I am currently employed by David Janes Race Cars in Kirksville, Missouri. We build a lot of race cars, and have recently made a move towards street performance and street cars in general.

I have an F-body that is LT1 powered. We recently embarked on a twin turbo setup for my car and things are going really well. It is going to be quite neat, and a real trick deal.

We were really thinking hard about trying to market a kit for LT1 powered F-bodies that would allow a guy to put either twin or single turbos on their car.

This kit would consist of EVERYTHING a guy needed to put a turbo on their 4th gen LT1 powered F-body.

Could I possibly get some feedback on this?

Would it be worth our while?

With the right turbo/turbos a lot of VERY STREETABLE power can be harnessed. I know the setup on my car will produce in the neighborhood of 900 horsepower at the rear wheels at a moderate boost level.

 

You know a good idea (besides an insane turbo kit) would be to provide like a built motor and turbos all together so you could drop it in and push some good boost numbers. Good luck on the kit, a friend of mine is doin a custom one and hes been doin it for like a year!

 

Your going to get alot of feed back from this. I like the sound of this

 

That would be real sweet and I would kill to have a twin setup. The only obstacles would be price, ease of installation, price, reliability, price, and price. Count me in on one if it meets all the above requirements. If you had any additional info, that would help.

 

when you're done, i will save up and buy it from you....my friend has a VR4, those twin turbos car is pretty damn quick with a v6, imagine it with a V8...

 

Ok the line starts behind me........

 

From what I know, there are only a few LT1 powered F-bodies that are twin turbocharged that are even worth mentioning on here.

One that I have heard about is making near 900rwhp and posting times in the low 9s at 150mph.

We would want to build a kit that is somewhat generic. It would be too costly on our part to build several different kits for different people looking for different people.

Some people want turbos, just to have them, because they want them and they want to be able to hot rod around in their car when they want to.

Then there are people like me, who want nothing more than to go extremely, stupid, retarted fast in a car that is capable of being driven daily and maintaing "descent" gas mileage. And be able to let the car idle indefinately in traffic on a 100* day.

It would be easier for us to make a kit that is pretty generic, and allows a guy to make good horsepower without a heavily modified motor.

To make horsepower like I want, a guy would need a solid bottom end with super low compression.

It wouldn't be a big deal, if ordered before hand for us to replace the small turbos with a set of good sized ones and maybe a larger intercooler for people looking for more than bolt-on performance.

Either way, i really feel that this is a good idea. And if people want a lot of power that is very driveable, these turbos are the way to go.

We would also fab up a crossover pipe so a guy could run a large single turbo.

Keep it coming!!!

We also want to do this for C4 Corvettes

 

Do it! When can I come down to Kirksville to check out the progress on your car?

-Chris

 

I know people have done this before in the past and have done some pretty crude jobs.

I am going to post a few links, and show you all some pictures so you know that you can take me seriously on this topic. I really want to do this, and basically...I AM!!

You can check out all the work we have done at David Janes Race Cars by visiting www.davidjanesracecars.com

Here is our latest car:




We also have our own little racing team, Buck Bros. Racing. I drive a 1997 Don Ness Oldsmobile Cutlass that is an ex-pro stock car. It was the "Castrol Super Clean" car that Larry Morgan drove a few years back.



My Uncle, drives this car:




I am dead serious when I posted this, if you guys are serious, let me know it!!

We can get the ball rolling on this deal!

 

At the very least, you could just market some turbo headers, wastegates, and downpipes for the LT1. This way people can do the turbo setups they want without the need for costly custom stuff by local shops. There would be MANY more turbo LT1s if there was just a practical and affordable way to do it.

If my hands weren't tied-up with college for the next 3 years, I would be on the phone with your shop ASAP getting ready to do this.

And THANK YOU!!!

 

there are many people like myself that have been awaiting a twin turbo lt1 setup for a long time. many companys have attempted but given up in the end making a kit. there are only 2 companys that i know of that make a turbo kit (single) and they dont even post boost numbers or any kind of proof that their kits will make our cars haul. if you do a good job on the kits im sure that everyone will buy from you including myself.... make sure its a twin setup though

 

In my honest opinion, twins are much better for the street.

However, with this kit, we would just sell a "crossover pipe" so a guy could run a single or a turbo setup.

The companies I have found, sell a crude *** kit. That really doesn't classify as a kit in my opinion. One of these actually, only claim to make 355 horse at the wheels on a factory LT1.

Ours would blow that the **** out the water. Especially on heavily modded cars.

We would also try to provide onsite tuning on a rear wheel dyno.

 

well it would cost alot of money just to get a bottom end to hold a turbo. this would be most peoples problem, having to build a engine to get the optimal performance out of a turbo.

you cant just bolt hold a turbo and think its going to work. you need a bottom end, heads, headers, rear end, and a tranny that will hold up to the task. this is just to name a few.

not trying to say it wouldnt be nice. but theres alot of prep work (if you want to call it that) to get ready to put a turbo on a f-body.

 

Again price is a main factor involved. Coming from a guy like myself who has strictly a bolt on car I can purchase a centrifugal supercharger from Vortech, Paxton, etc, for around $3,500 and see reletively high gains from low boost.

Granted, I know a turbo charger is sometimes more friendly to an engine than a supercharger, but then again the bang for the buck factor comes in.

I guess a Twin Turbo package depends on what type of F-body owner you are looking at acquire; the person looking for the extreme hp, or someone looking for a cost effective way to bolt-on horsepower.

Nevertheless, good luck and I look forward to hearing about your product in the future.

Dustin

 

I'm not going to tell you that a twin turbo set up is going to be real cost effective horsepower for someone looking to run turbos on a near stock motor. I won't lie to ya!

If you're looking at cost effective horsepower, **** the blower, **** turbos! STUFF A BOTTLE ON IT AND MOVE ON!

I like blowers alright, but as compared to a turbo...no. I just don't want to have to deal with belt issues.

To make good use of a turbo, or two of them, you do need a strong bottom end. No doubt.

This won't be for those that are weak at wallet. But, it will be damn effective if someone wants to go really fast and keep a car driveable, and have a sleeper that doesn't whine or lope.

This project is going to cost me a lot of money too.