if you are driving a street lightning to the track with a turbo,,,,you will not have to worry about the vette's realing you in,,,,thats a fact,,,,they will most likly be ahead of you

the year of the turbo was gonna be last year,,,wait when sal did his truck,,,,it was gonna be 05

there is alot of pepole switching to turbo's right now,,,,,i bet you will start to see a few switching back also

ive been waiting on these timeslips for awhile now,,,,,,a fast timeslip from a turboed lightning is sort of like a unicorn


please dont get me wrong,,,,im not a turbo hater,,,,,if it makes us go faster then i want it

you can point to the typhoon's and the buicks ,,,and say see,,,,they work!!!

untill i see it,,,,i aint buying it

 

It's funny how that works. This year will be the "year of xxxx". I've been seeing that for several years now. When I ran the very first 10 second pass in a Gen 2, everyone said tons of 10 second trucks would soon follow. It took 9 months for anyone else to finally make a 10 second pass. When everyone started putting on these twin screws, everyone said 10 second trucks would be all over the place. That didn't happen either. I made the first 10 second pass in a Gen 2 FIVE YEARS ago, and people are still striving for that mark to this day. The same thing goes for turbo trucks, and 4 valve trucks. Once one or two are done, everyone expects the masses to jump on board and set the world on fire with new levels of performance. But it doesn't work like that.

I ran 10.40s on a 112 inch blower and spray. I wanted something that could match that power, without having to run the spray. The first attempt was a killer centrifugal blower, the ATI F1R. It made 705/700 on my truck. Not too bad. It made big torque (much to everyone's surprise), but it was much later in the powerband, and was not changeable, and that sucked. Plus I just couldn't keep a crank pulley on the damn truck. That's when I decided to go turbo.

I was the first person to have a running turbo Gen 2. It was not an easy task, as it was completely new ground. But I worked with great people at two great companys to help me spec out what I needed, and it worked out great. The truck picked up 100rwhp over the F1R and even more torque. Everyone on these forums was saying how a turbo would never work, and I went ahead and did the deed. I would hope that my hard work and R&D helped open people's eyes and paved the way for more turbo projects.

Some pie holes like to start crap because I never ran the truck, and then sold it. That has nothing to do with the topic of turbos. After the truck was running, everyone kept asking me why I wasn't running it at the track yet. Honestly, I had no desire to do so. For the first time since owning my 01, the turbo let me do something I was never able to do before... ENJOY driving the truck. It was quieter. It drove like a stock truck. It had better street manners. I put the stock wheels back on, and I was driving that truck every sunny day for several months after putting the turbo on.

I sold the truck because it was time for it to go. I wanted to build an 05 Mustang to get into that new market, so the truck got sold to finance the 05 project. Plain and simple. There's nothing else to it.

As for performance.... while I never got to take it down the 1/4 mile, I sure wasn't easy on the throttle on the street. The truck was a nuclear mallet of power and trust. While it didn't have the initial "shock" of power that we are used to with the positive displacement blowers, it DID have something that no Lightning owner had experianced before.... massive continous thrust. The power NEVER let up until you did. No longer did I have a truck that left hard as hell and then struggled to stay fast at the end of the 1/4 mile. Now I had a truck that left hard and blasted your eyeballs back into your head because the truck was accelerating FASTER as you got towards the end of that 1/4 mile. Ask Rob, he got a quick ride in it. He said it was like nothing he ever felt before.

It IS a shame that Scott has not been able to take Big Red down the 1/4 mile. Scott has other priorities in his life, and the truck takes a back burner to them for now (we should all be smart enough to do that).

People ask why you aren't seeing turbo truck numbers? It's because the people building them don't have anything to prove as far as ETs go, and they are just out having a freakin ball driving their turbo Lightnings .

 

very nice post sal,,,,,,i remember reading about those projects with your truck,,,,you have been a very big influence on a whole lot of pepole

i remember reading a article in mm&ff,,,,you put together a pulley, fast air, and tune package they tried out,,,,,they said after the install of those components,,driving the lightning comanded the respect of carring around a loaded shot gun

the next day i called your shop,,,,to buy the loaded shot gun package,,lol

i didnt even have a lightning yet


thanks rick

 

dont discount the centrifical blowers just yet either. my project has been put on hold for a long while. but my Novi 2000 blown gen2 has made 760rwhp @ 28psi without spray. has ran a 11.20 at 130mph on too loose of a converter on 28 inch tires.

point being, like Sal has stated its a different kinda powerband and all the tried and trued mods that work well on the positive displacement(kb, whipple and eatons)blowers do not function like they should on turbo's and cents. i'm on the 3rd restall of my convertor as well as the 2nd built tranny. chaulk up the 1st tranny/convertor on bad tuning decisions made by a very well known Michigan based company that did the blower install.

these turbo builds will not be overnight success stories. the 4r100 is far from the ideal trans. the weight of these trucks (esp. those that insist on full weight) is a huge handicap on the turbo.

i give major props to the guys trying to build a turbo truck. i should have went that route when i decided to go with the Paxton. it would have been in the same ballpark as what i got into my conversion.

Rob Staley

 

boost is boost, the right pieces in the right places and you will love the results, but the wrong pieces in the wrong order and you will hate it,

IF i ever get my turbo project done, I'll have one supercharged truck and one turbo charged truck in my driveway. The turbocharged truck will be using the 4r70 trans...


oh yeah

 

Great post Sal. Now I'm drooling even more about my current build.
As you can see by my name, I've owned a Turbo truck before. It only ran 12.59 when I sold it, but the midrange and highway pull was A LOT better than my Lightning (which ran 12.6 with the 6# lower setup). I expect negativity, but in the end we're all Lightning owners. We each choose our paths, and some don't have any inclination to jump off of their path and try something new. If I get burned and my new 4V Turbo setup will barely muster mid 12's, I'll be the first guy here flaming the **** out of them. Only time will tell, but I have a feeling that it's going to work out just fine for me

 

So who all is out driving there turbo Lightnings thru the winding roads, across the meadow, with nothing to prove? Chime in please.

 

As stated, the majority of us are over at NLOC, since they have a dedicated Turbo Q&A subforum.

 

Wanna race?
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...8/DSCF0003.jpg

 

I just recently sold my KB 2.3/JLP plenum to start up my turbo build. Hope to have it fully completed within a month so.

 

Well this is why I was asking...



Only made it to 4500 rpm at 18 psi becuase I need oil seperators.

 

I don't have a turbo truck; but, everything I have done to my truck is for my own personal enjoyment. Not for bragging rights. I have no clue what it will do at the track, and have desire to find out. I think that's what Sal was alluding to in his post. Not every fast Lightning is showing up at big events to get their name in a racing rag.

 

i agree with you,,,but racing is racing,,,and thats why 99.9% of us have these trucks. it is a exhillerating feeling to line up and win,,,its somewhat of a let down to line up and lose.

we all want our trucks fast,,,some have it fast enough,,and the rest of us are single or have supportive wife's,,,lol

driving on the street is fine and dandy,,,,but once your truck reaches a certain level the street is not a nice place to be playing.

 

Is it just me our are the commas annoying as hell?

 

Its not allowed becasue of too many accidents in the early 90's when they were trying to build some (the exhaust pressure would blow the turbo off the vehicle)