Discussion
Morning, not my usual forum, but a mate of mine has a Spyder and wants to add a pair of turbos to the beast.
Does anyone know of a reputable place, preferably in Surrey/SE England that can carry out this work?
He was quoted £8k somewhere which I thought sounded extortionate.
Cheers,
Adam
Does anyone know of a reputable place, preferably in Surrey/SE England that can carry out this work?
He was quoted £8k somewhere which I thought sounded extortionate.
Cheers,
Adam
lotuslad said:
Morning, not my usual forum, but a mate of mine has a Spyder and wants to add a pair of turbos to the beast.
Does anyone know of a reputable place, preferably in Surrey/SE England that can carry out this work?
He was quoted £8k somewhere which I thought sounded extortionate.
Cheers,
Adam
£8k may be more reasonable than you think. By the time you buy 2 turbos, 2 wastegates, 1 or 2 Intercoolers, 1 or 2 bov, custom fabricate all the intercooler piping, mountings, ducting, custom fabricate the exhaust, upgrade the fuel system, hours of dyno time, etc. the price gets up there pretty fast.
My friend spent 100+ hours just on the exhaust for my single turbo set up. I am running an ls1 and there aren't any kits out there that would work for our cars. All the kits put the turbo's in front of the motor. Depending on your engine maybe they have some rear set ups available.
Mark
gtr-tt said:
I guess the ones that see all these problems has no experiance at all with turbos. Probably they, in the year 2004, still thinks carburators are the way to go...
Time to wake up! Dare to try something new, you will be amazed!
Mikael, it's not so much an issue of 'can it be done', more an issue of 'is it worth it?' At the end of the day, if driving the car is an exercise in watching temperature guages, being paranoid about being stuck in traffic etc. it makes for a fairly unenjoyable experience.
Trust me - I know!
Am I right in thinking your car isn't on the road yat? If so - you'll know what we mean soon enough.
>> Edited by Stig on Friday 2nd July 11:04
I was thinking of turboing my GTR when I build mines... But what are the disadvantages to a turbo or twinturbo in comparison to an aspirated engine? It's quite clear that heat can be a problem. But I have heard turbo lag can also be a problem as well. You won't get instantaneous response when you hit the gas. Any other? Is it worth it?
The only reason I like turboing a car are mainly being able to adjust the turbo boost, large amount of HP for a fairly decent price, and less stress on an engine in comparison to a highly tuned, high revving aspirated engine.
Hi D3vine,
That turbo lag is actually fuel lag. If your going with turbos, I think you should budget for EFI. Motec is good, as some of these guys are using on here, but in the US most people with less than $15k invested in their motors are running either Holley 950 or FAST EFI systems. You'll want a 2 or 3 bar MAP sensor and you must run in Speed-Density mode. The guy running the yellow twin turbo GTR(which is for sale BTW), is running the FAST efi and a kinsler stack injection manifold. You don't really need the stack manifold, but I really think a programmable EFI is a necessity to address the turbo lag scenario that you describe. The heat will be another issue, and will require carefull routing of the exhaust plumbing. At the end of the day, I really feel like it is too ambitious of a project for someone on a budget and just getting into this hobby. However, I believe Kurt, the guy with the yellow TT GTR, has put together a twin-turbo package for the GTR that you might want to inquire about. If Kurt's behind the engineering of the system, its probably pretty good. He'll also probably have some ideas on the heat issue. He ran his car at the Las Vegas track during a couple of summers. His big problem was cooling the driver back then.
Cheers!
