TheHooley

Hey guys this is my first post on the forum and I thought id share my truck build. Keep in mind I’m new to the performance automobile world. Alright so I Started with my stock 03 Sierra 1500, when I first got it three years ago I put a cold air intake and exhaust on. Just the basics to get a little better flow. I've stuck with that setup till a month ago when I decided to try and build a turbo system for it. Having no experience with working with turbos I did a lot of forum searching and research. I decided that an sts style rear mount system would be the least complicated route to go when starting from scratch and not buying a kit. I ended up getting an on3 76mm turbo with their 44mm wastegate. I milled a custom T-4 Flange for the exhaust from stainless. Then bent up some stainless tube to mount the turbo right where the muffler would be. Once I had the turbo mounted I ran the oil from the port just above the oil filter.And since it was so far back I ran a scavenge pump to drain the oil back to the oil pan. The most difficult part was routing the charge piping back up to the throttle body. After staring at it for days I ran it along the passenger side and up through the wheel well. Very tight with my 33 inch general grabbers but to far no contact has been made.I bought a boost gauge and also a wideband O2 sensor and gauge to monitor my AFR. And went with HP tuners and got there pro interface. After about a week of dicking around with the tuning software trying to get my truck to run right I got it good enough to drive around at least without running lean under boost. (still a work in progress, tuning is proving to be a lot harder than it seemed) I was running out of fuel I thought at 7 psi so I put in some 36lb FAST injectors to boost the fuel a bit. Those seemed to do the trick. I finally broke down and took the truck to my local shop that had a dyno and said they could tune it up no problem. I was with them all night and they couldn't seem to figure out how to keep it from leaning out under boost. They gave up and I drove home no closer to perfection. I messed with it for another week and got it rigged to stay at 12 AFR under boost which ran awesome under acceleration but if you let off throttle a little bit it would drop down to the 9's and really bog down the motor. I kept playing with that and didn't really make any progress. It was still running great despite that slight hitch. I was wasting all the "bad ***" diesels up in my area and having a great time boosting. I noticed under full boost, 10 psi, it was squirting oil out of the drivers side valve cover. I replaced the seals thinking that was the problem but then it kept popping off the PCV valve from the valve cover. I used a little rtv to try and keep it in, cause it was making a hell of a mess every time it would pop off. Anyways didn't get far before the motor started running crappy and died. I tried restarting it and it sounded like a piston rod was scrapping the cylinder wall. I assumed the worst and called a buddy to tow me to the shop. After looking in to it seems that the pressure and me gluing the pcv valve in forced the ball in the pcv into the intake manifold and into one of the cylinders. After taking the manifold off I can't really see any signs of damage except one cylinder has shards of aluminum in the intake port and one or two pieces in the cylinder head port. Ill take the heads of later this weekend to confirm what happened but I assume it f'ed shiz up in there and ill probably have to replace a piston or head or valves or something.


Which brings me to my question. If you were in my situation, have about 3 grand to spend what do you do? I was thinking about trick flow heads and a FAST LSXRT intake manifold but those two things alone pass 3 g's.. I just don't know what would give me the best use of my money for a reliable build and possibly more power. But emphasis on the reliability part as I have an all-stock drivetrain and the truck is a daily driver.

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[/IMG][IMG][/IMG] I got a sweet turbosmart race port BOV for cheap and welded it in just before the MAF sensor. [IMG][/IMG]
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Reaperx

Great job on the build. i love these rear mount turbo's.

shifty89

iTrader: (1)

Looks good man, clean work.

ls_coupe

Looks good if you decide you want some trick flow heads pm me I was considering parting with a pair I have

TheHooley

Welll I had a bit of a problem. Just orederd a set of Forged low compression JE Pistons any other ideas to build the motor up? I already have Fel-Pro MLS Head gaskets and ARP Head Bolts. I want to get a Cam and ls6 heads and intake. Like i said i have about a $3,000 budget. Ill probably need bigger injectors and a fuel pump as well right?

Heres the damage

Tydriver

iTrader: (2)

Bummer on the damage dude. Sorry to hear it, boosted rides are fun for sure tho.. It gets addictive IMO.

Can you post up some pics or information on the scavenge pump you used? I'd like to do some reading up on them !

Thanks,