Vette on Steroids / How-To Twin Turbo the C-5

343 horsepower at the rear wheels. That's our baseline on this 05 bed as we kick off this week's horsepower.

In the past few weeks, we've used a nitrous oxide kit to make power. We have also voted up a supercharger kit.

Well, today it's turbo time and why not? It is the most

efficient way to make power and if it's new to you. Well, here's a little heads up animation to show you how it works.

Exhaust flow from the headers drives the blades of a turbine wheel before it discharges

on the other side, an impeller wheel draws in and compresses high volumes of fresh air.

These wheels ride on a close tolerant shaft that can spin over 100,000 RPM.

Since the turbo is driven off exhaust gasses, the power increase is considered free since none of the engine's power is used.

Of course, conventional front mount turbos require extensive modifications. They build up a bunch of heat under the hood and they're pretty hard to fit in an already crowded engine compartment like this.

So today we're going to try out a radical new concept in turbo charging developed by sts.

It's called a Squire system and actually bolts up in place of the factory exhaust system.

Now, it uses a pair of turbos driven by exhaust, much like a conventional set up along with waist gates to relieve excess boost. Now, one of the main advantages though is little or no modifications to the engine or the whole car. Now, after tapping into the fuse box, the first steps to install this harness,

The first three connections are this ground

a

connection here at the fuse box for a battery power source.

And finally,

this red connector that ties into the factory fuel pump.

Next, we want to remove these engine covers

and the air intake system

out back with all the taillight assemblies out of the way,

we can install the upper intake tubes

along with the supplied K and N filters.

Next, we can bolt the exhaust pipe up to the turbo. Now, these turbos are custom made by Garrett four sts and the pair is capable of producing up to 800 horsepower at the rear wheels

with the turbos bolted up. We can install this waste gate which controls the boost by dumping excess exhaust to slow the turbos down

while we're at it, we'll install this blow off valve to this intake pipe that runs up to the throttle body. Now, the purpose of this is to relieve excess boost when the throttle blades flow

that will keep the turbo spooled up during shifting.

Now with the wheels off in the car up in the air, we can remove the mufflers

and in their place,

the turbo assemblies

with new hanging hardware.

After that, we can install the waste gate duck pipes

along with the tail

pipes coming from the turbos.

But now, after removing the ball joint nut and raising the spindle for some clearance, we can start routing our charger pipes. This one goes right through the rocker panel.

By the way, there are four pieces of charger pipe connecting each turbo upfront to the inner cooler.

Now, while we're back here, I'm gonna go ahead and install this piece of pipe from the turbo compressor

to that KM filter we installed earlier.

Ok. That's the last link in our charger pipe routing. Now by now, some of you might be wondering about pressure loss from those turbos way back there to the inner cooler we'll install up front and there is a drop of about one P si but consider this those pipes drop the air temperature about 100 degrees, which is good for about 50 horsepower.

Not a bad trade off. Well, don't you run off anywhere? We'll continue our turbo install after the break.

Welcome back to a turbocharged edition of horsepower. We're installing a twin turbo kit from Sts on this 05 Corvette one that bolts up in place of the factory mufflers.

So far we've installed the wiring harness,

assembled the turbos to the exhaust pipes

and bolted up the waste gates,

then installed the assemblies out back under the car

and routed all of our charger tubing up to the front.

Now it's time to install the inner cooler. Now, most inner coolers today have about a 70% efficiency rate. But with this system, it uses a passive cooling effect through the charger pipes to give it well, over 97% efficiency rate,

it installs in front of the radiator without any cutting or modifications.

And it's held in with two bolts from the kit.

Then we connect the charger pipes to it

while the car's still in the air, let's handle the oiling system.

Now, since these turbos are mounted out back and low, there's no way for the oil to naturally drain back into the crank case. So sts has this patented oiling system that actually pulls the oil from the turbos and sends it back up to the valve covers.

After wiring it,

we're going to install it up here on the Ca

River.

After this, we could start running our lines

to supply oil to the Turbos. We installed this adapter with a fitting between the oil cooler and the filter. Then using a couple of T fittings, we connect the oiling system to our turbos. Oh, by the way, this is our supply line, this will be our return

with the wheels back on. We get the car back down to finish up under the hood

we're getting really close to hearing this twin turbo vet fire up. Now, meanwhile, here's the mass air meter we removed earlier, notice how we drilled and tapped it for this fitting. Now, this is a big trick to keeping this thing emissions legal.