-Mack
That turbo lag is actually fuel lag. If your going with turbos, I think you should budget for EFI. Motec is good, as some of these guys are using on here, but in the US most people with less than $15k invested in their motors are running either Holley 950 or FAST EFI systems. You'll want a 2 or 3 bar MAP sensor and you must run in Speed-Density mode. The guy running the yellow twin turbo GTR(which is for sale BTW), is running the FAST efi and a kinsler stack injection manifold. You don't really need the stack manifold, but I really think a programmable EFI is a necessity to address the turbo lag scenario that you describe. The heat will be another issue, and will require carefull routing of the exhaust plumbing. At the end of the day, I really feel like it is too ambitious of a project for someone on a budget and just getting into this hobby. However, I believe Kurt, the guy with the yellow TT GTR, has put together a twin-turbo package for the GTR that you might want to inquire about. If Kurt's behind the engineering of the system, its probably pretty good. He'll also probably have some ideas on the heat issue. He ran his car at the Las Vegas track during a couple of summers. His big problem was cooling the driver back then.
Cheers!
-Mack
bigmack said:
Hi D3vine,
That turbo lag is actually fuel lag. If your going with turbos, I think you should budget for EFI. Motec is good, as some of these guys are using on here, but in the US most people with less than $15k invested in their motors are running either Holley 950 or FAST EFI systems. You'll want a 2 or 3 bar MAP sensor and you must run in Speed-Density mode. The guy running the yellow twin turbo GTR(which is for sale BTW), is running the FAST efi and a kinsler stack injection manifold. You don't really need the stack manifold, but I really think a programmable EFI is a necessity to address the turbo lag scenario that you describe. The heat will be another issue, and will require carefull routing of the exhaust plumbing. At the end of the day, I really feel like it is too ambitious of a project for someone on a budget and just getting into this hobby. However, I believe Kurt, the guy with the yellow TT GTR, has put together a twin-turbo package for the GTR that you might want to inquire about. If Kurt's behind the engineering of the system, its probably pretty good. He'll also probably have some ideas on the heat issue. He ran his car at the Las Vegas track during a couple of summers. His big problem was cooling the driver back then.
Cheers!
-Mack
Mack - just to add that to the best of my knowledge
a) Kurt spent a shed load of money on the car and was designed to have twin turbo's from the off
b) It never ran 'right'
c) It was never intended to be used as a road car
d) It's for sale
Stig,
Interesting. I had not heard the news about his car not "running right." I used to speak to him on a regular basis several years ago, and am pretty familiar with what he spent on the car. The engine itself racked up around $65k not including the turbos. It was built by a very well known Nascar outfit that he did some exhaust consulting for. He plays with pretty sophisticated engine modeling software called GTPower(I believe). When he took it to have dyno tuned on a chassis dyno, they limited the boost so that the rwhp was around 950. The FI tuning he said was really pretty straight forward and I don't think he had any difficulties tuning the engine or getting it to run right. What he explained to me, was that his real problem was keeping the car stable at high speeds during his runs. At first, he couldn't keep it stable at 180-190mph at the silverstate classic run, but then he changed the ratio on the steering rack and zero'd out the bump steer among other things and I think he ran it up to 220mph with a gear to go. At the Las Vegas track he was able to pull 8-10 car lengths from the race prepared Porsches and Vipers. Like you said, it was not a street car, and I would think keeping the rear bonnet temps cool would be a challenge. Not that those challenges couldn't be solved, but it would take some pretty smart guys to work it out. After all, these turbos are being run more and more in production cars and trucks. They may not all be mid-engine, but they would face similar cooling challenges in traffic I would think. Maybe the diesel fuel runs cooler which helps these trucks that make 500+hp out of the factory.
I'm pretty curious to find out what sort of troubles Kurt had. Do you know anything else?
Cheers!
-Mack
Interesting. I had not heard the news about his car not "running right." I used to speak to him on a regular basis several years ago, and am pretty familiar with what he spent on the car. The engine itself racked up around $65k not including the turbos. It was built by a very well known Nascar outfit that he did some exhaust consulting for. He plays with pretty sophisticated engine modeling software called GTPower(I believe). When he took it to have dyno tuned on a chassis dyno, they limited the boost so that the rwhp was around 950. The FI tuning he said was really pretty straight forward and I don't think he had any difficulties tuning the engine or getting it to run right. What he explained to me, was that his real problem was keeping the car stable at high speeds during his runs. At first, he couldn't keep it stable at 180-190mph at the silverstate classic run, but then he changed the ratio on the steering rack and zero'd out the bump steer among other things and I think he ran it up to 220mph with a gear to go. At the Las Vegas track he was able to pull 8-10 car lengths from the race prepared Porsches and Vipers. Like you said, it was not a street car, and I would think keeping the rear bonnet temps cool would be a challenge. Not that those challenges couldn't be solved, but it would take some pretty smart guys to work it out. After all, these turbos are being run more and more in production cars and trucks. They may not all be mid-engine, but they would face similar cooling challenges in traffic I would think. Maybe the diesel fuel runs cooler which helps these trucks that make 500+hp out of the factory.
