Slow_Old_Car

Mill the crap out of the heads for a higher static C:R, switch it over to E85, invest some real time and $$$ into a GOOD longtube header setup for the car vs. any of the standard fair shorty huggers commonly seen (or roll the dice on the holley LS swap cast iron units that claim to support 450-500hp and see if backpressure chokes you). Get a smaller cam and a looser convertor in that 4L60. Last but not least, get someone to tune it who know's their stuff on E85, ramp some timing in, and go fast, no hodge podge swap master tuner who bricks all the settings to where the car will pull stumps then nose over on the big end cause the tunes all flat up top.

I'd like to see some build pics too!

Whats your clearance from the top of the cross member to the bottom of the oil pan? standard f-body oil pan it looks like? Got enough play in the motor mounts to dial in some pinion angle on the trans mount? *** edit *** what engine mounts are those?

still availible?

Ross, Just now had a chance to run across the thread again. Looking good! Be sure to touch base with us whenever your searching for parts, in addition to the welding we sell most of the product lines i've seen you mention. I also would throw a suggestion out there to build the midsection portion of the fuel system out of hardline vs. the usual method where everyone slings some braided softline up underneath the car. We've got a couple examples here at the shop i can show you next time your in our neck of the woods. Keep up the good work! PowerFab Automotive

looks like .060 mild steel

inaccurate. ceramic coating will do very well with radiant heat, but conduction heat from the two touching surfaces won't be hindered nearly as much. you also have to consider that the moving CHRA assembly generates it's own heat, albiet far less than the exhaust housing. the only real upside i see to coating the CHRA is asthetic/appearance, as most turbo's after seasoning on a street car have their CHRA's oxidize and look like poo. but the same account, if the objective is keeping it looking good and easily serviced, i'd suggest a clear annodizing, clear coat, or even using a flow coating, granted the flow coating is out of it's element and useless in it's intended design there. but it prevents corrosion and cleans up nicely.

We do ceramic coating, we also do flow coatings if you wanted to coat the compressor wheel before having it balanced. You want the tial 38mm old school 2 bolt? or the MVS? ($20 difference IIRC, i fully encourage you to do the MVS). I'm about to close up for the day, but we should easily be able to accomidate you. I'll send you a PM tommorow morning or later tonight with a rough stab at pricing.

tap it or we can weld it shut and you get your boost reference from somewhere else. it's up to you really. for that particular turbo, i'd suggest you send me the entire turbo for our work to ensure the fitment is proper with that compressor housing.

post a photo of your turbo

and the author of that book is a hell of a smart guy. but i've also seen some of the parts he uses and they have obvious design limitations. the books full of fantastic ideas, but not everything in there is god. no cracked welds, engine bay temps a good 30 degrees lower or better (going off handomometer on that one), and a turbo that kicked in 300rpm sooner post coating. yes please. we can do that, i'd have to build the downpipe on a mock up car to ensure fitment as the one your seeing there has no jig for it. but yea, thats all stuff we do, full service fabrication basically, then tuning, basic off the shelf installs, etc... the 4" cold air kit is somthing were hoping to bring to the market soon, but all i can say is, on your standard eibach pro-kit Z, it clears. beats manifold radiant heat intake any day of the week. The 416 i made was a forged piston/cam motor car. That being said, we recently took that motor apart (after it had been together 20 some odd years), and we discovered the camshaft had been wearing down, a little more searching and it turned out we had a CWC core issue like many other people have had. So i'm not sure how much credit to give the camshaft, but even in it's damaged state it was producing a better power profile than stock cam 4200 drop off by a good margin. We also found the pistons to be in exceptional shape with no signs of detonation. So with a solid tune i believe your bottom end will hold the 400hp. But the tune to get it there will be completely different since your going to be fighting a downhill battle after 4200rpm on the stock cam. If you've never driven a 300whp Z, i'd take baby steps anyway... it's a large jump from n/a L to even 250hp turbo L in terms of driving response. Walk before you run.

You can ship the manifold to us and we can do the modifications here yes. We've done it for people before, we just tuck the wastegate up as tight as we can on our mock up motor. We keep at least 3-4 MVS wastegates on the shelf most of the time, if you want one of their more oddball colors i'd need to know ahead of time to order it. Right now i have black, red, and silver on the shelf as far as colors go. For the downpipe, i've done either way, i've ultilized the stock exhaust elbow and then gone custom from there, i've converted the back of the exhaust housing and done custom from the get go too. I personally prefer to convert the exhaust housing at the time the wastegate puck gets welded shut then go custom. The downpipe weighs less in the end without that cast piece on the beginning, it fits better, it looks better, and it can be done in 100% 304 stainless which is great for keeping it looking great and living a long time.