Next, I can connect the front intake tube with the blow off valve. I installed earlier from the inner

cooler outlet to the mass air meter.

Then after depressurizing the fuel system,

disconnect the injector harness

and unbolt the fuel rails,

swap the stock injectors for the new 42 pound injector specially made for the LS two

and reinstall the retaining clips.

After that, we can remove the stock spark plugs and replace them with ones with a cooler heat range gap to 35 thousands.

Well, that's it for the installation. Now, we've got to reprogram the car's computer.

The sts system comes with this diablo sport tuner and use it. All we do is plug it into the port,

set the car to accessory mode and pretty much let the tuner do all the work.

It also provides all kinds of information. You can log and even make adjustments for things like timing and injector flow rate.

Well, looks like we're good to go. Oh, by the way, we got our system set for seven pounds of boost.

Let's see what kind of horsepower that gets us.

All right, you've seen us make plenty of dyno Jet runs in the past. But this time it may look a little different. I'm gonna use a sequence using the dyno brake to keep the turbo spooled up. When we make the run,

I'll get the car up to 3000 RPM.

Then I'll apply the

dyno brake to create a load.

This will bring the car down to 2500 RPM. I'll release the brake start sampling and go wide open throttle.

All right. From a baseline of 343 to 537 horsepower. That's more than a brand new. 06. Well, besides the power, you might be glad to know you can get up to four more miles a gallon depending on the vehicle. And they've got twin and single turbo kits for several kinds of vehicles. Yeah. And don't forget the way this thing sounds with the turbos versus the stock exhaust. I guess the only way to find out is out on the road. Let's get

it. Get it down,

man. This thing feels really good and I'm a true believer of sds now. I kind of had my doubts before.

Yeah, me too, but not anymore, man. This is pretty impressive and the sound it makes. Remember

sweet. That's his version of a turbo

sound.

What do you think? One more hard hold.

Yeah.

Mhm.

Oh, yeah. One more thing to answer your question about turbo

leg.

What turbo

leg.

Hey, welcome to North Carolina in a place. The racers call the farm now. Hey, maybe for feeding horses. But a day at this farm is about making big horsepower and hauling

out

the outlaws are raiding this eight mile strip and they're out to steal win lights instead of horses.

Ora's arsenal of six classes features three that are totally heads up and hands down hot.

Easy street is hard to beat if you like the results of putting big power on little drag radio rubbers.

Of course, there's also the king class 10, 5 outlaw

the quickest cars on the planet on a 10.5 inch tire.

Then there's a school class called Limited Street. No wheelie bars, 10.5 inch tires. But when it comes to power, all you can pack under the hood and plant on the pavement.

That's a 604 inch uh twin turbo 4.5 inch stroke 4, 600 bore. It's a class populated by nitrous die hards and turbo converts alive.

We're like Ke Sabo

who's got a nine inch Ford rear end four la suspension and beat up brakes. You got to have with a turbo car. You got to use a dual caliber to have a little more control on the start line. Since you go in with so much force, you're basically just brake torquing the car up there.

Temperatures hitting the low nineties. How would turbo guys like

sabo fare against the nitrous racers? You know, you get spoiled when you have a lot of power and I've always had so much mile an hour over a couple 23 mile an hour over the nitrous cars, you know, the fastest Nitrous cars.

So I've been able to run them down, but now that it's gotten hot, they're a half car ahead of you to start with this level out the playing field a little

when it's this hot. Uh,

you know, we, we normally have a little better first half time and they normally try to go around us on the other end, Darren Hoyle drove his nitrous fed 632 cubic inch Fulton to a championship last year today. He's just trying to get down the track and make a decent qualifying pass.

You know, the starting line is probably not going to be that great. So

just try to do whatever I can do to get down the track and I think anybody can do that is going to have a shot at, shot at winning

the technology in this Camaro helps a lot like the programmer, Darren uses to harness his horsepower off the line. It can kill the power out of the hole, put it back in, down the track and it's just a, it's just a really good piece of equipment.

Jeff Cooner was top qualifier in limited street. Thanks in part to a 430 small block that makes 2400 horsepower. All thanks to these guys, we leave a little like four pounds of boost and, uh,

about a second and a half out, we got about 25 pounds so

that, uh, you know, you just hope the track is good enough to take all what you got.

They're not picky, they'll eat just about anything.

We got a two good passes yesterday in the heat.

