silicone boy

I was just thinking that last nite. That would be cool, literally. As for ceramic coating, it's one of the staples around my garage. Love the stuff. I get it from Techline Coatings and it goes on really nicely.

When I was about 10 or so, I asked my parents for a telescope for XMAS. Instead, I got a stupid watch. That scarred me for life. To make up for it, I got myself a telescope for Christmas a couple of years ago and it has just sat there since then. I think I'll dust mine off and have a look. Thanks for the tip.

This forum has become the home of the ridiculous. That's why I'm posting this here. My little girls (6 and 9) asked me why so many of the Mars probes have malfunctioned. I heard a theory on the radio that made sense to me. Just before Christmas, the European Space Agency's probe, the Beagle 2 disappeared (supposedly). Then NASA's Spirit landed and malfunctioned after a couple of days. Some people think that the Beagle really didn't malfunction. The Limeys only said it was lost. The Beagle made it's way over to the Spirit landing site and beat the crap out of the Spirit, like in Robot Wars. Now, I don't hold much stock in this theory because I happen to have a pet beagle and she couldn't hurt a fly. She would be more likely to play with a stranger rather than harm him. Personally, I'm more of a biologist than an engineer, so I think it has to do with some sort of alien life form. I'll bet if you see the secret NASA videos, you would see giant large breasted women right before they destroyed the Spirit. NASA will never let this secret out, cause it would cause widespread panic if the public knew that we could be invaded at any moment by Amazon sized large breasted women. They would start infiltrating our society by appearing in Victoria's Secret catalogs and eventually replace our women until they all looked like lingerie models. OH, shudder the thought. What do you engineering types have to say?

Not too long ago, I saw a show on the Discovery Channel about the British Royal Marines cold weather training course. These are some tough hombres. Part of the course involved being dropped off in rural Scotland in the dead of winter (just like the picture above) with little more than a light jacket and some pants. You are expected to live off the land for about a month, make your own clothes from whatever you could find, etc. One day, one of the instructors snuck into camp and stole their boots. When the month was over, a helicopter came to pick them up. They all thought they were being taken back home for some R and R. Instead, they were given new orders while in the air and taken to someplace like Norway. No wonder their website says: "99% need not apply". Of course, recently they were sent to chilly Iraq, where a lot of them died in helicoptor crashes-what a waste of good soldiers.

I love the sound of dual supertrapps, side by side in stainless steel. You can tune to car to your taste. Don't know how it sounds on a V8 though.

Whatever is cheap. Probably rubber hose (trucker size) and exhaust piping. DJ, do you realize that with that last post, you just became a HybridZ guru? Congrats. You too Heavy Z

I diverted my attention from "just" a stroker motor to a stroker turbo because I'm sick of all these ricers saying they can blow my V8 away. I got over the fact that forced induction and nitrous is cheating and started looking for solutions that are basically "junkyard" or off of EBay and can be replicated relatively cheaply-though it's not cheap for me 'cause I keep on making mistakes as a trail blazer. The Ford guys have this all figured out and have readily available, cheap parts. Us Chevy guys don't have very many cheap resources at all-hell Gale Banks wanted $900 for a set of custom cast iron castings that wouldn't even work without modification! All of the SBC turbos out there use custom made stainless steel headers that cost more than a motor, or require fabrication of a custom header out of heavy schedule 40 gas pipe. I was looking for more of a universal header, and the upside down C4 header should work on many applications. This was the big sticking point in coming up with a junkyard setup. It also helps that the Buick Grand National folks like to toss out their stock turbos in favor of upgraded versions. They are nearly everywhere. I figure that in the long run, it will save people who want massive power some money because they don't have to decide between building a stroker, using a roller cam, swapping out higher compression pistons, etc. It won't matter because all you have to do is get a low compression 350 and crank up the boost! I cannot be held responsible, however, for bodily harm that can occur in an 800HP car that weighs only 2800 pounds

