after I get everything apart, I only blew my clutch disk. Oh well....same labor involved, but MUCH better than destroying a trans.

 

[Toolman]

Lupo, you blew your clutch since the new trans, or was this before? ANd no, I have no spoken to Josh lately. My first order of business is a wideband and SC tuner. After that, the gearset. After that, I will be ready to make some power.

shobe, I would not let that guy touch your car if he suggest a 7:1 cr for only 15psi. There are a number of SHO's that regularly see 15psi and up on stock pistons @ at the stock 9.8:1 cr. With my 9:1 (can be ordered from JE, SS, Josh, and just about any piston company) I will have no fear of running 18psi (and more).

 

[Lupo]

Lupo, you blew your clutch since the new trans, or was this before? ANd no, I have no spoken to Josh lately. My first order of business is a wideband and SC tuner. After that, the gearset. After that, I will be ready to make some power.

shobe, I would not let that guy touch your car if he suggest a 7:1 cr for only 15psi. There are a number of SHO's that regularly see 15psi and up on stock pistons @ at the stock 9.8:1 cr. With my 9:1 (can be ordered from JE, SS, Josh, and just about any piston company) I will have no fear of running 18psi (and more).

It was before. I shifted into third during a hard run, and boom. No gears at all. I thought I twisted my input shaft off.
I got a new trans and gearset and quaife ready (thanks to Beth), and when I removed my old trans it was fine. Just the clutch disk was blown.
So now I had a perfectly good trans with quaife installed, but at least with my new trans, I'll never have to worry about third, or the input shaft again.

 

[shobe]

So Josh or beth are the people to talk to about the transmission build up? About how much does that cost?

 

[Lupo]

So Josh or beth are the people to talk to about the transmission build up? About how much does that cost?

Josh at www.shonutperformance.com is the person to talk to for the HD gearset, quaife, and other tranny refresh parts.
Get a used trans and ship it all to Beth, and have her do the rebuild.
I highly recommend Beth, you really can't find anyone better, and she is very fair with her prices.

Josh's HD gearset
+
Quaife
+
Rebuild by Beth
=
World's most bullet-proof SHO trans.

 

[SHO Dude]

I'm putting 325hp on the ground with a BONE STOCK engine. No kidding. It's a $300 engine. I bought a trashed '89 out of some guys back yard, pulled the motor and threw the rest of the car away (kept the tranny and the sway bars). Then I threw some gaskets at it and strapped the blower on. HP line from the dyno is not a curve. It's a straight line that ends in the rev limiter. This was even before my SCT tuning. Can't wait to see what it's gonna make now.
For a built boosted motor, I'd start with 9.0:1 pistons and put about 10cc in the chambers. Opening up the chambers and laying back the quench area will make a ton of torque under boost. Plus, it'll drop the cr another 1/2 a point. Major port work, intake work or BBB's don't do much for a boosted engine. You're cramming the air in there anyway. The air is gonna find it's way into the chamber without spending all the money on parts.

Got just about anything you might need.

 

[Mike Kopstain]

Major port work, intake work or BBB's don't do much for a boosted engine. You're cramming the air in there anyway. The air is gonna find it's way into the chamber without spending all the money on parts.

I will respectfully dissagree with this statement. These modifications are actually more of a benefit on a forced induction motor. Regardless of whether the motor is under vacuum or having air compressed into it, a restriction is a restriction and their is a gain to be had by improving on the flow. The gain is exponentially better with a forced induction vehicle.

 

[Toolman]

I will respectfully dissagree with this statement. These modifications are actually more of a benefit on a forced induction motor. Regardless of whether the motor is under vacuum or having air compressed into it, a restriction is a restriction and their is a gain to be had by improving on the flow. The gain is exponentially better with a forced induction vehicle.

I will agree with you Mike, to a certain extent. The only way to know what my BBB's and EH intake are doing for me is to remove them and dyno, which I plan on doing once. The biggest difference will probably be that I make about the same hp at a higher boost level. In other words, for a given psi with my EH intake and BBB's, I would make more hp than without, but I do not see the gains being very large, since they are not a major restriction. Were the stock parts inhibitingly restrictive, then yes, I would concur with you, but I do not think that is the case here, at least not to a degree that warrants the $2000 plus layout for it (head/cams, EH, BBB's). In closing, were I doing a turbo project, the last thing I would concentrate on would be the above mentioned items. I do plan on getting cams and some head work done, but it will be after the tuning and gearset respectively.

