hey everyone, my friend is selling a turbo charger for $100 but said he'll give it to me for $50. i think it is out of a GMC Typhoon V6, there is nothing wrong with it aside from looking a little dirty, he took it out after he got into an accident and never got around to installing it, i was wondering, would it be worth putting in my 350? how much work actually goes into installing a turbo, i do beginner-moderate mechanics, like i can change engines and trannies i just cant rebuild them yet lol, how much would i have to buy to make it work such as a manifold and such, i think its just the turbo he has for sale, thank you everyone.

 

Are you any good at welding? Installing a non kit turbo can be a lot of work but mostly just requires a lot of cutting, fitting and welding. It also depends if you plan on running an intercooler (which are usually recommended when using a turbo as the air going into your intake will be heated by the exhaust gasses in the "hot side" of the turbo and thus will be less dense resulting in less HP than cold air.) If you do decide to run an intercooler you will need to determine if you have the room in your car for it. This also means more tubing on the cold air side of the turbo. Another thing you might have a little trouble with is running the oil lines to lube the bearings on the turbo. You might be able to pick up a kit that you can adapt to work and you may be able to look at some other turbo'ed 350s to see where exactly they run the oil lines. One last thing you might take into consideration is the size of the turbo. If the turbo is too small it may not be worth your time/money as it may not produce enough boost/volume for your 350. It'll be up to you to make that call, but you may be able to do a little research on the turbo if you know what make/size it is or what it came out of and can determine how much boost it can produce. Hope this helps.

 

Oh and one thing I should add...do you know what the compression ratio of your engine is?

 

thanks for the input, and no i am no good at welding, i welded an exhaust once and that was shotty lol i just needed it to stay bc the clamp wasnt working, and it looks like a decent size turbo but idk if it will put enough boost to make the time and money worth it, and the compression is not a factor bc i think cylinder 8 has little to none, but i am going to rebuild the whole engine and i figured while i have it out of the car throwing a turbo on would be easier than if the engine was in the car, i saw online u can buy special flanges to help adapt to the intake and exhaust systems, and there is plenty of room in that engine bay for at least a smal lintercooler, i have about a 1.5 ft gap from my fan and my radiator lol. paying someone to do this would be astronomically expensive and wouldnt be worth a medium turbo at all would it? lol

 

You might benefit more from spending the money on rebuilding your engine. A new set of aluminum heads, a high flow intake, and a cam may get you more HP than a medium sized turbo without having to design the whole system yourself or pay someone to do it. If you do rebuild the engine it would be beneficial to you to find out the compression ratio. Anything more than 10:1 CR wouldn't produce much benefit with a small to medium sized turbo, not to mention that it could raise your CR enough where you could no longer run a lower octane fuel (I kind of doubt it though with a smaller turbo).

As for installing the turbo on the engine out of the car...I would think you would almost have to do it in the car. You might be able to find a manifold and bolt the turbo and manifold on the engine out of the car (just be sure you have clearance before you pull the motor if you plan to do this), but for any of the tubing I would think you'd need to have the engine in the car with the turbo on it. The intercooler would probably be easier to mount with the engine out of the car, but again, make sure you have clearance.

50 bucks still isnt bad for a turbo if you know its in good condition, so if you want, pick it up and hang on to it until you can determine whether or not it would be beneficial. And you could probably sell it on craigslist to a ricer for twice what you paid for it if you decide you dont want it lol. But I would say the first thing you need to do is figure out how far you are going to go with your rebuild, and whether or not you are going to add some performance upgrades (cam, heads, intake, etc) and figure out if its worth it for you to invest the time and money its going to take to install a turbo. You could always just rebuild the engine first and wait to do the turbo later.

 

yeah i think i am going to get the turbo bc 50 bucks is 50 bucks lol, i was planning on cams and heads and what not, nothing fancy because she is my daily driver, just give it a little more kick, but right now she really needs a rebuild bc im losing compression and alot of the gaskets are probably gone due to the fact that im burning/losing a quart of oil a week lol

 

Too bad you didn't know for sure if it was a typhoon turbo. You could pic up another one online and then you rig up both on some shorty headers flipped upside down. I have a couple friends with Grand Nationals. I've been thinking about this for years. Sure there low boost but two... Also rear mount is an idea too.

 

Thats what I would do. Just pick up the turbo...cant hurt to have one laying around. If you're like me you'll find some use for it in the future if you dont end up using it right now lol. Summit racing has a couple of rebuild kits that are pretty good. And is it dripping oil? or burning it? Because if its burning it you're probably going to be in it more than a couple gaskets. You might have to have the cylinders bored out a little and then get some new pistons. If you're replacing the heads and cam you shouldnt have to worry about having valve seats ground down. Depending on what you're looking to do for upgrades on your engine, Summit Racing has a few top end kits that are actually a pretty good deal, so you might check them out.

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/CMB-08-0037/

and here's an example of a rebuild kit...Summit has many different ones.
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/SUM-SBCKIT1-300/

 

yeah i got the idea from someone turboing a grand national thats why i asked my friend about the turbo he has laying in his living room lol, and i think it is dripping at the oil pan gasket bc the underside of my car is just grime slime and oil lol, although it is more than likely burning a little as well, although there is no water in the oil or anything like that so it should be good for now

 

Well water in the oil could indicate more problems than if it were burning oil lol. But if its only dripping from the pan, thats not as big of a deal. Still, couldnt hurt to rebuild the engine, especially if you're losing compression on a cylinder. Not to mention, you could gain some easier HP.