Hey guys

Im having a dilemma with a project on starting on . what im working on is a 5.3 s10 swap .I have a bunch of parts and the headers ( shorty) to do the swap and was planning on a rear mount ON3 76mm with a .81 ar ex housing . If i decidied to make headers to do a front mount would the .81 be ok in the front of spool way to fast. I used to run 4cyl cars with small turbos and they would spool not much off idle, so that doesnt bother me to much lol. I can recoup some of the money i spent on the headers and get the parts to build the turbo headers , so cost isnt a huge factor .

Now before some of you blast me with "use search " . Ive been reading the pros and cons of each setup and am torn between the two. The rear setup i keep the factory look and all acc in place ect.. front mount ..more efficient and just looks badass when you open the hood LOL .

Thanks for listing to me ramble

 

if you don't need the entire bed too too often why not use the headers and fab the exhaust so the turbo sits in the front of the bed. then you get it closer to the front and still got the bad *** and unique factor. and i dont know too much about the sizing but i would think that might coke the motor up top if its in the front.

 

Bed mount was the original plan , i dont use it much for anything . The truck sits low and the tires will rub if i haul anything that weighs much lol . The sizing is what concerns me if i want to move it to the front but like you said it prob will be unique enough ( even though some have done it) to have the bad *** factor . One other problem i read about rear/mid mounts are the oiling system and making sure the oil gets back to the motor . that problem is gone with a front mount

Im getting ready to tear the truck down and am second guessing myself lol

 

If you put it in the bed the turbo would be high enough that you can probably still just let it gravity drain into a little tank under the bed with a pump. It would keep it clean looking, you would still need a return pump but you wouldent have to deal with the restrictors and and stuff because it would just be pumping out of the tank.

 

I did the exact same setup your talking about right now. 76mm on3 with .81 housing in a bed mounted s10. $150 ebay oil pump worked out perfect and i had it hooked up to a switch. it made boost really quick once i fixed all my coldside leaks. Then i got excited and boosted it to 18lbs multiple times and blew a head gasket and i thought i hurt the bottom end cause it was clunking. Check out my thread itll probably answer alot of questions. https://ls1tech.com/forums/conversio...s10-build.html

 

It was a unique setup but i never got to have allot of fun with it because the converter really sucked and the tranny had shifting issues.

 

thanks for the responses all . T76s10 , i did read your log and got a few ideas on things . ive been reading different logs over and over again lol . A lot of great information here. When you say it spooled fast by what rpm did you have full boost ?

 

i only got to do two runs down my road with all the leaks fixed until i started breaking stuff lol but from a roll in low 2nd gear i eased into the pedal even and boost instantly went up to 18lbs from like 2000rpm to 3500ish rpm. cruising around 55mph in 3rd gear my truck is around 2500rpm and it doesnt run much vacuum but when i hammer the gas it instantly flashes to 5lbs and goes up from there. and thats where my fun ended haha. i wish i would have put a full manual valve body in the tranny and got a good converter before i put it all together. once i made boost the converter started slipping like crazy and it wasnt putting down much whp because of it. i really liked that turbo for a rear mount setup

 

Cool , thats a pretty quick boost imo . Looks like the .81 is what im gonna go with for my setup . Im planning on a 10lb wastegate and no boost controller to start so the same thing that happened to you doesn't happen to me lol

 

lol yeah i was constantly playing with it trying to make boost and i ended up leaking boost all along. but yeah i think the .81 housing is perfect with that turbo for rear mount. it spooled about 500rpm faster than the .96 housing.