Oh hell, I know. I love Bill to death. I like jabbin at him cause he loves his turbo stuff so much...he's gotta real glow about it. Caint help but love the guy.
I am a pragmatist. I have to be. At my age, I don't have another ten years to sort out a combination in attemting to get it to run fast... so, I take the coward's way out and BLOW the performance in.
Turbocharging a slant six is not the easiest thing in the world to do; first off, you need some sort of a header/turbo mount. It's nothing like the deliberations surrounding obtaining a set of headers for a normally-aspirated slant six, where there are choices. The choice here is, do you want to modify a stock exhaust manifold with a turbo flange, or build a header from scratch, like Aaron (Turbo Toad) did... neither is easy.
Blow-thru carburetors are not exactly hanging off the trees, either, and can be (and, usually ARE) really expensive. I paid $900.00 for the one for my V8 car, from "The Carb Shop," in Ontario, Calfornia. That was a few years ago; they've probably gone up, by now.
If you want to mix it up with the V8s at the drag strip, you're going to have to run considerable (20-pounds and up) boost. That is going to require you to provide the leaning tower of power with forged pistons and rods, and if you're smart (
I am not; I didn't do it, but will no doubt have to, down the road) you'll O-Ring the block and use a copper head gasket.
Camshaft choices are also limited in this respect; turbo motors don't seem to like very much "overlap," so the cams that work best in these blown motors, will be ground for short duration ( to minimize the overlap.) Having such short duration (most of these engines don't run much more than 210/210-degrees at .050"-lift,) severely limits the amount of lift at the valve. I tried and could not get a cam with .500"-lift, even, because of the short duration needed. I'm attempting to at least, partly alleviate that with a set of 1.6:1 rockers.
Good gas is a must; octane is KING... and the more, the better. Detonation, especially under boost, is the recipe for instant, and total, engine failure! Not pretty...
It's not all bad; there are some good things about these motors, too; most run out of breath about 5,500 rpm, so blowing one up by having to twist it too tight, is probably not gonna happen. The small duration cams these motors use, provide a smooth idle and have tons of low-end torque, so driveability is pretty much like a stock motor. That means the final drive gearing, and the torque converter can remain stock.
Since you don't need a 4.56:1 ring and pinion to make this thing run its best on the drag strip, a junkyard 8.25", rear end out of a late-model Duster or Aspen/Volare is a lot cheaper than a drop-out 8.75" A-Body rear end (drop-out to facilitate switching back and forth between drag strip and hiway ratios.)
But, tht's about it on the cheap side.... the engine modifications to successfully run forced induction on a slant six are absolutely necessary for it to live, and can include such items as custom-material ARP head studs for better sealing characteristics. Ours are 220,000/psi instead of the usual 180,000/psi units. I SERIOUSLY regret not having our block O-Ringed while it was apart. I'll regret it more later, when it won't "hold" a head gasket...
My buddy, Ray Alexander's father, had a a little sign on the wall above his desk. It said, "Why is there NEVER enough time to do a job
"right", but there is ALWAYS time enough to go back and do it over again???" LOL
I should have paid more attention....
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