80 turbo TA Mods

[Morley]

There is NO replacement for cubic inch displacement, even forced induction. With the puny 301 he may make some higher HP numbers tinkering with the turbo, but with a 2nd gen what he needs is torque and a turbo ain't gonna give you that.

[daveshapellSVT]

you can make torque with a turbo setup. look at the third gen turbo ta. thats a 3.8 turbo and it makes 345ft lbs on low boost. just think grand nationals and turbo trans ams. those cars are sick as hell. only reason why these particular turbo trans am gets the bad rap is because back then they really didn't know much about turbo's or boost. fast forward 10yrs to 1989-1990 and they figured it out. in 1980 they were faced with strict emissions and cars with no balls. we are talking v8's here that were making 145hp lol So they turned to boost to up the power. A common issue with the 2nd gen turbo ta is knocking from detonation. even in stock form. so retard the timing, run higher octane gas and turn up the boost 5psi..

[MrPbody]

Guys,

No reason to argue over all this. Turbos were understood just fine, as far back as the 1920s. Offys were tearing up race tracks with over 500 HP in 1925.

Turbo T/As were a "stop-gap" design, intended to produce nearly the same power from 5 lrs. as 6. The comments about the 455 HO are right on the money. NO turbo car makes the onrush of power like a big-cubed, long stroke V8. 345 lb. ft.? That's little more than 1/2 what a good 7.5 lr. engine makes without an adder.

One of the current "quickest Pontiacs in the world" is John Welter's 440 CID ProMod, running a BIG turbo. The car has been 6.82 @ 205. Not bad for an old Injun "door slammer". This is a Pontiac V8, not a Chevy with Pontiac covers. THE quickest Pontiac in history is a 399 CID version of an old 389, with Mickey Thompson "hemi" heads on nitro with a "Roots" type blower in an old slingshot (Good Guys competitor). It's been 6.77, but had to shut the fuel off at the 1,000' mark. Top end speed was only 201 (coasting through). Look for all this to change this year at Pontiacs In The Park. Several TA/FC and ProMod projects are finally ready to make their debuts. 5s could be in the "cards".

Comparing GNXs and '89 Turbo T/As to '80 Turbo cars is like comparing the '06 GTO to the '74. Not a fair assessment. Fuel injected and computer controlled versus carb a knock sensor. Apples-to-donuts.

Jim

[daveshapellSVT]

Yea they are fairly different setups, but i still believe you can pull out some good power from the 80ta. I'm sure it may have it's limittations cause of design or what have you. I did some reading on the car from wikapidia, and i guess they are said to have weak internals. But even with that said i'm sure the motor can hold another 50whp. thats not very much. I guess it comes down to how serious someone wants to get with that 301. anything can be rebuilt and become stronger. I just think that not many had too much interest in modding the car so it really just got a bad label. You can make anything fast.

i have to diagree in one area though. sure turbo's have been around a while, but we certainly have a better understanding of them today. i mean today we have methods of tuning that were not even thought of yrs ago. there was no way we could have been efficent back in the day with turbo's...

I see things from a completely different view. you guys kinda prefer a big huge engine instead of boosting a smaller one. My friends have 4 bangers that are boosted. With 4 bangers and small cars you can't fit a huge engine in it. so we are limmitted to how much engine we can run, so we are left with boosting. And it's very effective, there are 4 cylinder motors that can hold 800+ hp. So when i hear about a turbo v6 or v8 i instantly think potential.