Some thoughts and observations-I've had lots of frustrating time to think about this while doing the work on the motor. -block hugger headers are generally too tall without modification -mounting block huggers the right way and putting turbos on them in the bottom of the engine bay hurts oil drainage into the oil pan so you'd have to use an external oil pump. Also, it's harder to service the turbos. -I'm sure about the hood clearance because I purposely chopped the manifold neck shorter by an extra 1/2 inch in case I want to use T4's in the future. They had barely enough clearance (about 1/2 inch) with the hybrid Buick turbos, and I can even chop the manifold shorter by another 1/2 inch if needed. -I'm not so sure about the internal wastegate interference, but you can rotate the compressor housing relative to the turbine housing if you take the turbo apart, and you can mount the wastegate in any number of positions. In any case, the turbo is close to the valve cover (about 1/2 inch away) so there's plenty of room between it and the wheel well. -It's not tight on the passenger side if you move your battery -Yes, I may decide to mount one or both of the turbos with the compressor side closer to the firewall. That would make the downpipes exit in a forward direction and snake between the motor mounts and engine block. The air intake tubes could then would then be snaked down along the firewall into the lower, cooler part of the engine bay. -As for intake and downpipe plumbing, I think I can get away without drilling large holes in the wheel wells like the Mustang guys do, but I'm open to it-it makes things a lot easier but I hate to do it -If you want to try an external wastegate, you're not going to believe how convenient these headers are: They actually have a large hole between the middle exhaust ports that can fit a threaded pipe fitting. You can then fashion an adaptor for an external wastegate-it's like Chevy designed these things for me to hack up for turbos. I'm going to mount the turbos on in a few days and I'll post pics and more comments as I find out more. Also, Turbomeister-please feel free to chime in since you've done this already

DJ, I'm buying up every LT1 manifold I can find, so I can set you up with some for a reasonable price if you want. PM me if you are interested and I'll get to work on some. As for the Ford housings, you want ones with the .63 A/R ratio (from a manual transmission Turbocoupe, SVO Mustang, Merkur XR4Ti). They fit right up to the Buick compressor. On E-bay brand spanking new, they run about $99. You would also need to get the exhaust elbow, or a swingate for the exhaust side that is Ford specific, which is about $79. What I would do is get a piece of @#$# used Ford turbo (manual only) cause it is a lot cheaper. By the way, another thing I like about the Vette manifolds is they come with a real nice aluminum heat shield to protect surrounding components such as wires, etc.

I have a couple of observations here: -the picture of the rat brain sure does have a small cerebrum (higher brain), while the cerebellum and brain stem (vital in coordination and basic functions of survival such as running away from humans) are pretty big. The thalamus and hypothalamus, involved in reproduction are pretty prominent too. -regardless of the hazards of cell phones, I think the g forces that some of the Z cars on the board here generate are even more dangerous for the brain. Imagine your brain being squished against the back of your noggin when you punch the throttle. (I'm protected here, as are the Jackstanders, since my car has been immobile for the past year) -I'm no expert on brains because I barely passed neurology in med school

Denny, That's exactly why I'm not up and running yet. I figure I would have been running 6 months ago had I not been distracted by more power than I need. It's been a great learning excercise, though.

Hanns, You're right, I did spend a lot of time trying to come up with the "perfect" solution-there really isn't one. I have a pile of old manifolds off of E-bay that didn't work, some cheapo block hugger headers that were too tall when flipped over, and even a couple of fabricated manifolds that I just couldn't live with. I made a pair that I was going to bite the bullet and use. Then I saw these and my mind started spinning. The hood clearance is about an inch above the compressors, I think, and an inch and 1/2 over the turbines. Yes, I do plan on using some sort of heat containment device. I saw some turbo housing wraps that just appeared in the new Jeg's catalog, but it's not cheap--it might be cheaper than a new paint job down the road though. I also like these manifolds because they have a 3/4 inch threaded hole at the bottom between the middle exhaust ports-just perfect to connect an external wastgate to in the future if I decide to do that. Now I'll have to snake a downpipe between the manifold and the wheel well, but that should be do-able.

Intimidating at first, but remarkably easy after the fact, isn't it? So why ain't I up and running yet?

