Its winter in Colorado now. All the racetracks are closed, and driving a 400 hp volvo on snowy, icy roads isn’t all that fun. And when it is dry, the snow tires are almost as lame for traction. So I put the dragon wagon to sleep for a couple weeks to do a little bit of work.

I removed the loaner turbo I had been running for the last couple months and sent it back to the most generous number one Volvo nut in the country. He goes by linumxman51 on Turbobricks. He is a cool dude, and thanks to his mighty loaner Garrett turbo I made was able to drive back to Colorado after breaking down in Alabama. I also proceeded to make a 12 second pass and almost 500hp.  I also rebuilt and sold my old ball bearing Garrett turbo after deciding that it was a touch on the small side. So I have some cash in my pocket now. That was a great way to finish up 2008.

To get the project back on track again, I went shopping for a new turbo. I dind’t want to buy another ball bearing turbo this time. I decided that they are just too fragile, and way too expensive to repair. The expense just wasn’t worth the small gain in response you get from them. I also wanted something with a much bigger exhaust wheel. The turbo swap experiment showed me that my engine really liked to have a free flowing exhaust. It responded with huge top end power when I had Kenny’s turbo with the stage 5 exhaust wheel. After searching around a bit, I settled on a new turbo made by Precision Turbochargers. It is model SC6265. There are couple cars in the country making 750-800 hp on this turbo. It has a t4 hot side with a monster size P trim wheel. This should really lower my exhaust backpressure and allow the motor to really become efficient in the higher rpms.

Here is the new turbo next to my old GT30R Garrett. You can see how much larger the hot side is on the new turbo.

I can’t wait to get the car on the road and see what kind of horsepower this new turbo frees up.

See you soon!