 

[Mike Kopstain]

The more air you get in, the more you get out, the more power is made. In turn, if you can get it in quicker and out quicker (intake/ exhaust velocity), you're increasing efficiency and moving a larger volume of air for any given time period, but again you're making more power. Keep in mind also that we're talking about supercharged cars here which will vary when compared to a turbocharged car. In essence, we're comparing apples to oranges but nonetheless, I'll elaborate:

Some might say that upping the boost on your blower will realize the same power gain that these parts will add while not increasing boost. It will, to an extent. While volumetric efficiency slightly increases with RPM (in the blower), adiabatic efficiency takes a dive in the upper RPMs. This accounts for serious heat in the intake charge and also accounts for most of the knock (and blown motors) that occurs. With a high revving motor like ours it's imparative to keep the blower in it's relatively small window of optimal adiabatic efficiency. This is also why I expressed concern for Tyler's choice of a Gen I M90 on his car. While it's cheap, the output temperatures in the upper RPM will most likely result in significant knock thus negating some gains up top and compromising the engine's internals.

Rather than drop a pulley size, up the boost, experience more parasitic loss, and lower the engine RPM that adiabatic efficiency starts to plummit, I would be inclined to improve the engines own induction and exhaust. With this I can end up with less boost (less strain) and more power.

Keep in mind our cam test car and the only other car in our club running BBB's and Extrude Honed runners both made 10 horsepower more (at the wheels) than the other cars without those modifications. This is out of 10 cars that dynoed at our dyno session. The EH/BBB cars also beat out the one present 3.2 swap. So if these items result in a gain on our naturally aspirated test/ club cars, they will provide a gain relative in % improvement with a forced induction car. Also keep in mind that everything is a restriction; boost is a measurement of restriction. If you open up the exhaust, port the heads, and use larger valves, boost goes down but power goes up. So does reliability.

There is a reason why the supercharged cars can't stay together. People don't monitor (or don't have the provision of monitoring) knock, don't think they need to run intercoolers on higher boost levels, run with stock timing advance, and just generally don't think the laws of physics apply to the SHO when indeed they do.

I would make the statement, as bold as it might seem, that the supercharged SHOs were never tuned right up until a couple years ago when the SC Tuner was released, then last year when we got the TwEECer out, and this year when Doug got the SCT Superchips system going. The LPMs included with these kits included seriously rich fuel tables and an 80mm MAF transfer function. With all due respect, I think little thought has been put into supercharging these cars past getting the blower and plumbing to bolt on to the motor. If anyone is curious they need not look further than the timing advance commanded on the SHO Shop's supercharger kit LPM.

I'm not referring to Doug's kit in any of the above. I have no experience with that kit or any of it's specifics. I can see however that some of the air flow concerns I expressed would also fit in with Doug's kit.

Again, these are just my observations and notes from my experiences.

 

[Lupo]

Some of us with superchargers have intercoolers!

Latest picture: (Note the new FPR on the firewall)

The other thing you forgot to mention is the problem with the stock FPR when you use a high capacity fuel pump. Everybody with a SHO Shop kit and tuning had idle hunting and stalling, and ultra rich idle. SHO Shop never figured this out, or maybe didn't care. I remember being annoyed that my car would idle hunt, and asking them if they had any ideas. No help. It wasn't untill Josh shed light on the problem, and the solution.
Also, I do not see who would be crazy enough to run 18psi with V2 vortech, and not have some sort of charge cooling. I guess as long as you made a single dyno run that was 500whp, it didn't matter that the motor blew up soon after.
Also with the old setups, the MAF was pegged well before 400hp. Josh has the solution to this as well with the Lightning MAF. That's my next upgrade.
Slowly, all of these problems are getting worked out, so now is a great time to put together a properly tuned supercharged SHO. We have options and solutions now that we didn't have just a couple years ago.

 

[Mike Kopstain]

Some of us with superchargers have intercoolers!

Noted sir. After seeing the temperature drops I have a feeling you're the IC's biggest advocate.

Also, I do not see who would be crazy enough to run 18psi with V2 vortech, and not have some sort of charge cooling. I guess as long as you made a single dyno run that was 500whp, it didn't matter that the motor blew up soon after.

I remember quite recently an 18psi car being sold on eBay with no charge cooling and that's not the first I've heard of it.

Slowly, all of these problems are getting worked out, so now is a great time to put together a properly tuned supercharged SHO. We have options and solutions now that we didn't have just a couple years ago.

Precisely my point. I think we're only starting to get seriously into the cars now. I think we're going to see a lot of innovating things in the new year.

 

[K-Dawg]

Looks good Lupo!