Minimalist Slant Six draw-through build...

Hey everyone. I have a 225 Slant Six with hyper-pak, 500CFM (detuned) Edelbrock, Electronic ignition, 904 Auto & 8 3/4 in my 65 Barracuda. It’s a real clean, rebuilt motor that purrs right now but is low on power due to elevation and, well, because it’s a stock slant LOL

I live at 6200ft+ and decided that my solution for more power will be a draw-through turbo.
Because I’m insane. I just don’t want to cam-out and mill the piss out of a great stock engine if I can do something cool for a bit of power that’s also relatively bolt-on.

It’s a vintage Rajay/Airesearch carbon-sealed turbo with the Mopar RV-style split-plenum manifold, turbo will be rebuilt before run. Manifold has a spring blowoff that will need a redirect pipe because, well, flammable A/F mixture is bad.

SO; here’s my bullet points on what I know I’ll be doing.

  • Turbo will be plumbed by T-fitting at oil pressure sender, piped down into upper side of pan for hot oil dump.
  • Turbo will be supported by brackets to the motor/mount to keep weight off factory manifold, sitting up forward of intake manifold on J-pipe from the factory exhaust (moving battery to trunk)
  • Will pull head and calculate compression, before re-gasketing head with a steel shim style.
  • Manifold will have a reed valve set added inside the plenum, to allow for draw-through from carb to intake (bypassing turbo circuit) when under vacuum.
  • Will weld-lock a distributor and run a flat (non-advancing) timing, I heard 22 degrees?
  • Will run a 2.5” exhaust all the way back, with a glass-pack for minimal back-pressure
  • Will run a live AFR gauge & boost gauge, and likely step to EFI kit if I can’t keep consistent ~14:1 AFR under boost (I know it will be rich under aforementioned bypass/vacuum idle, that’s a price to pay)

More advice is welcome... any caveats/horror stories? What else should I do? Am I missing any major steps?
Thanks in advance!

Suggest adding an EGT (exhaust gas temperature) gauge & oil temp gauge to cluster. Shutting off a hot engine can lead to coking of oil on the bearings. The coke that forms can hurt the shaft, seals, and bearings eventually leading to oil leak, smoking and failure.

IIRC the early rustclang turbos used a carburetor. Motors would grenade on the autobahn when suddenly shutting the throttle at high speeds. Did not handle throtle transitions well.