Some years ago we put a Buick draw-thru turbo setup on a 225 slant six. Replaced the lean burn Rochester with a 750 Holley. There was no bog or hesitation since the impeller blades turned the raw fuel into a mist or gas I guess. The exhaust was louder since the mufler was removed and the exhaust came out just in front of the driver's side door. Sounded like normal til ya nailed it, then the turbo spooled up and it sounded great. 15 lbs boost on a bone stock slant. Use to beat up on big blocks on Speedway Boulevard here in Tucson. Was alot of fun. I'm helping a buddy with his 31 Ford coupe right now. It has a 341 Desoto with twin turbos and it too is a draw-thru setup. Just got done running it with a carb to get the cam broke in. At about 1,600 lbs it should be a handful.
I'd bet I can cross that chasm in 1-1/2 jumps using purely American domestic, traditional techniques. I can relate to this since the sound of a spooling turbo and an open atmospheric dump wastegate is usually enough to scare the crap out of whoever happens to be next to your car and in that moment of surprise is the key to victory He who hesitates is toast.
This is it. Still being built. I aim to light a fire under his ass to get this thing going. I made some molds and had the intakes as well as the turbo connector cast using the lost wax method. The plenum is welded. I believe the carbs are 450 cfm. The rods are Pontiac chromoly H-beam with 7'16" bolts and the pistons are 8.6-1 Ross. The turbos are from the single turbo Nissan 300ZX from back in the 80s. They have the proper seals for which the draw-thru systems can be used. The heads are ported and have 2.02" Chevy intakes and 1.77" Pontiac exhausts cut down to 1.73". The exhaust seats are Pontiac.
Glad you posted pics of the 31, Bill. I was wondering how you did draw-though with "a carb" and twins...
This is a interesting and informative thread. I will like it even more when you start tuning it. I plan on learning a lot.
That sure is pretty cool and unusual. Congrats and good luck. I'm looking forward to seeing how you progress with it.
I don't know the designation of the turbos. All I know is that they are much larger than the ones on the twin turbo cars. They're from the 300ZXs from the mid 80s and had just 1 turbo. The engines were the 3.0 and were about 187 ci. They made 222 HP at 7 lbs boost and had a compression of 7.5-1. The setup on John's engine used to be mine, but we did some horse trading and it's his now. I have a couple of the same turbos that have been rebuilt. I plan to do another one for myself someday. I've been gathering up what I need to build a small foundry in the back yard. Hope to do more castings then. Bill
the z31 (83-89 300zx) used 2 different turbos. early ones used t3, later used t25 with a t3 exhaust flange. the z32 twin turbo (90-96 300zx) used 2 t25s. they arent that much smaller. kinda scary that you are running turbos that you dont know the specs of. build looks killer though. carry on.
Come to think of it, they may from the 280s. I was working for Nissan at the time and they would give me turbos that were coked up. Then they were getting the water cooled units and I was able to score some of those until the factory started asking for the old units back as a warranty issue. I got rebuild units on ebay from a site with the name of bamabev. Only $125 for each rebuilt cartridge. We ran one once on a slant 6. It had one of those adapters on which the carb sat and there were 2 check valves that closed when boost was made. It ran fine. The stock exhaust was used, but a 4-bbl Offy intake on which to put the adapter. Clifford cam, lifters, and pushrods. I had photos, but they all went up in smoke when my last computer died. I sold the entire setup on ebay when I decided to go with the Desoto motor. The six felt more like a 318 when it got going. If you go on youtube, and type in slant six turbo, you'll find a guy with a 66 Valiant with a 170 running high 10s. It use to run a pair of turbos from the 2.2 Dodges. Now it is a much larger Garrett with an intercooler up under the hood. Sweet!
Whoa! Pretty insane setup! Almost looks like it will just fit inside of a hood, with the exception of the scoop, as well.
I was based in Hawaii while in the Navy back in the mid 70s. I picked up a Petersons book on Mopars and saw that photo of the Gene Adams car with the turbos. After picking up my Desoto 341 I thought I might try and duplicate that 392 in some fashion. I tried to do it in my 67 Valiant, but there wasn't near enough room. I'm doing the best I can with the room I have and am close now. It has TPI injection to make it streetable and intercooling to help with these balmy Tucson summers.
Its unfortunate that the turbo really didn't become popular until after our time period here on the HAMB and doesn't look that period correct anyways (cause meet effect?) It would be interesting to do a digger with a similar setup using what we know today. Transbrake on a glide and a 2-step would bring the boost up right at the hit which clearly isn't on the adams/enriquez job. Still don't know where the wastegates are in the picture?!? Maybe none?
A buddy raced boats and he talks about KS Pitman running a turbo'd 354 hemi in TF boats and cleaning up people like Eddie & Ercie Hill etc. I asked but Don don't have any pics from back then, he said KS' boost gage needle was wrapped around the 30psi post. I believe it was twin turbo, must've been in the 1970's.
They do seem to have a hard time actually calculating it, don't they? Sometimes I wonder if they like to talk it up for show. Kind of like those bands that run 10 amplifiers behind them on stage.... but the sound is actually only coming out of one or two amps... with the rest just to "wow" those who don't know any better. Not saying the modern fuelers aren't making that much. Just saying that I sometimes wonder.
My brother put a pair of the 300ZX turbos on his 340 Dart. Draw-thru with single carb. Looks kinda funky, but it worked. The turbos were far away from the carb, but he had no problems. It was bone stock and ran like a raped ape until it didn't.
The Jalopy Journal
