The turbo is a Garrett GT5533R 94mm, with a billet ETR-HO compressor wheel from Forced Inductions. This turbo was always one of my desired options, though unlikely due to the price, size, and “overkillishness” it delivers. I stumbled onto a great deal from a guy who bought it late October and ran into unfortunate financial issues, so I made out pretty well. It also happens to be the exact turbo “The Cutty” will be running this year on Street Outlaws. He made just under 1500rwhp with it with room to grow.
This car will be ran down the track like the last one, though most of the time it would be run on a much lower power setting. There’s no hiding that part of this will be just to have a cool build… frankly the idea of running down the track with this combo cranked up scares the shit out of me. No huge rush on the build… I’m going to enjoy the process and take my time getting there. Hopefully will end up with something nice looking (learned a lot of do’s and don’ts last go around), and will have fun with friends and maybe some Jack along the way. I plan to build all the turbo related items this winter, then start picking away at the engine, fuel, and safety items. Here’s the quick breakdown of the build:
2000 Camaro SS
-Garrett GT5533R 94mm
-Truck manifold / SS plumbing hot
-Aluminum cold and possibly aluminum exhaust past the tranny
-Might go for a custom 6" thick A-A intercooler, all v-banded
-LSX 6-bolt block in the ~400ci area
-Big heads
-Reasonable cam (gas mileage. cough.)
-Twin 465lph in tank pumps
-160ish # injectors
-most likely 93oct low / C16 high
-Stock computer with HP Tuners 3bar. Car will be inspected and street driven.
-10 point CrMoly cage with a net (ya ya) and a chute. Not going 25.5 on this.
-Already have the TH400 from Comp. Trans, Moser M9 rear, Denny’s DS, and most of the suspension.
Before anyone says people are doing this and that with “junkyard” builds… yes I’m aware of that and that is very cool that they are pulling that off. I applaud them, but that is not what I want to do. The plan is to tune it from 800whp - MAYBE 1500whp depending on how big my balls are that day… or how many drinks I had. I’m not sure what the goals for the track are, but I’ll be the first to say they will not reach the setup’s full potential. I just want to have fun building it.
I’m just gonna throw this out there… I’m not intending to dictate your build at all but not going 25.5 is my only regret with my car… at the time I said no way and stuck with the 10pt. I got to the 8.50 point so fast and now I can’t even turn mine up to see the full potential at the track, because I’m out of cage. Ultimately I think not being able to mess with it and go faster led to me losing some interest. This is a deep 7 sec combo you’re building there… Just something to think about although I’m sure you did already.
Foureyed - I certainly agree with you and that was one of the big struggles I was having making a decision of which turbo(s) to go with. Why waste the time and money making big power if I can’t use it. Ultimately, the ability to safely drive this car on the street was the most important thing, and I can’t do that with the added bars around my head that a 25.5 adds. When it comes time for the cage, I’ll likely have it built in such a way that I can convert it if it comes to it (assuming that can be done). Maybe I’ll run it to 8.5 and try to continue to do so with less and less power, or maybe I’ll run it half track at NYI and make a glory pass once in a while. I agree that it will get boring when I reach a point and can’t go further due to safety rules… so I guess that’s when the “fun” of building the setup takes over. Hell my S88 turbo went sub 8.5 with the new owner and this thing dwarfs it.
Wahoo - E85 is still an option, but I need to do more research on it. I’m not sure if at a certain power level it loses it’s effectiveness… how it reacts to different engine combinations, cooling, tuning, etc. I know the basics, but never really looked into it much since it was just coming into style when I was getting rid of the last car.
Its pretty much better in every way. Cheap to run, can run leaner, equiv of 108 ish octane gasoline. Only downside would be the increased fuel requirements. Uses about 30% more than gasoline.
How reliable is it? I’ve heard it’s not the same pump to pump. The closest pump to me is in East Aurora. I’ve also read (briefly and I don’t know how good the info was), that it not a good fuel at the high end of the HP I’m building to.
I don’t think it rods any modern fuel lines, and you can always spend the money to get ethanol-specific lines.
It changes quite a bit. People do testing kits for pump testing sometimes. An ethanol sensor is another option, but then another variable for tuning. It’s a fantastic fuel, but not the magic bullet people make it out to be, especially when pushing the envelope of a motor.
Yah I think the octane changes from pump to pump but as long as you were conservative on the tune it should be fine. I think that’s what some people have said on turbobuicks. I’d like to use it for my car when the time comes.
I love hearing advice about E-85 from people that don’t / have never run it.
FWIW… I run E-85. It varies from E-70 - E-88 at the pump on walden & ransom (where I go). I just run it with no changes to my fuel system and notice no difference in consistency at the track and can’t notice the difference running it. My fuel lines are fine ( 4 years now). I’ve made 1,005hp to the tire and the fuel shows no signs of letting up yet. Friend of mine has a faster car than mine (best 1/4 of 8.20’s I believe) also runs E-85 no problems. I had to go to a belt drive fuel pump at around 900hp because I was running out of fuel.
Only thing that sucks is on longer road trips I can’t just run 93oct… but that’s mostly because of the carb. You should be able to run 2 fuel maps for driving on 93 with a fast / holley system I would think.
Dammit you guys are getting me interested in cars again…
One major gain in using e85 is you can use one tune. Ill be honest when I was switching from 93 to C12 at the track I was having to make somewhat major changes to my fueling and timing to see the benefits to where I would think having a second tune is where im heading. I simply didn’t have enough data to do so last year.
Also man I wasn’t a fan of the amount of deposits in the head/exhaust ports from using leaded fuels. It was shocking. I probably ran 40ish gallons of c12 last season.
I used the GM flex fuel sensor set up on my BMW335i and loved the ability to see exactly what ethanol percentage I was getting from tank to tank and from summer to winter blended E85. Also the tune was setup to change with ethanol percentage and also allowed me to put in 93 if I was not able to get E85 and the tune would change accordingly. There has to be somehting like this for domestic cars if it was available for my pain in the ass bmw tuning.