So, uh,

we're gonna go back to that same tune up and, you know, hope that carries on over to the day and

I believe it will.

I'm just gonna stick to pretty much what I was doing yesterday just trying to get down a hot track and, uh,

hope for the best

in eliminations. The hot track wasn't kind to some of the racers like last year's outlaw 10 5 champ, Terry Robbins going out in the first round,

same for

SVO having trouble at the bottom end,

but it worked for Hoyle here taking the third round win with a 504

and for Konner winning in round three with a 506 at 100 and 51 mile an hour. A

good winning run for 10 5 outlaw Mike Hill. That is until he goes off roading at the finish line.

That right lane has been kind of tricky all weekend. We've done that actually yesterday.

I mean, it just, it just tends to drive you on over in the right and we got over in the grass harder and it starts spinning the tires hard, but just

this point this point still just had me going. I couldn't live, you know, I just had to try to go for it

weeks later in a makeup race final. Hill would beat Steve Kirk while Cooner would take the Super Street win

makeup race.

Yeah, Mother Nature's thunderstorm won this event,

but only after the

Osca guys raced up a storm down on the farm in North Carolina.

Hey, welcome back to horsepower. Recently here in the shop, we played with all the major power ADDers from super chargers to Nitrous and well today a turbo kit,

but you know, no engine can handle that extra abuse unless it's got a stout rotating assembly down here in the bottom end.

So recently, we made a road trip to see just what it takes to make cranks and connecting rods that are tough enough to take it.

Imagine for a minute, the incredible heat and stress of a high performance reciprocating assembly,

any manufacturing defects in the crank shaft or especially the connecting rods and the engine quickly becomes scrap metal.

This facility in Harbor City California is dedicated to the critical final phase of manufacturing eagle connecting rods,

both eye beams for mostly street applications

and high performance H beams that can handle over 1000 horse power with special rod bolts.

What you're looking for is the best overall strength

yet elasticity.

Today at numerous stations like this, the big ends of H beam rods are being sized using the sun and cross grinder.

By now, they've already been heat treated and shot pined,

which means bombarding them with media to harden the surface.

Eagle forges their H beam rods from 4340 steel, which by the way refers to the metal composition of chrome nickel and Molly

alloys.

The automated cross grinding machine always shuts off when the proper sizing is made.

But after the rod is cooled in this liquid,

the operator always uses a gauge to double check for close tolerances.

Meanwhile, the A RP Rod boats get a coat of Molly loop on the threads and under the caps before they're installed. And

to if a connecting rod is brittle

and it breaks, it will destroy the entire engine.

What you will see in this is where the engine actually hydraulic, which a fluid will not compress

the connecting rod actually bent in an s shape.

Therefore, yes, it damaged this cylinder

but it was able to be slaved in their back racing today.

Meanwhile, at this Memphis Tennessee Eagle center crank shafts, both cast and forge are put through their final production pace.

This CNC machine handles the counterweight, profiling and lightning of the piece.

What we're doing is reducing the weight of the crank shaft without affecting the strength to make for an easier rotating assembly.

This machine a lathe cuts the

flange so the flywheel has a good blush fit.

Then on to balancing

where the crank is spun to identify its mass in relation to the rest of the assembly.

The final Polish is handled on a machine that was designed for and by eagle

it contacts not only the journals but also the thrust and radius.

Now this is only a fraction of what goes into making a durable and dependable performance, rotating assembly safe to say though it requires quality materials and machining to make the parts tough enough to take the punishment.

The motor goes in a daily pound or a public pavement

or high revving hard launching competitor of a quarter mile strip.

If you racers want to trim your 60 ft times, you might want to bolt on a set of performance, upper control arms that use your axle to transfer weight and help your car hook up.

Now, these are from Lakewood and they not only eliminate wheel hop, they'll help your cars handling on the road by reducing body roll. They have high impact bushings. They're powder coated for good looks and available for several Ford and GM applications. Now, if you want to get hooked up with a pair, you'll have to pay about 200 bucks.

How many times does it happen? You're working under your car, you need a light in a hurry and no place to plug it up. Well, not a problem with this inspection light from Matt

Co, it's cordless as you see and has 30 led s that put off a bright light. Plus it runs three hours from one charge from this charger and it's shatterproof water resistant and has this handy swivel hook to hook it up.

Now, if you'd like to shed some light on pricing check with your local Matco dealer.

Well, if my partner ever comes back with that Corvette, we'll get to work on next week's horse power. See you then.