The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The HiPo Shop 235 turbocharged?

Has anyone built a turboed 235,250, or 292,etc. No hands on yet,just getting info. What do ya'll think?

Tom S.
Hoyleton, IL

I saw one this weekend at a show. Didn't take any pictures
but it was a clean instalation.

250's and 292's yes. Checkout "Mean Buzzin Half Dozen" onn inlinners.org

Here is a link to the blown and injected page

http://www.inliners.org/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=13&page=1

look here at one time they offered a supercharger for the 235 6. ron

With the low compression ratio, you probably could boost up a 235, if you keep the boost levels down to 5-7 psi, but not over 7 psi. It WOULD have the low end torque to minimize turbo lag, and the turbo adding 100 or so horsepower would be just the shot in the arm that motor needs. I'd like to see someone do that.

The Garrett Airesearch T03 Turbo would be a very good match in fact. I have two of them, and I'm willing to let them go for a good cause (& low price), if there is further interest in this.

i am planning on doing it to my 235 this next spring in my fleetmaster

I'm starting to build my 235 for turbo. Planning on a t3... I'm still working on the fuel delivery. Barry Grant, Demon, makes blow through carbs but the smallest one is a 575 cfm, It might be to big??? The other option is throttle body fuel injection.

Im thinking fuel injection would be the best solution. It would be easier to tune.

Thanks for the info. Sounds like I am not alone. Dreasoner, what tranny and rear end will you be running? I was thinking 350 turbo and 12 bolt. Will original rear work if I change gearing?
Thanks to all for the input!!!

I have a T5 trans that I'm going to run. And I plan on using the original housing but a 55-62 third member to run a normal drive shaft. But I havn't found it yet.

If you want to use an automatic look into a 700r4... Keep the low gears and use an overdrive.

If possible, try to get forged pistons. I don't know if they're available. If so, you can turn up the wick with an intercooler and run pump gas safely to 12 or 13 psi. If not, you'll have to keep boost down to the 7 psi range. And with a turbo, your engine will have an appetite for more cfm as well. So a larger carb might be okay.

Just thought I would throw in some really old info. In high school I drove a 60 chev pickup with a 235, and with the help of one of the top tractor pullers of that time (1970) I put a corvair turbo on the truck, first I used the corvair carb,for two reasons, It was on the turbo and I didn't have any money! For some reason that I still don't understand it got terible mileage so as I was able to I got an adapter from whitney and used several other carbs, a 550 holley worked best I belive because of all the jet options. At times I ran as much as 20 psi boost but of course broke a lot of stuff, head gasket first, then pistons, but I never damaged the lower end. this is also my plan for my 49 soon.

Was that a suck through system? Or in other words you mounted the carbs infront of the turbo and sucked the fuel air through the turbo. Then into the engine.

That is the other option that I'm looking into. I only see two down sides to this. One I couldn't run a blow off valve after the turbo. The boost would be controlled by the turbo size and carb size. And two I wouldn't want to intercool it becust you would be running the fuel/air through the whole system. I still have some questions about this way but it looks to be the cheapest.

I can answer your questions. You only need a blow off valve with a blow-thru system because when the throttle blades shut, the pressure pulse bouncing back to the turbo impeller could damage the turbo. With a suck-thru, you don't encounter that. So suck-thru systems are cheaper and easier to build.

The disadvantage to a suck-thru carbureted turbo is that your throttle blades will end up icing up. Even in the summer, that can cause problems. I had a friend do that on his pick up truck, and that was his main worry.

You can intercool a suck-thru system if it's fuel injected. That's how my Shelby Charger was intercooled and it worked well. You can also intercool a carbureted suck-thru system the same way that roots superchargers can be made intercooled. Although it's kind of rare. I've seen freon and water-cooled intercoolers right inside the intake manifold on the pressure side of the roots blower. And it seems to work. The fuel will stay in suspension if it has a short enough path. How you'll do that on a suck-thru turbo system will take some ingenuity on your part.

There is one other way to intercool, and that's if you have the suck-thru charge pass through a finned pipe sitting in the air-stream. I see no reason why that wouldn't work, since there are no internal obstacles for the fuel to condense on or fall out of suspension. Look at the old Mopar motors with the really long intake tracts and carbs out past the valve covers. The fuel stayed in suspension on those engines and they made really good torque.

I like the sounds of the suck thru system. But how do we control the boost? Was I right in saying the carb size sets this? Or could I use a wastegate to do so?

I don't think that I would intercool it. @ 7-10 psi I don't think its needed.

Thanks for the info.

Hi Dreasoner, sorry for the delay, this is my busy time of year. Yes it was a suck through set up, this is so much easier as you can run stock fuel pressure, with a blow through you have to run fancy pressure regulators to keep from blowing the fuel out of the carb. also everything would have to be sealed makeing work on the fuel system time consumeing. You are correct you will need a turbo with a wastegate to control pressure, in my experence a blow off is only needed with really big chargers where there is a large rotating mass that just keeps pumping.
for something neat on the street I will be looking for a small charger with wastegate,to make 12 to 15 pounds, with water injection, (may need 2 stages), leave the compression and cam alone. I will stay with a stock head gasket till everything is working good, a so so gasket can be very forgiving, and only takes a couple hours to replace, later maybe solid copper.
If you go much more you will need pistons, hard rods, probably a lot better crank, and a custom aluminum head. heads with siamese intake ports like the 235 are very hard to get each cylinder to fuel the same, also the valves off to the side don't flow for crap. Unless you are going to the salt flats, I don't think you need an intercooler, just use water injection.

I bought my intake/ carb mount today on ebay. This is the only one i found but there are other turbo intake manifolds. Check out http://motors.shop.ebay.com/hansens/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=
or search for roto-master rayjay.

I bought this one...
[IMG]http://i1020.photobucket.com/albums/af322/dreasoner/BZGe2BWkKGrHgoOKiIEjlLmKVwBKrTh0fiy.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i1020.photobucket.com/albums/af322/dreasoner/BZGkvQWkKGrHgoOKj4EjlLmZqNBKrTh-Y3K.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i1020.photobucket.com/albums/af322/dreasoner/BZGh5QmkKGrHgoOKkIEjlLmUkORBKrTh5m3.jpg[/IMG]
It looks like a quadrajet bolt pattern.

probably a lot better crank

What do you suggest?

If you're gonna go through all the trouble to put a turbocharger on a 235, why not include an intercooler? You can get them all day long at the salvage yards for next to nothing, and it's a lot easier to plumb than water injection.

IC's are also a dime a dozen on Fleabay and craigslist.

I havn't decided if I want one or not. With the low boost I don't think I need it. I can always add it after its running. I think that having a cold air intake will do the trick.

I am concidering the water injection. I did a couple searches and its simple to make. You can get most the parts on McMaster Carr. They say that it does a better job than the intercooler. And adds power, steam power.

Panic, I think the crank will be fine. It would be nice to have a 6 main bearings like the 292 though. Then it would handle higher boost.

hey dreasoner any progress?i have also thought about boosting my truck with either a 235 or 261,what carb setup do you fellas figure would work well with a offey dual?i built a system on my 98 tacoma with relative ease so i figure i shouldnt have too much difficulty with this one,i even bounced around the idea of a simple fuel injection system. i am by no means a pro,but i'm not afraid of a challenge and my fab skills are pretty decent,so anymore info from you boost pros would be super duper!!