Christian Steffen
I'm Awesome
Have you seen LT on YouTube boosting a stock 8.1? Makes a **** load of torque on a stock bottom end, not reason the L29 can't do the same as long as your tuning is good.
Great White Buffalo (first post)
- Thread starter Great White Buffalo
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Christian Steffen
I'm Awesome
The rear mount setup works fine for me, but if I were to do to all again I'd go front mount.
Great White Buffalo
Newbie
The rear mount setup is kind of intriguing to me. I've seen it, but never really considered it before. It does seem like the biggest benefit is space, but I'm sure there are trade off's and unique problems the further away you mount it.?
In other news, towing my trailer camping a couple of weeks ago, just pulling onto the interstate and trying to get to speed it started popping and backfiring through the intake. Got it towed home, borrowed my dads truck and went camping. Haven't had a chance to dig any deeper than popping the valve covers off yet, but idles fine and only pops and back fires under load. Pretty sure bad lifter or wiped cam lobe. I'll pop the intake off when I have a chance, but I assume I'll be sticking a roller setup in it this fall.
In other news, towing my trailer camping a couple of weeks ago, just pulling onto the interstate and trying to get to speed it started popping and backfiring through the intake. Got it towed home, borrowed my dads truck and went camping. Haven't had a chance to dig any deeper than popping the valve covers off yet, but idles fine and only pops and back fires under load. Pretty sure bad lifter or wiped cam lobe. I'll pop the intake off when I have a chance, but I assume I'll be sticking a roller setup in it this fall.
Great White Buffalo
Newbie
I have watched that series from LT. It's definitely one of prime motivators for adding a turbo. Between LT and Richard Holdner the Buffalo never stood a chance! I do remember LT had to fabricate the manifold and couldn't just flip it over. I'm not the fabricator that he is so that might be interesting. If this were a twin turbo setup there'd be plenty of manifold/header options. I'm open to suggestions...
Scott Davison
Newbie
Check your distributor rotor. They like to burn through and arc to the shaft and it will go to hell when you load the engine.
Sir, you are preaching to the choir -- there seems to be several of us in here who grew up the same way you did...
and I for one never outgrew it.
Based on my own personal experience with boosted engines, the least satisfying ones
to live with were the ones where the there was too little motor for too much vehicle,
and a turbo was added to 'fix' the problem. (Think '84-'86 Mustang SVO)
Sure, once the turbo spooled up all was right with the world...but always waiting for the
real power to show up was a motorhead buzzkill. Waiting for power to build is right up
there with waiting for bad brakes to warm up & start working. :-(
Just about the time I was ready to give up on the whole boost thing, I got to
help a young apprentice first build 'enough' motor to make the car fun to drive,
and *then* we put it under 2 atmospheres of boost. Once we got it all
dialed in, I had my own version of 'Jake sees the light moment'.**
NO waiting for the power to show up. The gas pedal had the magic "the more
you depress the pedal, the faster you go fast." It was perfect, in that *I* was
the limiting factor in how quick/fast we traveled...as it should be.
****
OK, here's where I try to talk you out of your turbo 496.
****
Given the above, upgrading your big block to a 496 is exactly the right place to
start. The L29 heads have the swirl design in the intake ports, good for swirl/low-speed
driveability, but don't breath as well upstairs as the spendy aftermarket heads?
No problem, a properly sized turbo would be a complimentary match for a 496/L29 head setup --
cammed for strong low end/midrange power to match the intake manifold, you start off with
ALL the grunt down low, with torque available *right now*. Meanwhile the
turbo spools up before the NA power starts to taper off...and the turbo blows the combo to
a sparkling top end finish!
Note: You know how you can't kill a stock Chevy straight 6? Same thing for a F*rd 300, or a
stock Chryco slant 6? The main reason why is that they don't make enough power to hurt
themselves. (!) There's roughly 120,000 BTUs in a gallon of gas, and on a good day we
turn 1/4 of that into mechanical twist, and the other 3/4 into *heat*. If you look at an
engine as a heat sink, as long as you didn't run a straight 6 out of oil or coolant, you
couldn't hurt 'em because the power (& heat) density was so low. (0.3-0.4 hp/ci?)
On the other end of the engine continuum, a high output 496 is already making a
*lot* of heat...and putting it under 8-14 lbs of boost is only going to force
everything closer to the edge, and if pushed to failure, the damage will be
somewhere between epic & breathtaking in proportions. :0)
In English, a boosted BBC is a great proposition, but only if we pay
close attention to thermal management & octane requirements.
The cooling system will need to be working at @L31MaxExpress levels,
no surprise there. But a turbo 496 (worth the extra effort required to
put it together) can't realistically be run while under boost on straight pump gas.
Good news, there *is* a solution. Done right a water/methanol injection
system can take you all the way to 116 octane, coming in only when needed.
Here's a brief history, going back to WWII piston-engine fighter aircraft:
You must be registered for see images attach
(credit: .pdf file from TexasVclub over HERE. See also Holley blog on using water/methanol injection on EFI cars: LINK)
NOTE: For all my southern brothers & sisters with hot NA setups, this 'octane boost on demand' can be indexed off of
your MAP sensor, allowing you to cool your intake charge and/or keep your knock sensors from causing the ECU to
pull spark timing when you need it most.)
****
In the land of electronics when we want to literally turn it up to 11 without cataclysmic
failure, it's all about ensuring that we stay within the SOA (Safe Operating Area) for
the output transistors. (SOA)
I just searched for "Safe Operating Area for gasoline engines" and came up with nothing.
