Here's my take on all of this.
Yes, a properly tuned stock turbo, stock motor combo will run 12's with traction, good gas and higher than 17psi of boost. But from what I gather in your post, you're gonna be riding around on 93 octane and regular radials. (college student and all)
A T63E is way to much for a stock converter to spool, it would need at least a 3500 stall converter to spool up properly. Yes, these three turbos would also garner you 12's as well. TA-49, TE-44, and GT3255E. However here's the drawbacks to those 3.
- All three will require traction and launching the car hard to run 12's, not too mention 17psi+ of boost to maybe break into the 12's with a bone stock motor.
- On the GT3255E, the heat sheild will not bolt on like stock without some fabrication.
- Unless you plan on getting serious with the bolt ons, you will be looking to upgrade the turbo within a year.
In my honest opinion, here is the turbo that I would recommend.
PT6131RE dual ball bearing if you can swing it. If not, the PT6131E will work as well, but it won't spool up quiet as fast as the dual ball bearing version. Both will make enough hp to run 12's on 93 pump gas. You will need at least 42.5# 009 injectors to support this turbo on boost levels below 22psi. If you plan on upgrading the intercooler and all the rest of the bolt ons, then I would go with 50# Delphi injectors. They would be a perfect match to the PT6131E. 600 flywheel hp capability for the injectors and 600 flywheel hp capability for the turbo. Get yourself an Eric Marshal Turbo Tweak chip and enjoy the ride. With the dbb version of that turbo, you will have serious traction issues once you start turning up the boost. Also, the stock intercooler will run deep into the 12's but you will need to let the car cool down at least 45 minutes between runs due to heat soak. Unless it's 20* ambient.
Being on a budget, here is the plan of attack I would take with a bone stocker.
- A good spring cleaning done to the car. Plugs Autolite 23's gapped at a tight .032, wires, oil, filters, clean the intercooler of oil. Check out this link for more history.
The Grand National / T-Type / Turbo Regal Buick Spring Cleaning Guide
I would also highly advise you to either replace the factory oil cooler with an external mount oil cooler, or completely remove the adapter and the lines all together. Over time, bearing material from the motor and the turbo will get trapped inside the factory oil cooler and will leach it's way back into your motor and turbo. The factory oil cooler can not be completely cleaned out and to be honest, the oil cooler is not a manditory item on these cars. We're not road racing here, it's over kill and can potential cause bearing failures over time.
- Hot wire kit for the fuel pump.
- Walbro F2000169 255lph in tank fuel pump with install kit.
- Adjustable fuel pressure regulator with externally mounted (not rail mounted) fuel pressure gauge.
- Set of Delphi 50# injectors flow matched. (PTE)
- Eric Marshal Turbo Tweak chip for 93 octane. (Just remember, it's not recommended to go past 17psi with a 93 octane street chip. Because the fueling is not enough for higher boost levels. Detonation will occur)
- Scanmaster 2.1 for tuning on the fly is first tuning tool that you will need. It will help you learn how to properly tune the car on the fly and will save your car. After you master the Scanmaster, then step up to the Power Logger, which is a PC/laptop based scan tool with datalogging features.
- A good pillar mounted 2 1/16" boost gauge, either Autometer or VDO. I would recommend one that shows vacume to zero to boost. (Autometers' 30-0-30 series of boost gauges) With the way the DBB PT6131RE spools, you will be practicing launching with zero boost showing and the vacume readings are very useful for such antics.
- PT6131RE turbo with standard spring wastegate actuator, water coolant lines and oil feed line. (or journal bearing version and everything else that you have will bolt on.) I highly recommend you get the wastegate actuator at time of purchase because it will be installed in the proper orientation and the proper actuator bracket, making installation a whole lot easier.
- 3 bolt header to turbo copper gasket.
- 9" x 3" K&N cone filter to bolt directly to the stock MAF. (cut a hole inside the outlet neck just large enough so that the MAT sensor will fit snugly.
- 3" MAF pipe.
- 3" smooth mandrel bent downpipe.
- Hookers' cat back exhaust system, hard to beat for the price and enough exhaust system to run 10s. BTDT.
- RJC power plate for use with stock plenum.
- 100# valve springs (Kirbans) Very important if mileage is over 85K.
- Double roller timing chain. (Don't reuse the tensioner) Also important if over 85k miles.
- Mickey Thompson 275/50-15 ET Drag Radials on stock wheels.
- Dual air bags for the rear coil springs.
- A front mount intercooler, or a stock location intercooler once you reach 12.00s at 109-110 range.
At this point, before you jump in and crank the boost to the moon on race gas with a race chip and fingers crossed, I would do a compression check.
You want all 6 cylinders to be within 10%. On a high mileage motor (100K+ miles) good numbers that I wouldn't hesistate hitting it with decent boost levels, would be in the 110 - 140psi range. With all 6 being in the 10% range. Back when my old grey car had 98K miles, I did a compression check before I put a huge for the time turbo on it, and all of my readings ranged in the 132psi for a low to 140psi for a high. I let her have it at that point.
From here, you could do the 70mm throttle body and PTE upper plenum, torque converter, light weight wheels, RJC crank pulley, and an alky injection kit with matching Turbo Tweak alky chip to run 20-25psi of boost and tune the car deep into the 11's with traction.
This will be a very fun combo that will live for awhile if tuned for zero knock retard and care with regards to boost levels and gas octane. With a street chip, you can get away with running 18-19psi of boost only if you run pure 100-103 octane unleaded, but not if you just pour in 5 gallons and hope for the best. In the past, with a similar combo, I was able to run 18psi all day long with a 93 octane chip but only by running a front mount intercooler. Remember, ambient temps dramatically affect performance and fuel requirements, as well as your detonation threshold with regards to how much boost you can run on 93 octane.
Sorry this is so long and hope some of it helps.
Patrick
I'm holding you to that! :biggrin:
