The story of the turbo buildup started in September 2000. I had been planning forced induction for years. But I could never manage to get the money together to buy a Cartech single turbo kit, T-trim Vortech, Novi 2000, or an intercooled D-1 Procharger kit. I wasn't really choosy, I just needed some boost. My motor was ready and waiting. It has low compression and a stout bottom end, I just couldn't put together the green for the blower or turbo kit. To complicate things, I really wanted to maintain emissions legality.

Ever since seeing Mike Sitar's website back in 1998, I wanted to design and build a cheap turbo setup. I kept that project idea filed away in my head as "someday I'll turbo something!" Well, eventually my need for speed bacame too much to control and I decided to turbo the 377 Windsor in my mustang! Thats right, the mustang will be getting turbocharged!! Inspired by the guys on the Junk Yard Turbo Mailing List, I started collecting my turbo parts. BOOST, here we come. The plan is to make a street legal, comfortable, full accessories twin turbo street car. If you are interested, keep reading. The story is documented below.

Following are some pictures documenting the buildup. Click any picture to get a higher resolution version.

27-Dec-2000.

The headers were started on first. Stock 5.0 mustang headers were to be flipped upside down. The holes needed to be elongated to align the ports. It was decided that the 1.5" headers would be sufficient for the 600-700HP or so I wanted to make. Besideds, they were cheap and easily replaced if I ruined them on the first buid. I may try 1-5/8" later if I feel these are a bottle neck.

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Some clearance holes were cut in each inner fender to make room for the turbos. This photo shows a die grinder being used with a cutoff wheel. It went through the thin sheetmetal like butter. The hole was made large to give room for the inlet tube to pass through behind the turbo.

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On the drivers side, the power steering pump resivoir was modified for manifold clearance. The cap fits back on just fine after the dipstick was shortened.

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2-1/4" mandrel bent pipe was sectioned and joined to make the pipe that connects the shorty header to the turbo flange. The pipe was ovalized on the turbo end and made to match the flange shape as much as possible.

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Gaps around the flange were welded up. The heavy welding heated and warped the flange a bit. It was straightened using some emery cloth glued to a flat steel surface. This homemade surfacer trick was passed on to me by Bryan Sharer on the JYturbo mailing list.

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This is the manifold just before final welding.

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Here is the passenger side turbo mounted on the car. I still have to do something about the exhaust outlet at this point. But it was a good feeling to have the first turbo on the car. Like there is no turning back now baby! These turbos are Garrett T3s that came from the local auto recycler for a fair price.

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And one more....

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Here is an autoCAD drawing I did for the intercooler I am having built. You probably can't read the dimensions, but the idea is 2 x 2.25" inlets and a 3" outlet. It is built on a core that is 3" x 25" x 10".

intercoolersketch.gif - 37KB
Here's a PDF if you have Acrobat Reader and want better detail: Intercooler2.pdf

It's taken me a while, but I got started on the dowpipes this weekend. I cut the cast elbow and welded a section of 3" dia. mandrel bent mild steel exhaust tube to the stub. I had to stretch and reshape the 3" pipe quite a bit to get a good fit here. The outlet is kinda square and tubing is...well....round. Should make for good exit flow. This also takes care of the problem with the passenger side outlet that pointed straight up (see above photos). I ran into alot of people with different theories on welding to cast iron. They range from special arc welding rod, to fancy preheating, to skip welding from side to side. I used my mig welder with standard mild steel wire on room temperature parts. I did crank the heat up, due to the thickness of the cast elbow. Mig is a relatively cool process and I crossed my fingers and went for it. The plan was that the relatively cool welding temps wouldn't crack the cast with uneven heating while welding. Everything worked out great so far. Mike Sitar has been running similar elbows on his dad's capri for over a year. So I'm counting on the lasting a while too.

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I am pretty happy with the downpipes I made. I used 3" mandrel bends and pieced them together. The coating is Eastwood Company's special brush on header paint. It will be interesting to see if it holds up.

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Here are some shots of the intercooler I had made. I was very impressed with the way it came out. This thing should barely squeeze into the nose of a Fox mustang, and should really cool the air charge from the overworked turbos. If anyone is interested in having one of these made, I can put you in touch with Jim who made this. He charged a very reasonable fee for his great work. The inlets on the bottom are 2.5", and the single outlet is 3". I should have some pictures of it mounted on the car soon. It isn't exactly the same as my drawing above. Some changes were made on the fly to the outlet tube routing to make the package more compact. Notice the the happy customer in the picture...I just pulled the intercooler out of the box. The intercooler was one of the last parts I needed to get the mustang on the road again. Just alot of labor needed to finish up now.

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Intercooler4.jpg - 45KB

Whew, I finally am back at the project again. It has been a long busy summer away from the car. I had a bunch of pictures I have taken over the last few months that I wanted to get posted here. I have finished up all the intake plumbing now, and it looks pretty decent. I am also mounting the battery in the trunk and getting ready to mount a roll cage. Things are coming together now. Maybe I'll get to drive this thing before the end of the year.

Passenger turbo

Driver turbo, exhaust not painted yet

Engine

Check out the plumbing!

From above

You can see my intercooler pipe routing here

Tight squeeze

Way down low

A good shot of what I like to call SPAGETTI!

Driver's turbo

Even lower

Mounting the battery

Here are a few more pictures of the progress on the turbo project.

Tough job fitting a section to the H-pipe.

Completed H-pipe.

Pictures of the final steps. It took 14 months of sporadic work to finish the project. I really didn't touch it for 8 months during the summer 2001, but it was definitely alot of work just the same.

Turbo and air cleaner ready to go.

I made this mod to the MAF meter after blowing the hose off the first day.

3" intake feed pipe from intercooler to throttle body.

Here it is all assembled and ready to go.

A shot from the front. The intercooler peeks through.

Thats all folks. Stay tuned for time slips and dyno figures!