I'm pretty curious to find out what sort of troubles Kurt had. Do you know anything else?
Cheers!
-Mack
Stig,
Surely someone over your way has done the turbo bit? I can't imagine that with the selection of various UK and Euro engines, that there is no interest in twin-turboing local V6's or V8's?
Gotta be somebody trying to get a MB, Beemer or something similar with turbos under the lid of an Ultima, do you think?
My Ultima plans have been pushed back. I have been offered a "promotion", requiring a move to N. California or Texas. Either I take the job or find other work.
Surely someone over your way has done the turbo bit? I can't imagine that with the selection of various UK and Euro engines, that there is no interest in twin-turboing local V6's or V8's?
Gotta be somebody trying to get a MB, Beemer or something similar with turbos under the lid of an Ultima, do you think?
My Ultima plans have been pushed back. I have been offered a "promotion", requiring a move to N. California or Texas. Either I take the job or find other work.
I'm sure this V8 Twin turboed things been done before 
Oh Yes that little company in Italy did one...
My Motec friend has a Customer in Dubi, who has over 800bhp and has regular street useage. No over-heating problems, so it can be done.
But on a more realistic note, he has driven a 610bhp Can-Am, and has said it's more than scary on the road. I must admit getting close to a few scraps with 400, so I think the increase to 600 will be enough for me. But everyman to his own....
Oh Yes that little company in Italy did one...
My Motec friend has a Customer in Dubi, who has over 800bhp and has regular street useage. No over-heating problems, so it can be done.
But on a more realistic note, he has driven a 610bhp Can-Am, and has said it's more than scary on the road. I must admit getting close to a few scraps with 400, so I think the increase to 600 will be enough for me. But everyman to his own....
Fact is the under canopy temps of an Ultima with a NA chevy are very high... I know as I had a temp guage in my engine bay on the STACK.
you'd need to do some work to keep the temps from melting point with a pair of turbos under there as well.
Also if someone asks a question here then people are going to give their views and experiences.... doen't mean they are lost in the past, or don't have experience of turbos etc.....
Gotta say that I don't really see the WHY BOTHER question as valid, as we all build our cars to our own spec.... its the whole reason many build rather than buy.
Personely I'd not put turbos in an Ultima, it just seemed right in NA form to me.... but I am putting twin turbos and MOTEC on the BMW V12 in the current car that I am building.... but there is more space and more air flow, along with twin radiators etc..etc..
All this has got me wondering again what happened to ULTIMAANIMAL who was building a twin turbo Ultima in the UK????????
you'd need to do some work to keep the temps from melting point with a pair of turbos under there as well.
Also if someone asks a question here then people are going to give their views and experiences.... doen't mean they are lost in the past, or don't have experience of turbos etc.....
Gotta say that I don't really see the WHY BOTHER question as valid, as we all build our cars to our own spec.... its the whole reason many build rather than buy.
Personely I'd not put turbos in an Ultima, it just seemed right in NA form to me.... but I am putting twin turbos and MOTEC on the BMW V12 in the current car that I am building.... but there is more space and more air flow, along with twin radiators etc..etc..
All this has got me wondering again what happened to ULTIMAANIMAL who was building a twin turbo Ultima in the UK????????
I am building an ultima twin turbo V8 at the mo but I did make make a few mods for the intercoolers etc, you can see it at www.ultimaclub.us
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