Buick Beginner
Where is my $$$ going?
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2001
First off, this was not only a turbo swap, but a down pipe swap at the same time. Therefore we are looking at two performance components. I took off my Turbonetics Cheetah Stage 3 with the stock elbow, and my Kirban down pipe. The Cheetah had a “Super H Compressor Wheel” and a .63 Garrett exhaust housing, with a stage III exhaust wheel. (I’m just quoting what I’ve been told I’m no expert.) They were replaced with the Limit Engineering PT-52, using the Precision .63 housing, and a Terry Houston down pipe. After carefully easing it to it and feeling out the new setup, I started putting my foot in it. The first thing I noticed was the new turbo feels a bit more “laggy”, if that’s a word. Not unbearable, mind you, just a bit more. My converter stalls just high enough to be able to handle it. But the thing that really scared me, (in a good way), was the way the car pulled once I got up to about 20 lbs of boost. The car is running STRONG! I can best describe it in this way; when I punched the old turbo, I got immediate spool up, I mean “right now”. I would call it, “1st gear thrill”, for lack of a better term. This 1st gear thrill would come on hard from a dead stop until the end of first gear. Don’t get me wrong, the car ran good through second, and so on. But that initial punch, spool, G-force in first was the best. Now things are different, the first gear thrill doesn’t happen until about mid ways through 1st gear. Then its time to hit second, BUT that 1st gear thrill only gets stronger in second. It’s kind of like the car is saying, “Wait, don’t let off, you ain’t seen nothing yet”. I think if the car would have had wings I could have left the atmosphere. WOW! I was eventually able to run 22 lbs of boost, on 93 pump gas and alky, with the Extender set on the 98 octane setting, (24 degrees I believe), with no KR. Definitely, big fun. Tried to pick a fight with a Saleen Stang but he was bent on going to the grocery store, anyway, I’m very pleased with the products. John Craig delivered on time and the turbo looks great. Postons, up in Atmore Alabama, delivered my TH down pipe on time, and it looks great too. I just put on a “pressure relief valve” type boost controller and that helped the spool up quite a bit. The next night while I was out testing the new boost valve I just happened to get lined up with a red 5.0 mustang, Weld Draglites, loud exhaust, big back tires, etc. It’s kind of rare that I seem to be able to catch lights when I really want too, but I guess I just got lucky. I can hear this guy laughing as he looks over at me, I’m thinking, “We’ll see”. Light goes green and we’re off about even until a get spooled up then I’m putting moonlight between us in a hurry! I slowed down for round 2, but the laughter was gone and he wasn’t interested. Anyway, just thought I’d share some information with everyone. - BB
