I'm building a 96 Impala SS that just never seems to get done. It has been under the knife for about 7 years and has seen multiple hardships including tough financial times when I worked as a mechanic/welder, losses of girlfriends because apparently it's not good to buy yourself car parts for their birthday and all out insanity like me compounding/buffing/waxing the chassis when I had no money to do anything else to it.


Anyway, I am much more financially stable now, and with three day weekends every other week I have enough time to finally finish this frame off journey. Here is what I have so far:

396cid 9:1 LT1, Eagle forged bottom end
AI 200CC F body heads and .23x/24x lift .600 lift cam
Cahall pro race 4l60e with billet output shaft
Vigilante 9.5" converter
3.73 rear with Moser axles/Eaton 400# posi
KORE 3 C5/6 brakes all around
Boxed and notched frame, 335/35/17's out back.
Aeromotive Phantom Flex 450lph fuel system
LTCC coil pack conversion
1 7/8ths Clear Image Automotive Pro Race headers w/tubular crossmember
and countless suspension mods

I also have a D1SC procharger and bracket which I was going to weld up piping for.

I'm at the point where I am ready to finish the motor, drop it in the car and get this baby going when I got a crazy thought. Originally I wanted this car to be an all out street monster built for driving to the local spots and doing things (in mexico) that I shall no longer speak of. Now I'm older, smarter, a police officer and more of a *****, so building something comfortable/fun to drive/not as obnoxious but also stupid fast for legal-only track days seems like a better plan. That's where the thought of turbos came into play.

My big questions are:

1) could I build a reliable twin turbo setup for around $2500? I figure this is what I could get from selling my headers and a lot of my procharger stuff (minus the blower). I've never built a turbo car before, but the fab work looks like a lot of fun (I used to work as a welder/fabricator for a speed shop so it's not an issue)

2) Is there anything to gain from doing this? I figure better streetability with a smaller cam, and I think I'd still be able to hit the 650rwhp mark I was looking to get with the D1. Anything I'm missing? Better gas mileage? Quieter?

If this could work out, I could eventually use the D1 for an old POS Mopar my dad passed on to me that would be a much better candidate for an obnoxious race car being about 1000 pounds lighter than my impala and with much bigger tires/much more gear.

If anyone actually read all that, what do you think? shut up and finish the blower setup, or are turbos really where it's at?

 

I doubt there would be an issue hitting your power goal with either type of boost. Nor would either of them require silly camshafts to achieve it, so both would have good manners.

As for whether it could be achieved on that budget, harder to say. Depends how cheap the parts are you want to be using. I'm sure it could....but parts can add up very quickly, and you'd need to be using cheap chinese parts.

Do you actually have a complete D1 kit, or just some parts ?

 

Thank you for your reply! Well the cam for the blower setup I already have, just haven't installed it yet. its an AI custom grind 23x/24x and is a little big, but with the big stroke it shouldn't behave that badly. Still won't idle like stock, not that I care too much, but i'm sure the turbo cam would be a bit smoother.

As far as the D1, I have the blower (freshly rebuilt with new scroll by ATI, 0 miles since) , bracket, 12 rib pulleys and that's it. Still need an intercooler, piping to weld
up and a bypass valve.


Something about the chinese parts doesn't sound too appealing. i have spend too long working on this car and not enough time driving it, so I want to minimize any chance of having to tear it down again in the near future. With the pricing I did using a single turbotechnics turbo I came in at around 2500-3k with what I thought were name brand parts (though I don't know the turbo world too well), but im not fond of the plumbing involved with a single turbo. too cluttered.

 

I don't know much about the rest of your plans but the first paragraph I know all about and can relate to. Keep workin on it youll get it

 

Really...you do not need such a big cam even with a blower. The LT-1 may not be as efficient as the LS, but you still dont need to go crazy with the cam. Let boost do all the work.

$2500 isnt a huge budget, all the small parts can add up. But as the kit you have isnt complete either you're going to be spending more money to get the blower up and running.

