turbo charger question

[jordan360]

Hi. I've got a 1976 plymouth volare with a 360. I was wondering on how i could gain power, on a (very) limited buget, so i came up with the idea to go to an import car wrecker, and grab a turbo off a honda and stick it in my car. Heck i could even grab two. Will this idea work, and if so how much of a powergain will i get with one or two of those little turbos?

[DartGT66]

Turbos are somewhat like carburators, their size has to work with your engine displacement and rpm. Otherwise it will work about as well, as gaining power by installing a Honda carburator on your 360. Maybe with two turbos out of for example 2.2 - 2.5 litre mopar turbo engines might work. If you can do all the work yourself, and are not afraid of work, it is a good, and cheap idea. Otherwise not. I'm building a twin turbo drivetrain in to our C-body at the moment, and I have several times wished I hadn't started the whole project. With the money put in to it so far, I would have bought antyhing I could imagine to power the car. And I estimate it's still about 3000$ away from being ready for test run (still missing intercooler, all the plumbing, radiator, fuel lines etc). You can get considerable power increase realtively cheap with a hack job by doing it yourself, but if you have to pay other people, and want to do things nice and right, it will cost a lot.

[1973Swinger]

You will have to look for something other than a Honda for a turbo, as Honda never made a factory Turbo car. If you are looking for something that may work with your car, you could look for a Mitsubishi 3000GT VR4 or a Dodge Stealth R/T or maybe a Toyota Supra Turbo or Nissan 300ZX Turbo. They were all V6 cars and you may be able to get them to work, but it is not gonna be cheap. You will need the proper exhaust and intake made up, fuel management, etc etc. Probably the cheapest you will get away with would be one of the remote turbo systems, and even then you are talking $3000+. If you are good at bending up and fabricating exhaust and intake tubing, you will keep the price down more.

[DartGT66]

...we actually did this once on cheap, using a turbo out of some big engined truck. A single turbo with the carb on the suction side, stock manifolds, pipes y'd together and to turbo, single 3" exhaust, bone stock 318 short block with 360 heads and intake + waste gate and that's it. It run (and had mileage) like a stock 318, until you stepped on it. The car was a '70 barracuda with 3.23 gears, and it run 13.8 in the 1/4 mile on regular street tires.

[1973Swinger]

What did you do about fuel management on it? I may be mistaken, but I would think it would lean out under boost. Did you just run the carb rich?

[turbododge]

He had the carb on the suction side of the turbo, so mixture wouldn't be much of an issue as long as the carb was high enough flow for the extra horsepower.

[1973Swinger]

ahhhhh, i see

[jordan360]

Hi, thanks for the input. I found a turbo from a 93' ford turbo diesel for $350 canadian at a wrecker. Is this a resonable price?

[turbododge]

You would need the specs on the turbo to see if it is the right size. Also that turbo will not work for a suck through setup because you will see vacuum on the inlet side. You would need one with a positive seal on the inlet side to keep the oil in it. It would work for a blow through setup, but then you have to address the mixture issues that Swinger talked about. Usually, this winds up to be neither, or cheap, by the time you are done. The way DartGT66 did it is probably the cheapest and easiest way to go,but you need to stay in the under 6 psi range.