I sent this to Parish because he knows his stuff on turbos, but I figured I'ld open this up to a larger discussion.

Some people say it can be done for like 2000 if you peice it together yourself.

This isn't anything I can do right now, but I think it would be very cool a little down the road if I could truely do it for that.

So what all is needed?
A small turbo
wastegate
Fuel Pump
Injectors
Tune
small intercooler with small tranny cooler fans
Oil system
oil pump

The way I am picturing is this:
Mount the system like the STS Run it back to the muffler.... heck, right before the muffler.

Run exhaust into the turbo, then the exhaust discharge on into the muffler that will be moved further back (I've got some room further back towards the axle). Re-rig my intake tube and filter to suck the air a little further from the turbo. Then continue to use exhaust steel pipe (I've got a good muffler man who would close his shop and work with me for a day or two) to do a 180 after the compressor and take the air back up to the engine bay. Around the transmission, run the pipe into the intercooler that will have a couple of push fans on one side and pull fans on the other all wired to a switch in the cab. Then back in the engine bay end the exhaust pipe, and put a removable place for the MAF mounting. Then run some more tubing to the TB.

....And, somewhere along the line have a pluggable fitting welded in where I could install some nitrous jets if I ever wanted to toss in a 50 dry shot to cool it down?

What other tuning tricks would there be to it?

I am not too familiar with turbos... so tell me where I am off.
With what I described, what kinda air temps would I see @ entering the engine?

 

ttt

no1 interested in a custom turbo setup?

check out the FI forum... I think I figured up everything and could be had non intercooler for about 1800.

 

Could it be done? Perhaps. It's up to you on how well you can search for the right parts at the right price. On top of that, who's going to fab everything and get it installed? It certainly would be over $1800 along for labor.

And for a large displacement motor like a 4.8, 5.3, 6.1, etc you'll need more then a "small turbo," and "small intercooler."

 

A pair of TO4B's and a decent sized intercooler would get you where you wanted to be......you can buy that combo for right about $1000 if you ebay 'em. Throw in a good waste gate, injectors, and tuning and you've added another $1000 to that. Assuming you don't have access to an exhaust bender and don't know how to weld you can figure on ~$500 for the exhaust work. Tack on another ~$500 or so for the intake tubing, filters, clamps, couplers, and the 25,000 other little things I havent mentioned and your right about $3000 for a home-built turbo that will support around 800hp (assuming you motor will handle that kind of power)

That's pretty reasonable.....but you'd have alot of down-time during the build and there would be alot of little things that would creep up that you wouldn't have with a purpose-built kit

derek....your idea is reasonable, but non-intercooled you'd see IAT's well over 250º under hard prolonged acceleration

 

SlyWS6 thought he could do a cheap system also..

His works great but if you do a search for his write-up in the FI seciton you'll fine he actually spent WAAY more than he expected. If creating your own system were that easy there would be more people doing it. I think the only way to do it cheap and correctly is if you have the skills to do most of the work. If you can't weld, fabricate and tune then you're screwed. LOL

 

I've got 50 dollar tunes from PCMforless. I'm sure he could give me an at least baseline tune for the turbo and I can learn from there as far as tweaking goes. (I already have a laptop and would only need what, 200 in software?)

And Yelo.... I don't want twin turbos! That would be cool, but I don't want that much power (or at least can't afford all the other stuff to handle it I should say).

This sounds like a challenge, but I am dieing to do something like this. It would be great to say, "Yeah, I just put a turbo on my truck." "What, you have a turbo on a FSC?" "Yeah, I built the system myself."

What is there besides the T40B. I want a SINGLE turbo that will give me good power on about 8 lbs. I destoped dynoed my engine (see post in FI section) and it was making about 460/445 with a single T40B on 8lbs intercooled! That is what I'm looking for right there, nothing more. (tranny concerns... that is hwat it is rated to, but I bet it could handle a lil more)

I think the biggest problem would be rigging up the oil system, which shouldn't be too hard but I would need ideas.

I don't have a pipe bender, but I do have welding capabilites, and as I mentioned, I have a seasoned muffler man who can work with me.

I know it is harder than it seems but think about it.
You run some pipe.... It would be as easy for a muffler man as running pipe to a muffler! You run it back with pipe into an IC and then to a MAF and run a heavy duty rubber hose of proper diameter into the intake manifold!
Then make sure you can get plenty of fuel to it, and Wha-la!

Is it work yes.... Would it take maybe 30-40 hours of "hard planning and work?" Yes! Does that make it impossible? No!

Now, help me think of how I can run the oiling system.

 

You should really look for SlyWS6's post. You are not doing anything different than he already did and maybe you can learn some stuff from his experiences.

It's totally doable. Is it cost efficient? Maybe, maybe not. As long as you have the patience and the drive then I say go for it. There is nothing cooler than saying you did everything yourself.

 

Exactly. I'll have to check it out! Thanks for the reference to his post!

I think the biggest problem now is figuring out exactly how I want to run the return piping. I can see where I can hug it right under the front suspension and back up to meet up right where the maf is located on the FIPK. That simplifies it a lil but I don't know if I like the idea of snugging it right up under the suspension because that would put the pipe about 5 inches off the ground.

 

I did it, did it work...YES, was it cheap RELATIVELY YES depending on what you consider cheap. Let me break it down to you this way. To build JUST the turbo kit you are looking at $1500-$2000 depending on where you get your parts. How much did it cost me?? Thousands, BUT I set it up to run more than just 5lb's of boost which in turn required a new shortblock, new fuel system, new tranny, new rearend etc. The turbo kit itself didn't cost me much at all, it's everything needed to support it hence the reason I dropped the project (and also got married ). But for what you are looking to do I'll give you this information....

To build EXACTLY what STS provides with their kit, you are looking at about $1200-$1500 tops. Well I can't say exactly because that price includes TIAL products and a larger turbo than their kit so for that price you get better parts. If that's all your looking to do then great go for it. However if you plan to do any more than that you are looking at a lot more cost and no mail order tune will work you will have to have it put on the dyno and tuned..... So all in all to build a decent turbo kit to work on your vehicle and provide decent amount of boost with room for improvement it's pretty cheap. Anything more and your looking at big bucks.

Where are you located?

-Sly

 

If you think you are up to it then that is a great idea. For most, myself included, the down time, hassle, and unforeseen expenses make it a little less than desirable. If you have the skill, then I would definately do it. IMO no one puts as much effort and gives as much attention to your vehicle as you will. Unfortunately that has been my experience. It would also benefit you to get the parts you want from the start, instead of having to modify and replace parts later on.