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Figured I'd start a build thread on here, been working on this off and on for about the last three months. Finally have everything ordered or installed so I thought id share.
The car is a 2005 Gto with a 6.0/4l65 and a maggie, it ran good and was a lot of fun around town, just didn't really have that much top end power. I pullied the maggie and was happy for about a month, then it wasn't enough. Sprayed a little nitrous through it and it ended up trapping a little over 127 before it broke.
I sold the hurt shortblock to a friend of mine and decided to go ahead and ditch the baby blower and put a 5.3 in it with a couple turbos.
Here's the car about a month before I took it apart
Maggie setup with a nozzle
First step was pulling the Maggie. Pretty straight forward to pull the blower itself, just a few hoses and bolts and it was free. The hard part was removing the Allen head bolts thread locked into the valley cover. Ended up using a hand impact and a lot of patience to get it off
And it's off.
The rest of the Maggie stuff was removed as well. The intercooler pump, heat exchanger, boost a pump etc.
After all the blower crap was removed, I needed to pull the motor to sell it to a friend.
Pulling this thing was way easier than the fbodys I've had before. The motor mounts are one bolt, nothing's under the windshield, and all the bell housing bolts are easy to get to. Definitely a lot easier than the other ls cars I've worked on
Had a local machine shop build me a 5.3
Thought about just grabbing one from the junkyard but I planned on using most of the stuff from my ls2, so the price of a jy motor vs the price of a nice new shortblock wasn't much different.
My ls2 is also a 24x crank but a gen4 block, so I had the machine shop build me the same combo.
Gen4 5.3 with flat tops and a gen3 24x crank, new bearings and bolts and rings with a slightly bigger gap
Swapped over my oil pan, pump, lifters, and cam
Cleaned up my heads and bolted them down with some new arp fasteners, and pac 1218 springs.
Decided to do a little busy work while I waited for more parts.
I ported my last throttle body and figured I'd do this one as well while I waited
Took a decent amount out, and then just cleaned it up with some sanding
Relocated my battery to the trunk to make room for the passenger side turbo. Pretty simple, just ran some new wire and mounted a box in the back
Picked up a stock ls2 intake and figured I'd go ahead and port it too while I was at it
Gave everything a nice coat of paint, installed a valley cover from a newer 6.2 I bought super cheap from Brian tooley, a couple breathers I bought the classifieds here, and installed it
Started on the fuel system next
Got a smoking deal on a set of 82lb fics so I popped them in.
Bought a nice set of dual pumps from racetronix, fancy billet coupler and bracket, no hose clamps or y block needed
Decided to use the stock feed and run a new return. I had originally planned on using a fresh feed and returning through the old feed but the Gto tank is a little weird and the feed is located inside the tank straight up and down.
The bucket had to be modified a bit to get them to fit, a little dremel work and they look factory.
The first pump already has a Hotwire kit so I used the factory connector, drilled a cpl small holes for the 2nd pump off a hobbs switch. Drilled and tapped a bulkhead an fitting for the return.
Mounted an aeromotives regulator where the ac lines used connect. Flipped the factory rails and connected both hardlines with Russell quick connect to an fittings
Relocated the pcm while I was at it. Cut of a small useless bracket behind the fender and jammed it up against the firewall.
And that's it up to this point.
I have two ball bearing gt35s and cx racing turbo manifolds on their way as well as an ebay intercooler kit, precision wastegates, gfb gforce 2 boost controller, two emusa turbo blankets, misc vbands couplers and feed/drain lines, and a few rolls of lava wrap.
Hoping to have everything in and installed in the next few weeks
Progress looks great! Is there a link to the gt35's you ordered? Iv looked at their website and they have tons of options, im just curious as to which ones you picked out
I used a fine stone wheel on the intake
I started with a cartridge roll but it started to melt the plastic too fast.
I only went in a few inches deep but there was quite a bit of casting **** in every port, the snout I just opened up to meet the tb.
I used a carbide cutter from a friend of mines Bridgeport to rough the tb in. It was very aggressive so I went slow to make sure I didn't cut too much, after that I used a few cartridge rolls to clean it up. Took maybe 3 hours to do the throttle body, maybe 2 to do the intake.
I called cx racing and asked for their biggest t4 gt35 frame turbo. I've seen a few threads where people choked up top using their 57mm
I believe these are 62s but I'll have to double check. They have a billet wheel option now but its only been available for a few days, wasn't an option when I ordered mine
I'm really diggin that fuel system you got going there. I built a similar set using Walbro 255's Y'd together on both ends, but externally underneath where your battery sits. I wish more builds like this were available when I did mine 8 years ago lol.
Great looking build!
Thanks man
It's not exactly ideal with the stock rails but for the time and money invested I'm pretty happy with it
Much easier than I thought it was going to be honestly
They're cxracing knockoffs
I'd like to have genuine Garret's but they're pricey...
I'm new to the turbo thing, these will do for now.
A friend has an agp twin turbo 5th gen with genuine garret gt35s. It made 1190 on an unloaded dyno. I'm not looking for anything that crazy. If these get me to mid 700s I'll be ecstatic
Started wrapping the downpipes
This old style fiberglass wrap sucks, getting it wet made it much easier to work with, still itchy as hell
Looks pretty good all black though, turbo blankets are black as well as just about everything else under the hood
What are you looking at for power goals? I am planning to do the same set up 5.3 with similar sized turbos on E85. As far as the wrap goes. Have you tried the DEI Titanium exhaust wrap? I wrapped the downpipe of my Subaru in that and it is awesome. You don't need to wet it at all. Just wrap and go. And it looks really pretty.
I don't like the look of it personally
I wanted black, and this stuff was pretty cheap
I'm not sure what power it'll make, it's getting street tuned so it might be a while before its on a dyno
I'd like to trap 135 at its current weight, around 3800 with me and fuel
Interesting. Subscribing. My own 5.3 is almost ready. Starting with my current LT1'S PT76GTS. I've had the twin GT 35's in the box waiting for the snow to melt so I can weld up the hotside. Good luck!
I'm in the same boat
Still waiting to put it all together
Had **** weather the last few weeks or it would be a lot closer to done by now.
I did a decent amount of searching before I bought the turbos, not many people have done these after denmah had a set choke real bad on his 6.0
I think with the slightly bigger turbos and much less cam and cubes than him they should work pretty well
I call myself as having read this thread but I didn't see what cam you're going with. I'm using the Triple 12, hoping to mirror some of the success the guys have posted on that cam in the 5.3.
My snow is in Upstate NY. In what state are you located?
02-23-2015, 01:02 AM
2005 Gto 5.3 twin gt35s 
