Suggestions Wanted....

[86turbonational]

Hey there!

Well as some of you already know I am starting my body off resto on my 85 t-type. Originally i was gonna intercool it but I want to keep her stock appearing for now. The questions are, I want to run solid 12.20-12.60 all day long and keep the factory look. I mean as close to stock as possible.

So since you guys are the experts I would like some suggestions on what you have and what you think I should buy to achieve this. Money is not a problem neither is time ( I have an 06 ram for everyday ) I am thinking about a girdle, rods, pistons, aluminum heads, extrude honed intake, injectors, and turbo but im not sure as what pieces will work the best for me.

This car will be driven sunny day and probably 7k miles a year with minimal racing. I have read about upgrading to the 87 ECM and such and I happen to already have the full 87 wiring harness and ecm. should I put this in when i put the car back together?


Also, the car will have a factory trans with a performance rebuild but only a transgo SHIFT IMPROVER kit. I want to retain the factory ride and shift when im not on it. it also has a new 1800 stall in it. The car has the factory 3:42 gears and I dont want to change any of that stuff.

So... what do ya think?

Thanks guys for the help, this is a great site!

 

[BRAD_PADGETT]

Check my signature and it will give you easily 80% of what you need to do. I could get to your goal of low twelves but in my case it would take sticky tires and turning up the boost from 20PSI to 25PSI. I do not think my car could run all day at this level either because the bottom half of the engine is stock. Good luck and chime in everyone. Brad

 

[86turbonational]

Check my signature and it will give you easily 80% of what you need to do. I could get to your goal of low twelves but in my case it would take sticky tires and turning up the boost from 20PSI to 25PSI. I do not think my car could run all day at this level either because the bottom half of the engine is stock. Good luck and chime in everyone. Brad

hummm.... looks like i may be able to keep it appearing stock with that set too! so if i bought all forged internals ( which i was gonna do anyways ) it would handle the 25psi with out getting too hott? im not gonna run a slick but i possibly might run a set of ET radials or some BFG drag radials. I want to retain the stock looking size though.

I want to show the euro kids here a thing or 2 about a real muscle car and this is the reason for wanting it stock appearing. I will let them think it IS all stock! lololol

 

[BRAD_PADGETT]

With the mechanical fan the engine runs too hot. I would keep the mechanical fan and add an electric one in front of the F-body radiator out of sight. You also do not need drag radials-just get sticky tires. Brad

 

[86turbonational]

With the mechanical fan the engine runs too hot. I would keep the mechanical fan and add an electric one in front of the F-body radiator out of sight. You also do not need drag radials-just get sticky tires. Brad

does that turbo sound good? i NEED a really LOUD turbo lolol !
I am just starting on the car but it will be done very soon. I have always been a racer and all my motors have been built with the top of the line forged internals, its just safe cheap insurance..

I think that this is gonna be a sweet project that hopefully my 7 year old son will drive when he gets older

 

[BRAD_PADGETT]

I do not know what you mean by loud. You can easily hear it in the car as it whines. The TA33C flow twice the CFM ~700 than the stock turbo all in the stock housing. I easily trashed a Sub. WRX STI and they are supposed to 13.0 type cars. Correct me if I am wrong. Good luck. Brad

 

[MoeJr]

STI can be a 13.1 ride with a good driver.

86 you gonna want a 2800 stall converter like Brad. A little bigger cam will help say like the Comp Cams 212/212 grind for the TR's. On an 85 I would definitely run alky and yes convert to the 87 ECM. The key is gonna be in the rebuild itself. It must be done right and the pieces matched. Good heads with the stock intake ported. The TA33 turbo should be plenty for your goal. Get a quality custom chip like Turbo Tweaks and you'll geet to your goal and show them euro boys not to mess with a hotair Buick. Good Exhaust is a must including a bigger downpipe. Hope this helps.

 

[Sam Colalillo]

stroke it.

Put A DLS 3.625 stroke crank in it. Bore it .030 over and you will have 251 cubic inches. Might even be able to nuetral balance it, this would allow you to maintain your goal of stock appearing even to a trained eye, because you would still have your stock balancer.

 

[86turbonational]

Well all the machine and head work is gonna be done at koffels place ( it helps to know people ) and they have a set of aluminum heads that are suppost to be awsome!! The actual building itself will be done by myself but this is second nature to me.

as far as the turbo the ta33 seems like the way to go. I will be looking into the different camshafts aswell. that comp cams 212.212 will i be able to keep some decent gas milage with that cam? and what about the idle quality?

I was thinking about the kenne bell setup for exhaust and plumbing, from what I have read it seems like a good way to go.. do you really think i should increase the cubes and stroke for a dialy driver with a/c? also how would this affect the fuel econ. and drivability?

 

[MoeJr]

The added displacement of say going to a 250+ CI will allow a slightly milder build up but with equal performance to the smaller engine.

The 212/212 cam is gonna idle a little lumpier but will still be streetable and get good gas mileage. You cannot go into a performance build worrying about gas mileage though. It will still be good but not like a stocker.

Your goals are not out of this world. They are obtainable. Just ask questions especially people running what you want to run. Brad sounds like he isat high 12's so he would be a great source of ifo. Lee Thompson is also a good source as his Hotair TType was in the 11's.

