TEAM FORCED INDUCTION:
Below is a picture of our team from left to right (Professor Huang, Greg, Geoff and Matt).

THE PROJECT:
We are building a 1975 Olds 350 smallblock, fitting it with a turbo, and making the needed modifications. Then tuning and testing will follow. We are currently sponsored by Mighty Muffler, and Xotic Motorsports. Also, you can check out some of the guidance we got from our friend at "Turbocharging 2nd Gens.com". Our project is being done as a requirement for graduation in the field of Mechanical Engineering, but we're having a blast doing it.

THE ENGINE:
Stock engine internals include SpeedPro Hypereutetic Flat-top pistons (8.5:1 compression ratio), moly rings, Eagle rods, stock crank, and a stock grind cam. Also attached are a Rochester 750 cfm 4 barrel Quadrajet carburetor, Hedman Headers (while naturally aspirated), factory GM exhaust manifolds with crossover (while turbocharged), 2 1/2" True Dual Exhaust, M-20 Wide Ratio Muncie 4-speed Manual Transmission with Hurst Shifter, and a 2.78 Open-Ended Rear.

THE POWER OF A V-8
The naturally aspirated Olds 350 put down 178 HP and 286 FT-LBS of torque to the rear wheels. That is untuned (tuning will happen later with the turbo), but what a torque monster! Check out the first graph to see the flat torque curve, with the maximum hitting around 3,125 RPM. The horsepower curve is pretty strong too! A special thanks to our new friends at Xotic Motorsports for sponsoring us the use of their dyno facilities!

Dyno Graph 1 (Naturdally Aspirated)

...and here is the "traditional" dyno graph with HP and Torque:

THE TURBO:
The turbocharger we are using to apply forced induction is our own custom hybrid Garrett Turbo. The exhaust housing is off of an AiResearch (Garrett) T3 turbo with .48 turbine. It also has an internal waste-gate. The compressor housing is off of a Garrett T04e turbo with a .50 A/R and a "57 trim" wheel. Technically this is a type of T3/T4 Hybrid, and it combines the larger wheel and compressor of the T04 with the smaller faster spooling exhaust turbine and housing of the T3. Overall, the qualities of quick spool-time from the T3 and the larger more powerful compressor from the T04 combine to deliver more boost and do it faster.

PROGRESS:
04/01/06

We finally have TURBO SPOOL! Today the car got back from the Mighty Muffler performance exhaust shop. We had it there for a week, and we worked with the staff to fabricate and weld up the exhaust system for the turbo. Now the exhaust is fully hooked up, and the turbo spools up nicely!!

Here is Mighty Muffler… special thanks to everybody there who helped us out on the project! Your help was much appreciated.
Here is a view from under the car, showing the full turbo exhaust system.
It collects exhaust gas from the manifolds into a single pipe, which runs through the turbine inlet on the turbo.
This gas spools up the turbo, and afterwards passes out into a single outlet pipe which bends down under the car.
Then it bends over and exits out of a side pipe near the passenger side door.

04/02/06

Today we hooked up the full turbo system! We ran the turbo compressor into a blow-off/bypass valve, and then into some intake ducting, which leads into the carb hat. Also, we tapped into the intake line so that we could reference the fuel pressure regulator and the wastegate. Got some great footage of the turbo today as well (see below).

Here are some of the newest videos. They are with the exhaust completed and the turbo spooling. However, the first three have the intake portion of the turbo not hooked up. It allows you to hear the nice turbo whistle and the whooshing of air. The last few are of the whole system set-up. You can also see more video on Page 2. If you don't have high speed internet, I would not suggest trying to download these videos. Many of them are quite large. You will need Quicktime 7 or greater in order to view the videos. You can download the software directly from here.

First Time Hearing the Turbo Spool!

Turbo Running on Trailer

Car Driving With Turbo Exhaust Complete

First Day of Testing the Whole Turbo System

Turbo'd Cutlass Backing Up Driveway

Closeup Awesome-Sounding Video of Turbo Exhaust

Along with the exhaust we had to hook up the oil feed and drain lines for the turbo, and its coolant flow lines. All of this was done so that we could start up the engine and have the turbo run properly. Now we have hooked up the intake to the turbo and are in the process of tuning the engine. And on Saturday we will be taking the car (now turbocharged!) for testing at Xotic Motorsport again.

04/09/06

Well its the day after our dyno testing at Xotic. Here are some videos from yesterday:

Turbo Dyno Run 1

Turbo Dyno Run 2

Turbo Dyno Video

It turns out the carburetor was unable to flow enough air and deliver enough fuel for the turbocharger's compression. Because of this, the car was unable to make a full dyno run with the turbocharger. The engine would only reach about 2700 RPM in fourth gear. Still, it was quite impressive to hear & see. We ended up doing a dyno run with the turbo attached on the exhaust side but not the intake side. This way we could see the effects of the exhaust turbine on the engine, without there being interference from the carburetor and turbo boost pressure. We compared this to the incomplete data gathered while the turbo system was completely hooked up. The complete turbo system made about 40% more Horsepower than the naturally aspirated run made with the turbo exhaust turbine still attached. This data is all taken at 2700 RPM. It means that we could expect at least a 40% gain in power over the original 178 horsepower which the engine put down during its previous testing in February. See Page 11 for more about the turbo’d dyno testing and our results.

In a short while we have to hand in our written report and engineering calculations. Also our poster is due soon, and the big presentation will follow on April 21 st. So I may not have time in the coming weeks to completely update this site with final results, but please check back throughout April, as I will do what I can to inform you of the group’s progress. If not, everything will be put up on here by May.

Also, please note that since the project has been very time consuming, alot of our progress is way ahead of the what is available here for you to see or read on the upcoming pages. Please excuse the "under construction" sections.

Thanks for your interest. Tune in later for more updates!

Page 1 - Intro & Background
Page 2 - Videos
Page 3 - Engine Build Part 1
Page 4 - Engine Failure Analysis
Page 5 - Engine Build Part 2
Page 6 - Dyno Day & Baseline Results
Page 7 - Pre-Turbo Preparation
Page 8 - Turbo Build & Install
Page 9 - Turbo Exhaust & Mighty Muffler
Page 10 - Turbo Intake & Tuning
Page 11 - Turbocharged Dyno Testing (Final Results)