Tricks for a Budget DIY Turbo!

[twinturboGTO]

After having a convo with a friend of mine who has a supercharged foxbody about a turbo set up, I decided to do some research. I was surprised to find a crazy amount of cheap turbo parts out there for not only the foxbody but most late model mustangs! The piping is really the worst part. Making your own piping is a grind (took me 100 hours to get it right)... but thankfully for the stangs all of these manifolds and downpipes can be bought in stainless for around 300 bucks! All of the intercooler piping can be bought for about 100 bucks on ebay (i have had no leaks or problems after 2 years). Also I took a gamble and bought an intercooler for about 150 bucks on ebay. Lets just say it was 70 degrees in the dyno shop and my air intake temps were a little over 80 degrees! I would say it worked! One mistake I did make was buying a cheap set of wastegates. They didn't work and caused me to over boost a couple times. In my experience I would just skip trying cheap stuff and go right to tial wastegates. I say this with caution but depending on your set up fuel systems can be pieced together pretty reasonably. The turbo can be tricky but if you have patients you can find a great deal. I waited a while and picked my turbos up from a turbo shop that was using them in a Viper. They took them off the car because they wanted to go bigger. I scored them for both for 500 bucks. I also have a friend who ordered one of those cheap turbos from ebay. He put it in his 1994 cavilier and got it to go 13 flat in the quarter. There is a ton of miscellaneous stuff you need to complete a project like flange, gaskets, catch can, oil filter sandwitch plate, oil lines, coolant lines, and vac lines and fittings. Good news is thats all very cheap. All together I could see a pretty nice single or even twin turbo kit being made for about 3 grand. Even cheaper for a rear mount. With a solid fuel system and a good tuner it will be reliable and powerful. Not to mention bad ass when that BOV blows off between shifts!