These are the same crazies that were trying to put an LS1 into a first generation Miata a while back. I wonder how they are coming along with that? They had to chop up the firewall a bit, but with a grinder and a welder, you can do almost anything. I know there's the Monster Miata with the 5.0, but I'm just not Ford saavy (though I have nothing against the blue oval)

As some of you know, my project took a detour when I decided, heck, why should the ricers have all the fun with boost? I decided to have fun with turbos-2 of them to be exact. In doing my research, I soon found out that the vast majority of twin turbo applications out there are on Ford Mustangs because you can simply flip over a shorty header to use as a manifold (you need to make an adaptor pipe, but it's very simple). I looked all over the GM parts bin and various header companies to find something that would work adequately, and nothing completely fit the bill. It seems that, while it looks like there is a lot of room under the hood for a SBC twin turbo, in reality the turbos and all the plumbing involved takes up a lot of room. The Turbomeister 383 twin turbo) had to make his own manifolds, mounting the turbos in front of the block. I wanted to mount them at about the midpoint of the valve covers, placing most of the weight behind the crossmember for better handling (again, the weight of turbos and plumbing is not insignificant). I thought about block hugger headers flipped, but every one I tried placed the hairdryers too high. I proceeded to make my own manifolds (actually had them finished) when I noticed that C4 Corvette LT1 manifolds would make great turbo headers with a little modification. I simply cut off the stock flange and welded on a T3 flange as seen below. This places the flange just below the top of the valve cover, leaving plenty of room for hood clearance. Now, my turbos are from a Buick GN, which has a 3 hole flange. Why would I use a T3 flange? I had some spare Ford T3 turbine housings that are about the same A/R ratio and they seem to work better me (they fit right onto the Buick compressor). Perhaps with a little work, I could have made the original Buick turbine housing work. So after spending a moderate fortune on trying out various manifolds and headers for my twin terror project, I found a very EZ solution that should work very well. Don't they say the easiest solution is best? I should have thought of this earlier, but I'm not an engineer. I just made a lot of expensive mistakes so someone else doesn't have to.

Those headers for the Biscayne cost more than my car is worth.

Good deal, Bill, because I'm not quite sure where I put mine.

Did you see that quad turbo V12 chrysler concept car? It's supposed to top out at about 240 mph. I'm having a difficult time plumbing a twin turbo. I can only imagine how difficult a quad turbo is.

Yeah, but these cops are a bunch of dorks. I mean, they are sitting in the passenger seats . How is that going to do them any good?

Call the help line at Painless. To their credit, they faxed me a schematic for the Z combo switch with which wires went where. It was all blown up and really helped this part of the install. I'm not even sure if they had it on file. I think they just filled out where the wires went on the diagram out of the goodness of their hearts.

I agree with the Turbomeister. I think the whole process was fairly painful. My harness was not all that bad, but I thought I would clean house and re-do everything. That way I would know where every wire goes to. Big mistake. Maybe I'm not an electrical type, but I found the "Painless" term anything but painless. Nevertheless, I got it done and everything seems to work. The wires are clearly labelled and color coded. You have to get a wiring diagram, and the Painless folks were as helpful as they could be given the situation (as you can imagine, it's kind of hard to explain this stuff over the phone)

Just when I was beginning to believe that a single plane manifold could do as well as the Stealth, you guys have to put doubt back into my head. I guess I could go with what I have and see how I like it. I could always sell it later and buy the Stealthram if I thought it would really make a difference. You're right, the TPI and Stealth are just so sexy compared to a single plane.

Those Australian herding dogs (border collies, australian shepards, heelers to a lesser extent) are the most promiscuous dogs on the planet. Seems like everyone has a mix with one of these breeds. Great dogs, though. Smart and obedient.

After ruining a couple of fleece jackets when grinding and welding, I bought a pair of Dickies (jumpsuit version). My wife makes fun of me when I wear them, but they are black so they don't show dirt and they protect me from spatter. Today, however, I was grinding some metal, making my turbo exhaust manifolds, when I felt something extremely painful on my right thigh, followed by the familiar smell of burning flesh. It seems that a piece of shrapnel fell into my jumpsuit (the zipper was open) and burned my leg. Luckily, burn treatment is one of my skills.

Thanks a whole bunch, Don. Makes me want one for no good reason. Actually, the best reason is that Grumpyvette keeps on telling us how great it is for such a reasonable price. By the way, he does this on every Vette board on the net (see digitalvette.com). I was able to hold off getting one in my mind because I had myself convinced that even a modified one wouldn't fit. Now I see from your picture that it isn't true (nice to know that someone else is stuck with the puke traffic cone orange color that I am). My current setup is a Vic Jr. type manifold set up for fuel injection. I'm sure it would work great, but for some reason, I can't get the Stealth out of my mind. Is there any compelling reason to switch?