turbo the LT1

[25-to-life]

i am helping out my cousin to turbo his LT1 firebird. i am very familiar with what it takes to turbo charge an engine. to be honest most of my work has been on the mitsu. 4g63. and older small block chevs. from scratch.

any info where i can reasearch the matter more. or read stuff about what people have done? i mean like oil routing (does anyone in the Lt1 crowd branch oil off the oil pressure switch to the turbo?) turbo location. etc.

i think that he wants to shoot for 550 hp.
in my opinion, if those pistons are aluminum, i would swap them out with forged ones, get different rods and posibly a crank:also maybe some head work for rev line reasons and to avoid breakage. how much hp can the crank handle?

has any one used the stock bottom end on a turbo set up? if so how did it go?

what piggy backs are available. or what places exist which can program his maf for bigger injectors etc? does the comp even need touched?

what ever happens, i will build this turbo system so boost comes in around the 3000-3500 rpm range.

thanks for all your help. any other and all suggestions will be appriciated, i just dont know much about the Lt1 and its posibilities.

[Flip94ta]

The disclaimer, I'm no turbo expert.

Now with that said, the hardest part of a turbo LT1 is that there are no headers to buy for this upgrade, most have built their own or had a shop fab them. Its pretty tight under the hood and requires really good fab and welding skills.

If you are gonna stay 350-355 a T-72 is the size you need.

383-396 will use a T-76 to spool 3000-3500.

Ho many miles are on the motor? The factory pistons can handle 6-7 psi IF the motor is in good shape and timing is pulled. Intercooling is HIGHLY recommended. The pistons are the weakest link in the stock bottom end. The rods are known to handle 450 rwhp with good bolts, the crank is good to 500 rwhp. These numbers are sort of normal some have failed under less hp some have made it longer like mine.

TRW/Speedpro are some of the cheaper/popular forged pistons, summit has a LT1 rebuild kit with these. Most people tune using LT1 edit. I believe they do scaling of the MAF tables to adjust for MAF maxing out. Remember I am not an expert here. Oil routing is done using a tapped fitting in the block just above the oil filter. This hole is for the factory oil cooler. You can trash that, its known to be a piece of junk.

It is alot easier to go with a centrifugal like the s-trim or the P1SC. To acheive my 540 hp with took an s-trim and aftercooler with a 2.85 pulley, a 7 inch crank pulley(14psi), 58mm TB, cc305 cam, 1.6RR, mild head work, forged srp pistons, reconditioned stock rods with arp bolts, arp studs on the mains, 9.2 CR, edelbrock shorty headers and y-pipe, borla catback, LT1 edit tuning, dyno time, and 50 lb injectors.

[snakeoilperformance]

has any one used the stock bottom end on a turbo set up? if so how did it go?


.

all the time, now tuning will be important and not usingh to much boost, but its always better to forged stuff in first. because you will wanna crank it up once its installed TRUST ME its addicting. heres a stock 120,000 motor car that just left out shop last week..

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