Introduction - Turbo/LS

Hi all, I figure its time to make an introduction. I have been slow roiling my swap due to time, family commitments and my other broken cars, but my swap is currently working well enough to be a daily driven. Im running an cammed LS1 with a comp air cooled oil less turbo mounted in the rear. I have A/C, heat, power steering, power brakes with wildwood 4 pots. I'm still working on the suspension, transmission (going to need some help with 01E parts), will rebuild the LS1 to possibly a forged 383, and need paint and some interior trim reworked. I have been driving it around for a few years fixing and improving things as needed. finally got it to the point where the engine stays cool, even during stop and go Florida summers. I have done a handful of consecutive pulls on the hiway at ~10 psi manifold pressure in the summer and I did not get over 220 Deg F! The car looks like a dumpster fire due to all the mismatched and paint peeling panels but most of the systems are working well. Once its completed, I will get the car painted and that will mark completion. It has been a tedious journey to get this far, but well worth it once things are up and running.   Some pics below form various states of my build, still a work in progress.  

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Welcome Caindog,

Thanks for sharing your project experience.  I must say that your efforts are unique and reinforce the old saying, "There's more than one way to skin the cat!"

It sounds like you've had many of the challenges we all face and I for one would be interested in the details of how exactly you overcame them.

Finally, your remote turbo set-up is like nothing I've ever seen!!  Clearly it works for you and I'm curious what kind of power your engine is producing.

There are experts on this Forum that build these cars for a living and many others that have personal projects at various states of completion.  Everyone is very helpful!

Keep us updated!

Oilless turbo.... interesting!! What size is the turbo? I did a remote turbo too. I used a t72 on a 383.

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Glad to see another rear mount setup! people normally look at me odd when I say I installed my turbo in the back, but it works. I routed my induction right next to my exhaust, all 2.5", just barely fits in a few places. I see you routed yours through the wheel well, not a bad idea. I was thinking of doing that but it would disturb many of the other components that are installed. Did you wrap your exhaust? Some other have stated it made a drastic difference. I have only run this setup with insulation so I have no clue how it spools without wrap. My turbo is a Comp CTR4193S-6875 .96 AR. It was recommend to me by Comp and the shop I bought it from. I specified 600-700 whp, and minimal turbo lag. I currently boost it form 9-11 PSI depending how much ethanol is in my tank. I'm not sure how much power that is since it has not been on a dyno, but it feels like a lot. The engine is fairly healthy, leak down is between 5-15 psi across all cylinders, only cyl 3 is at 15, the majority are close to 10. I have ARP bolts on the engine, but the lower is stock at close to 200K miles (unsure if it was rebuilt within that time), so I'm hesitant to push it until I install a forged lower. I have only gotten to full boost a few times while tuning my boost controller. Now with these gas & e85 prices, I boost much less or drive my 4 cylinder.

below is a data log from a while back, 93 octane. I met my full boost request of 7.7 psi at 3360rpms. Obviously the turbo has a lot more left in it, but it got my my request fairly quickly. My 4 port boost controller keeps the boost real steady.
I have since cleaned up the fuel table, adjusted fuel timing. Still need to tune spark at a dyno some time but that's after I rebuild the engine.

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I've only got the back half of my exhaust wrapped. I have wrap to wrap the headers and the front half of the exhaust but I may just leave it as is because its so tight in there.
I'm only running 10psi too just the wastegate setting. I'm also running a meth kit.

That oiless turbo is a great idea! If I ever have problems with the oil pump I have I'm going to buy one of those turbos and ditch the oil lines!

What intercooler are you running?

No intercooler for me, but I am using methanol/water which is like a chemical intercooler.

There is an intercooler in one of caindogs pictures.

I welded together a Mishimoto MMUIC-17 universal core (17.75 x 9.85 X 3.5) with a pair of treadstone EV125 12.5 X 3.5 X 2.5" outlet end caps. Some fabricating was needed to shorten the end caps. My charge temps are typically just a few degrees above ambient. After a few pulls it creeps up or if I turn on the AC it seems to build charge temp more quickly. All in all, seems to work well.