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Armchair engine build advice needed

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77crewcab

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I am in the planning stages of a 383 TPI for my 60 short wide. Lately the idea of power adders has really entered the picture. I am really leaning towards trying for a twin turbo setup using two Gran National 3.8L turbos with two small air to air coolers. Planning on Vortec heads. Any thoughts or suggestions on if it will work or how to do the engine build. This will be for a daily driver/hotrod style truck.
 
TPI won't flow anywhere near enough for what you are trying to do.

I have vortec heads on my truck but I think this might be a better way to go:

http://www.jegs.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_10001_10002_756811_-1_10187

Vortecs are good but you have to do work to them to get more than .460" valve lift and they require a different intake and different valve covers (which may be a non-issue if you have to buy that stuff anyway).

These Eagle heads flow a fair amount more than the vortecs too (and pretty much everything in the price range, for that matter).

I don't know that the 3.8 turbos are the best way to go and I question how easy they are to find, but I've never put turbos on a SBC :dunno:
 
Well I already have the Vortec heads and TPI base for them, plus the two GN turbos. Looking at either siamesed runners or the big mouth version and everything port matched. Basically just looking for an interesting combination to put together. I would look at other heads or turbos, just not too knowlegable on turbos and what I should have as far as intakes for them. My turbo knowledge comes from dealing with diesel truck engines. And I think it would be cool to have a turbo TPI truck.
 
Absolutely have to run intercoolers, the TPI intake runs hot as it is.

I've heard of people using a reprogrammed Cyclone / Typhoon ECM to handle the boost. I think that bolting everything together will be the easy part, you'll be pulling your hair out when it comes time to do the tuning to get the thing running properly.

That said, if you were able to get it tuned properly, a forced induction TPI engine would make some pretty formidable torque down low, and would really take off as the turbos started to boost the engine when the thing would normally be running out of steam... It would definitely be a fun engine to say the least!
 
first, i love the sound of that setup, even if it needs tweaking to not blow itself apart. if you adjust the wastegates to keep the pressure lower, you'll have less problems.

i bet the turbos will be easier to adapt to your engine than a supercharger off of a newer 3.8L would be, and will probably offer much better performance. good luck.
 
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