Turbofied Griff?
Discussion
There was an amazing twin turbo Griff that used to do Brighton Speed Trials every year - it was bought by one of the Bromley locals & it was fantastically quick.
Sorry to say, it went up in flames a while ago & was written off, but I have an enduring memory of giving it all I could in my Griff only to look in my rear view mirror to see the twin turbo coming up behind me like I was standing still!!
Nick
Sorry to say, it went up in flames a while ago & was written off, but I have an enduring memory of giving it all I could in my Griff only to look in my rear view mirror to see the twin turbo coming up behind me like I was standing still!!
Nick
Nickthebassist said:
So they do exist! What kind of performance are we talking? Is it also one of the turbo griffs that can be seen mullering a Ferrari F430 on Youtube?
If its the vid I think you are referring to, its at V-max and its UncleBulgaria's completely standard Griff...its just the driver thats on steroids 
There was a Red Griff TT at Rockingham couple years back (Days of Thunder weekend) this car had a lot of body mods; bonnet vents, defusers, side brake vent gills in the bodywork front and rear etc. I've never been able to find out anything about this car since.
Edited by Bluebottle on Sunday 20th January 11:08
V8 GRF said:
If anyone knows or finds out about these, will they please contact me as I'd love to do a piece for Sprint on one, thanks.
As mentioned, they can burn well
I know we had to get several burly types to sit in the boot to keep it on a rolling road - once the turbos cut in the wheels just kept spinning, & it was pretty much the same on the road
Sounded like a bag of spanners, went like an absolute rocket.
Nick
Turbo's are definately not the way to go for a road car. The supercharger is probably the only way to get enough progression to usefully use the power IMHO. Remember seeing a turboed grif(chim?) at the MisEssex club meet a few years back. Guy had spent 20k!! Also met a guy at the Cambridge meet whom had Nitros Oxide, but was not legal to use on public road...
Edit to add... Also remember talking to Michael Caine (ex Castle TVR) who used to teach at track days. He had an airfield day with this guy with a turboed Grif which just became uncontrollable when the boost came in!! Sounds fun though!
Edit to add... Also remember talking to Michael Caine (ex Castle TVR) who used to teach at track days. He had an airfield day with this guy with a turboed Grif which just became uncontrollable when the boost came in!! Sounds fun though!
Edited by Chimjunkie on Sunday 20th January 15:08
V8 GRF said:
If anyone knows or finds out about these, will they please contact me as I'd love to do a piece for Sprint on one, thanks.
Picture above is defo PlasticMans Griff...With all the body styling and engine mods he's done to various tivs over the years I'm sure you could make several articles out of what he has done. (you had his T350 in Sprint last month)spend said:
I don't think you should damn all turbos, just because of particular instances. Selection of turbo, management of the boost etc. need to be carefully considered, thats why the experience of chaps like Boosted are essential IMHO.
Dave
A supercharged installation is simpler in a lot of ways, and has the advantage of much simpler transient behaviour. With a turbo there's always the problem that it's not just your right foot that controls the power, the turbo can add and remove torque as it comes on and off boost. The problem with a supercharger is that there is no solution that gives flat boost across the board *and* is as efficient as a turbo. You can have one or the other but not both. Dave
Turbos also have the advantage that they are more or less pressure balanced across the engine so you don't have the blow-through problem that some blowers can suffer from. This means you can use a more conventional cam and don't have to compromise the cam characteristics so much.
spend said:
I don't think you should damn all turbos, just because of particular instances. Selection of turbo, management of the boost etc. need to be carefully considered, thats why the experience of chaps like Boosted are essential IMHO.
Dave
Sorry, just read what i wrote, was only referring to V8 chim/grif. Obviously turbos work for most road cars. Was meaning what GreenV8s said about not being in absolute control with the power. Also referring to the massive power that is produced by the V8 turbo cars that I am aware of. Plenty of road cars have some scary surges in power let alone with all the torque to go with a V8. Obviously all im my rather limited experience and opinion.Dave
Funnily enough I helped Geary get started with his turbo Griff. I supplied buick 300 cylinder heads to lower his c/r by appx 2 ratios and his bottom end was a fairly stock 4.6 iirc. The heads were ported and bigger exhaust valves fitted. He fitted a single Rotomaster TO4E up front where the headers merged. The flow specs for that turbo aren't very good, I'd have preferred a TO4B but it went well enough. He had 4wd on there as well, sierra based iirc. The gearbox was like a t5 but with a take off on the drivers side which powered the front diff. Rear diff was driven by the propshaft as normal.
I fitted a rotomaster onto a 4.8 rv8 and the boost at idle was sufficient to blow your hand away from the discharge pipe. Horses for courses as Peter says. the rotomaster isn't cheap once you had up all the parts.
I fitted a rotomaster onto a 4.8 rv8 and the boost at idle was sufficient to blow your hand away from the discharge pipe. Horses for courses as Peter says. the rotomaster isn't cheap once you had up all the parts.
GreenV8S said:
...The problem with a supercharger is that there is no solution that gives flat boost across the board *and* is as efficient as a turbo. You can have one or the other but not both...
What do you mean? I always thought that superchager gave a better power delivery to turbos, and it was just energy required to turn it over that was the downside?When I was in SC Power Chimp It felt as tho the power was progressive and across the rev range. Certainly looking at his dyno readout it appeared to give the same curve, just half an inch further up the page.
Bluebottle said:
What do you mean? I always thought that superchager gave a better power delivery to turbos, and it was just energy required to turn it over that was the downside?
When I was in SC Power Chimp It felt as tho the power was progressive and across the rev range. Certainly looking at his dyno readout it appeared to give the same curve, just half an inch further up the page.
There are two common types of superchargers. The traditional positive displacement (e.g. Rootes) blowers give a constant boost across the rev range so you can get stump-pulling torque from tickover, but they tend to be relatively inefficient at high boost levels and at high revs. These suit big lazy engines that you want to convert to behave like even bigger lazier engines.When I was in SC Power Chimp It felt as tho the power was progressive and across the rev range. Certainly looking at his dyno readout it appeared to give the same curve, just half an inch further up the page.
The centrefugal blowers that are becoming more popular these days (this is the sort that the TVR Power SC conversion uses) are much more efficient at higher boost levels and high revs so better at producing the headline numbers, but the boost rises with revs. You will have plenty of boost at the top end but there will be much less at lower revs. These suit engines that need something to fill in the top end rather than a low rev stump puller.
Edited by GreenV8S on Sunday 20th January 17:38
Bluebottle said:
V8 GRF said:
If anyone knows or finds out about these, will they please contact me as I'd love to do a piece for Sprint on one, thanks.
Picture above is defo PlasticMans Griff...With all the body styling and engine mods he's done to various tivs over the years I'm sure you could make several articles out of what he has done. (you had his T350 in Sprint last month)
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