Studebaker Progress

Once the motor and transmission were mounted, it was time to get down to some fun stuff. Building the turbo setup. I started with the hot side of the system, which consists of all the piping it takes to drive the turbocharger, from the exhaust manifolds to the turbo, and the downpipe from the turbo to the exhaust under the car. This part of the system has functional issues (piping size, location of the wastegate) and packaging issues, as everything has to fit under the hood when it's done.

Here's some pics!

I started with the manifolds, I used the stock cast iron manifolds that came on the truck motor. I flipped them left to right so they faced forward and modified them with extensions and V band clamps.

I later revised the drivers side manifold like this. There's a lot of revisions in work like this!

After a lot of staring, thinking, moving, clamping and more thinking I decided to mount the turbo front and center. Before I got this far I made a framework of where everything else lives (like the radiator) and made a bracket to hold the turbo in place. I made the up pipes out of 2" in an effort to keep exhaust velocity high which I hope will help the turbo spool up more quickly.

Here's the up pipe fully welded with the turbo in place. It's a 76mm Master Power with a 1.00 A/R. It will flow enough air to make 800 horsepower.

Another view from the side.

This is the up pipe on the welding bench, I wanted to show how the wastegate is mounted. This is the part which regulated how much boost the turbo makes. It has to see exhaust from both banks, and it works best when it's placed in the line of exhaust flow.

I made a small merge pipe from 1" that feeds exhaust flow from each bank.

This is what it looks like all put together. That shit is tight! Both literally and figuratively.

This is the downpipe I came up with, it's 3" and will run under the car to a single 3" exhaust when it's done. Next up is the charge piping, it will be made in aluminum.