For a pair of branded turbos you're going to pay at least $1500 unless you can get areal bargain somewhere, as you can see that's already eaten heavily into your budget.

 

You would have much less time in it by using what you already have. Bob

 

I have a friend with a 5.7 D1SC GTO, made 663whp on like 15-17psi if I remember correctly. Only complaint is it really is irritating noisy at normal cruise speeds, might be his "BOV" that he is running not sure. But besides that its a good driver.

I'd also be of the opinion to stick with what you have #1 less fab work. #2 cost.

 

I think that is probably true, but it's not like the blower will be a bolt in kit either. Nobody currently makes a 96 impala SS procharger kit, so I picked up a bracket from a company that used to make a kit and I am going to have to piece together idler/tensioner pulleys to make that work. The kit that the bracket came from didn't look particuarly well designed either. When i've seen them installed, there was about 1mm of space between the two halves of the belt from where the tensioner pushed up towards idler . I know a few guys running it have had to figure out other ways to get it all to work right and I have also seen guys welding up additional support brackets as the aluminum blower bracket doesn't look to sturdy.

Not to mention, I still have to weld up piping either way....just less piping for the s/c of course.

Honestly, I am a huge procharger fan. I have owned procharged cars and built them at the the shop I used to work for. I'm not considering going turbo because I think it would necessarily be better. I just think that it MIGHT end up easier on this car, and be more in tune with how I want the car to be (tamer on the street, quieter, more effecient for cruising). Not to mention, with the DIY factor and the pricey headers I could sell, I feel like I may be able to do this on a budget that allows me to keep the procharger for my other project car which is more of a weekend/race car only.


Stevie: the cam I have was what AI custom ground for me along with my top end. I had another procharged LT1 car with a much smaller cam and it ran great, but I am thinking this AI cam will make quite a bit more power on lower boost which to me should help keep the motor together longer, cut back on heat etc... When I bought the top end, I didn't care much about the cam lope (I actually had a similar size cam in the car when it was an all motor 396) but now I feel like it's another drop in the bucket of things that are adding up to make the car a little less comfortable to cruise frequently.


Static: the bypass/BOV definitely makes a difference. I had a procharged LT1 with a pro-flo surge valve that wasn't too bad. It was too small and causing some compression surge/fluttering so I switched to a Big Red open valve which made the car sound like a fighter jet just mildly going through gears.

Again, that fighter jet sound to me was the coolest thing ever, but I'd prefer to have it on a lighter/faster car that could back up its bark with some bite, not on a car I plan to drive on every nice day/night I can. A low 11/high 10 second Impala SS is still cool, but not so cool when you pull up shaking and whistling up a storm next to some stock idling new Challenger or Camaro with a turbo and get beat by the car that sounds like grandma could drive it.

 

2500? That's pushing it like others have said. What's controlling the engine, stock ecu or aftermarket and if you don't have that already you know what that's gonna cost. Bye bye budget! Slap the D1 and get back on the road...that's 7 yrs you can't get back.

 

Sorry, I should have specified, that's $2500 budget for the turbo setup itself...that allows me to sell my headers/blower kit parts and make out about even so it doesn't set me back to much. I could probably stretch that to $3000 or so as there are still more parts I need to buy if I did the blower (piping, bypass valve) so I can add that to the budget of the turbo setup instead.

As far as finishing the rest of the car, that is definitely going to cost some more money as there are still a lot more parts to buy. That's basically why I have to set a cap on the forced induction part of it, I'll need my future paychecks to cover all the odds and ends when putting this thing back together this spring. $2500 or even possibly 3k would be totally doable though.

As far as engine management, I plan to run the stock PCM but I know there are a few tuners out there who do great things with boosted LT1s on factory computers. I have always heard that turbos are more difficult to tune due to the nonlinear boost, but that's something I'll have to research and talk to tuners about.

 

Turbos are in no way any different to tune than any other setup.

You just tune them, job done.