Quote:
Originally Posted by Travis Q
Absolutely, positively 100% truth. A turbocharged engine is nothing more than a low compression naturally aspirated engine with a small camshaft until you put your foot in it!
The one thing to keep in mind is that aluminum rods don't mix well with extended street driving and high power applications, since it's not really possible to predict at exactly what point you have to start questioning the rods' life cycle. Valve springs are another area to keep an eye on in a street high power turbo application. You must have lots and lots of spring pressure to make big power with high boost pressures with a turbo engine, and extended street driving will certainly take its toll on valve springs. So you've got to keep a close watch on seat pressures. However, new spring materials allow you to get away with a whole lot more these days than we could even 10 years ago....some of the new PSI, Manley, and PAC valve springs will allow you to stay well over 300 psi seat pressure, even with street driving/repeated thermal cycles.
|
As usual, Travis points out the items that many people overlook (when building these 2000+ hp "Street Car Engines". I have seen a lot of Street Cars on a trailer until the last couple of miles and then off-loaded and "driven" to the event. Yep, the engine/ car probably could have been driven the whole way to an event but racers many many years ago figured that their performance was better and maintenance costs went down if they could trailer to an event.
You really have three choices:
1) Build a lower HP engine (say 700 hp) and drive it on the street a lot.
2) Build a Higher HP engine, drive it on the street sometimes and work on it constantly.
3) Build a very high HP engine, trailer it to events, keep accurate records of every pass, figure out how many passes you can run before you get nervous with the parts, and spend a lot of money along the way having fun in the pits working on the car when the very expensive parts failed well before you thought they would.
I have known many Racers who sold their high HP toys, bought a Street Rod, went on cruises all over the United States, drank a lot of beer, told a lot of stories about the old days when they were racers, and had the time of their lives with their friends.
Tom Vaught
The Ratrod movement has never been stronger.