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.

i suggest getting Tials new 38mm MVS series wastegate, has the same trick v-band setup from there 60mm series, and it will be more that sufficient at flowing that turbo to the power levels you need. I'm a factory direct distributor for Tial if you end up deciding to go with one. I distribute there entire product line.

hogwash. "hearing" is one thing, doing is another. i've done... repeatedly. i've hit 275-416 and everything inbetween. all on 93, all on less than 20psi. the holset will get the job done, especially for that power level. depending how aggressive his timing is, stock cam/p90 head, he should hit 350ish around 15psi on very conservative timing and fat AFR's. lower PSI if he leans it out and gives it a few degree's, but the holsets are happier around 15psi on the 2.8's, 10psi they are spinning to slow. yes, it will bolt up. for feed, if memory serves me right, it goes from block to turbo in this order, 1/8" bsp to 1/8" npt adapt, 1/8" npt splitter, 1/8" .060 oil restrictor, 1/8" npt to -4an adapter, 48" -4 an line w/ str & 90* ends, 90* -4 an swivel fitting, -4 to holset inlet thread adapter (thread pitch is posted around here somewhere) then optional is heat sleeving the entire assembly on the manifold nearing section.

go externally gated, i've done the external conversion on more manifolds than i can count, never had a single crack yet. it's all about the welder knowing what they are doing. you will have to have the exhaust housing stock wg puck welded shut yes. you can ceramic, wrap, or any combination there of once the manifolds been properly converted to external gate. for oiling, you will need an assortment of fittings to make up the oil feed line, the stock ZXT return tube can be utilized with a new piece of hose briding the gap between that pipe and the pan. power wise, i personally have pushed that turbo on one of our external conversion manifolds to over 416hp so far, no surging issues.

the LCA's are fine for strapping the rear of a Z, it helps control the rear tire movement under WOT pulls. the idea is to control the tires, by binding the bodywork you leave the entire suspension to shift around during the pull. if you have the ability to grab out near the wheels it eliminates alot of the cars ability to shift around during a pull.

Haltech produces a P2000 system that will play on the stock R32/R33 harness fyi.

Gotta agree with everyone else... in a auto shop book hours and estimate hours are the rule of measure. The personal one that chaps my ass since i'm in the buisness is when i hear customers saying "oh well this place said they can do it for $xx/hr and it will take about __ hr's" Sounds fair, unless you know that it's a tactic used to undercut the competition, then they make excuses on the back end about how a part was out of stock and a more pricey unit was supplemented, how the job took longer and more hours were billed, basically they adjust the end bill. Do buisness in one town long enough and you learn who does that, and while you can tell your client, there pentiant for believing that thats the case and you not just trying to save a sale is very slim. Thus you lose at least the 1st round to a shady shop. Only defense i've found is to do callbacks on a regular interval and follow up on the other shops work vs. estimated bill. 75% of the time they have been hit with hidden or additional billing on the back half and i convert that customer. I see no problem with how the book hour system works, or how fast and good techs can make a decent living being equipped and intelligent. I have the biggest problem with the ethics of my competitors. But i'm probally not the only one with a complaint like that.

Price on that manifold i'm told would be about $1000 in sch'd 304 stainless with external gate provision. So theres the pricing for those interested. To the posters talking about equal length tubulars, this isn't a B-series honda, theres ALOT more work to do a equal length L6 header, so these price targets i've seen mentioned in this thread are highly optimistic i suspect. No offense, but everythings "easy" till you actually do it, lets see someone else post up a ready to rock L6 header that has a JIG ready for reproducing in volume, then hear a price on it. Equal length or not, i'm just curious to see who actually is ready to go to market besides me.

we'd need to modify the design, wasn't intended for it originally, but thats not to difficult.