(This doesn't mean that the article doesn't exist.) The point I'm trying to make is that
the BBC has legendary strength, and if you set up safe boundaries for the engine
to work within (octane & thermal) ...then you can make The Great White Buffalo a
truly memorable member of your personal fleet.
So there you go -- that's my best effort in trying to talk you out of turbocharging
a 496...
****
**Substitute "the Boost" for "the Band" and you will have a pretty
good idea of how I was affected after adding/driving 2 bar of intercooled boost on
a 331ci V8 already built up to a Best Reasonable Effort level:
xc_hide_links_from_guests_guests_error_hide_media
Last edited:
Christian Steffen
I'm Awesome
Holy novel Batman. Lol
The only thing I'll throw in here, 91 octane is fine with boost as long as you don't go crazy with it, and intercool it. W/M is good insurance though, nonetheless.
E85 would be the best solution if you live in an area that has it.
Good input though for sure.
The only thing I'll throw in here, 91 octane is fine with boost as long as you don't go crazy with it, and intercool it. W/M is good insurance though, nonetheless.
E85 would be the best solution if you live in an area that has it.
Good input though for sure.
Sir, you are preaching to the choir -- there seems to be several of us in here who grew up the same way you did...
and I for one never outgrew it.
Based on my own personal experience with boosted engines, the least satisfying ones
to live with were the ones where the there was too little motor for too much vehicle,
and a turbo was added to 'fix' the problem. (Think '84-'86 Mustang SVO)
Sure, once the turbo spooled up all was right with the world...but always waiting for the
real power to show up was a motorhead buzzkill. Waiting for power to build is right up
there with waiting for bad brakes to warm up & start working. :-(
Just about the time I was ready to give up on the whole boost thing, I got to
help a young apprentice first build 'enough' motor to make the car fun to drive,
and *then* we put it under 2 atmospheres of boost. Once we got it all
dialed in, I had my own version of 'Jake sees the light moment'.**
NO waiting for the power to show up. The gas pedal had the magic "the more
you depress the pedal, the faster you go fast." It was perfect, in that *I* was
the limiting factor in how quick/fast we traveled...as it should be.
****
OK, here's where I try to talk you out of your turbo 496.
****
Given the above, upgrading your big block to a 496 is exactly the right place to
start. The L29 heads have the swirl design in the intake ports, good for swirl/low-speed
driveability, but don't breath as well upstairs as the spendy aftermarket heads?
No problem, a properly sized turbo would be a complimentary match for a 496/L29 head setup --
cammed for strong low end/midrange power to match the intake manifold, you start off with
ALL the grunt down low, with torque available *right now*. Meanwhile the
turbo spools up before the NA power starts to taper off...and the turbo blows the combo to
a sparkling top end finish!
Note: You know how you can't kill a stock Chevy straight 6? Same thing for a F*rd 300, or a
stock Chryco slant 6? The main reason why is that they don't make enough power to hurt
themselves. (!) There's roughly 120,000 BTUs in a gallon of gas, and on a good day we
turn 1/4 of that into mechanical twist, and the other 3/4 into *heat*. If you look at an
engine as a heat sink, as long as you didn't run a straight 6 out of oil or coolant, you
couldn't hurt 'em because the power (& heat) density was so low. (0.3-0.4 hp/ci?)
On the other end of the engine continuum, a high output 496 is already making a
*lot* of heat...and putting it under 8-14 lbs of boost is only going to force
everything closer to the edge, and if pushed to failure, the damage will be
somewhere between epic & breathtaking in proportions. :0)
In English, a boosted BBC is a great proposition, but only if we pay
close attention to thermal management & octane requirements.
The cooling system will need to be working at @L31MaxExpress levels,
no surprise there. But a turbo 496 (worth the extra effort required to
put it together) can't realistically be run while under boost on straight pump gas.
Good news, there *is* a solution. Done right a water/methanol injection
system can take you all the way to 116 octane, coming in only when needed.
Here's a brief history, going back to WWII piston-engine fighter aircraft:
You must be registered for see images attach
(credit: .pdf file from TexasVclub over HERE. See also Holley blog on using water/methanol injection on EFI cars: LINK)
NOTE: For all my southern brothers & sisters with hot NA setups, this 'octane boost on demand' can be indexed off of
your MAP sensor, allowing you to cool your intake charge and/or keep your knock sensors from causing the ECU to
pull spark timing when you need it most.)
****
In the land of electronics when we want to literally turn it up to 11 without cataclysmic
failure, it's all about ensuring that we stay within the SOA (Safe Operating Area) for
the output transistors. (SOA)
I just searched for "Safe Operating Area for gasoline engines" and came up with nothing.
(This doesn't mean that the article doesn't exist.) The point I'm trying to make is that
the BBC has legendary strength, and if you set up safe boundaries for the engine
to work within (octane & thermal) ...then you can make The Great White Buffalo a
truly memorable member of your personal fleet.
So there you go -- that's my best effort in trying to talk you out of turbocharging
a 496...
****
**Substitute "the Boost" for "the Band" and you will have a pretty
good idea of how I was affected after adding/driving 2 bar of intercooled boost on
a 331ci V8 already built up to a Best Reasonable Effort level:
xc_hide_links_from_guests_guests_error_hide_media
How's the gas mileage now? That's a Git Er Done truck right there.
My theory is the outside is for everyone else.
Great White Buffalo
Newbie
It's been a stretch, but I finally had a chance to dive into the buffalo and diagnose the problem. Here it is, #7 exhaust.
You must be registered for see images attach
You must be registered for see images attach
Yuuuck!!! Bet the cam is post toasty too!
