Project turbo 6

Donor Car supplied by Brenton

It is presently a 3.3 Black motor. Running on straight Gas. Fuel injection manifold, with Gas Research carby. Standard tri-matic, 2.5" exhaust system.

Step by step Engine re-build and car set up for the people at home.

       Project objectives.

    1. Re-build a holden 3.3 black motor, as cheap as possible to run a nice chunk of boost. Dyno naturally aspirated engine to establish power output.

    2. Fit up New turbo on our J pipe design, using existing 2.5" exhaust system. Small front mount intercooler, and low boost on trial no. 1. Dyno and establish power increase over standard motor. Run at Drag strip.

    3. Work on step by step improvements to increase horsepower and quarter mile times until something breaks. All of this will be documented and available to the public.

4. Have a well designed turbo kit to produce and sell to the public, including an Exhaust manifold, fabricated J pipe and Turbo, and an Alternator bracket as the stage 1 kit. Also available will be a stage 2 kit that will consist of the same as the stage 1 kit but also, a fully re-designed cooling system and a power steering pump bracket if required. Orders for these will be taken now. For any inquires please feel free to ask us.

    Stay tuned for updates

The story of the build so far...

One of the neatest and easiest ways to turbo the Holden 202 engine is to use the 'J' pipe system. This is also the most cost effective for the power output that can be achieved using this system. To build our 'J' pipe system we have used the factory blue/black motor exhaust manifold. We have then used 12mm flange plates and had them cut out at the laser cutters to ensure a good fit. From there it was just a case of getting the two pipes from the exhaust manifold flange over and into the turbo flange, at the same time though, you need to consider the rail's and the cross member/engine mount. This can prove to be quite difficult and time consuming. We worked out that the easiest way was to merge the two smaller pipes from the exhaust manifold into one over the greatest distance possible. This also gives the exhaust gas a smother transition. Now the turbo sits where the alternator and power steering pump used to be, so we need to relocate them. The only real spot for these now is on the opposite side of the engine. To do this we had to design and engineer a bracket to hold these. This has been done, but wouldn't work if we were using the factory water pump because of where the neck comes out. These brackets will be available in the kit on request with a small cooling system change only.

Because of the main objectives of stage 1 in this build, we will be using the factory E.F.I cam. The one we have is in fairly good condition and so are the lifters. What we have done with the lifters though is mechanicalised them to prevent lifter pump under higher RPM. This creates a need for adjustment so we have fitted a new set of 'bolt on, adjustable Street Terra's'. To go with all of this a stronger set of valve springs have also been fitted, this helps hold the valve against the seat which increases heat transfer from the valve. Because of the stronger valve springs being fitted, the camshaft and lifters have been treated like they were new, this include's both the preperation of them before fitting, along with the correct bedding procedure's on first being fired up. So that we can run a bit of boost in this motor it was important to reduce the compression ratio. There are many way's to do this, but to keep the cost down we decided to lay the chambers on the head back on roughly a 45 degree angle. Photo's below show a before and after shot of the chambers. This increased the chamber volume to 56cc making the compression ratio 8.6:1.

The oiling system on a standard Holden 3.3 is fine for the standard motor, but if your going to make more power and rev it a bit harder then it needs improving. So for starters we drilled the main oil feed from the pick up out to a 1/2" hole and then radiused the ends of the holes. The oil pick up was next, we got a standard V8 holden pick up which is much bigger in it outside diameter. We then cut it up and used the bends to weld up a new pick up to fit the standard sump. We drilled out the swivel nut and welded it straight to the end of the pipe. It makes it a little tricky to get on and off but is worth it because there are no restrictions at all now. Next was the sump, with only straight line racing in mind, capacity wasn't a real problem. We did need to keep the oil in the right place though. So we then worked out where it needed some baffling and welded them in.

For the Intake system we have chosen to use the factory VK E.F.I manifold, for a couple of reasons. It offers one of the best even flow patterns, it makes the plumbing alot easier and the long runners offer a good drive ablity before boost. For the stage 1 kit there will be no modifications done to the manifold. Because we are running straight LPG we are using a Gas Research Throttle body. These seem to be the pick of the carburettors on the market for blow through Turbo set-ups. We have fitted a small front mount Intercooler, we chose this small cooler because it fitted in front of the radiator without too much fuss. For the first stage this size cooler should be fine. Once all of this was fitted we needed to plumb the system. We done this in aluminum tube 1.6mm wall thickness. This was fairly easy because you can buy this in all different sizes and already mandrel bent. It is important when you are plumbing a system like this that all the pipe work is well rubber booted so that as the motor twists and rocks it wont cause you pipe work to crack and break. This is also very easy these days with a huge range of silicone boots on the market.