 

[boostmaster]

Your goals are not out of this world. They are obtainable. Just ask questions especially people running what you want to run. Brad sounds like he isat high 12's so he would be a great source of ifo. Lee Thompson is also a good source as his Hotair TType was in the 11's.

Correction in the 10's. Also note to self any mods that work on the intercooled cars work on the hot airs. The biggest improvement you can make without doing anything else that "will" get you the results you want with proper tuning is (1) replace the passenger side header (very restrictive). (2) Replace the down pipe. These are the first mods that are absolutely necessary everything else is just added insurance.

 

[cwmccray]

Look Stock, but not

Lee Thompson had his baby blue T-Type running 10.62 @ 124 and it looked stock except for his own headers and downpipe. This was ALOT of tuning and trial and error. No one else has come close except for Jamie (turbo6x2) 11.50's . I suspect she will be getting close. Lee proved that DETERMINATION could exceed "just throw parts and it supposed to run". Lee got his car to run as fast as it could and decided to intercool it. Some people think that we give him TOO MUCH credit. Well, others went fast, but Lee went FASTER. He went 11.40's with stock block 4.1, in the 10's with a stage I block... all in hotair configuration Do a search in the archives under Lee Thompson (leeo) or Jamie (turbo6x2). Or if you feel like "spraying NOS", Terri Penner ran 11's with a basic setup.

To sum this up, it depends on you motivation...

 

[86turbonational]

Well I know the potential is there for sure. Wanting a car in the 12's is not too much for one of these cars. I just want to make sure to buy the right parts the first time so i will get more driving/cruising time than down time working on it.

The thing I said about a loud turbo, well my friend took me for a ride in his 87 GN thats all stock and you could see the boost was being made but you couldnt really hear the whistle of the turbo. Now the guy who used to live next door to me had an 86 that was all stock aswell and his turbo sounded like my 7.3 powerstroke!! I swear to this day that you could hear that whistle from at least 3 blocks away!! It was for sure the sweetist sounding car there was and I would like a turbo that you can actually tell the car has a turbo on it.

I had a dodge omni some time ago that went 12:68 in the 1/4 it was intercooled and had a automatic trans with convertor, a super 60 turbo and a custom cal. computer, 3 bar map sensor and so on. the turbo on this thing was amazing sounding especially at almost 30psi!!!!


But again, this car will be more of a show car than a rcae car. I will probably take it to the track once a year or so just to get the timeslip. I will be running the ricers once and a great while too. Here in mi. if you get cought drag racing they take your car and you CANNOT get it back, EVER!!! so its def. not worth it to lose my ride over that..


i really love all the suggestions so far and have already came up with some soild parts that i have added to my list to get ahold of.

thank you guys and of course, more suggestions are welcome too

 

[cool 84]

I pretty much gave you the list of parts in your other post.

Since you seem to have money, you might as well over build it a little so you won't have to run as much boost to meet your goal. Go with as many cubes as you can. The 4.1L blocks are in the junkyards and very cheap. You won't notice a difference in gas mileage but the power will be there and you can go bigger on things like the cam and turbo and still have great street manners. I managed to get 28mpg on the freeway with my 4.1L and everything that's in my sig. If you think about that, I have a bigger motor and a ton of mods and it gets better mileage than stock.

I personally would go with something bigger than a 33 turbo. It will get you to your goal but a bigger turbo will get you there easier. Get a set of killer heads like ported GN1s. A 212-212 cam will idle perfect in a 3.8L and you can get away with a little more in a 4.1. Port the intake manifold, headers, downpipe, port the throttlebody, and you should hit your goal with pump gas.

A set of drag radials is mandatory. Also, with the throttlebody before the turbo, the whistle will never be as loud as the IC cars. Run an open K&N filter under the hood and the turbo will be dramatically louder. Last, the stock bottom end is plenty strong for your goal. It will take 25psi all day long if you're detonation free and only running mid 12s. Think about it, what would put more stress, a stock setup running 25psi going 13.0s or a highly modded motor going low 11s at 17psi. It would be neat to see someone run a stroker in a 4.1 block. At 4.5L you would have a V6 the size of a small V8.

 

[tb3]

I feel like a dummy for asking this, so go easy on me. Is it true that when porting a stock hot air intake, in order to do it most effectively, you need to cut the upper plenum off to get inside to do the most effective porting to get them to flow the best, then reweld it back on?

 

[BRAD_PADGETT]

I my case the answer is no. The hot air intake is designed for water/ alky inj. The improvement from porting was great. Good luck. Brad

 

[cool 84]

I feel like a dummy for asking this, so go easy on me. Is it true that when porting a stock hot air intake, in order to do it most effectively, you need to cut the upper plenum off to get inside to do the most effective porting to get them to flow the best, then reweld it back on?

Do a search. This has been asked many times. I've done my intake in steps. The biggest gain was from porting but there was a difference in cutting the top off and gutting it. I would say 80% of your gains are from porting alone.

I should add that when I ported mine, i ported it to the felpro 1200 intake gaskets all the way up. This required welding the sides of the runners because the stock intake didn't have enough material for that much porting.