My friend has a 97 f-150 and he wants cheap power. I thought about a turbo setup but couldn't find any kits for it and i'm not 100%, well probably not even 50% knowledgeable about turbos yet. Maybe if we got a ford 7.3 diesel turbo and built a manifold for it and installed an inter-cooler and plumbed it up we could see some performance? I'm sure it's not as simple as that so could anybody please let me know your opinion and thoughts?
Thanks, John

 

Well, for one thing, I think a 4.6L would have a difficult time spooling a turbo that size. For instance, a 6.0L diesel has an air flow of 35g/s at idle, compared to 7g/s on the 4.6L. Consider a smaller turbo.

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Okay thanks for the input!
Can someone recommend a turbo, one that isn't to expensive maybe like in the 200-300 range?
Thanks, John

 

OK this is something I have some serious experience with from the track. first repeat after me:

fast, cheap, reliable. these three words will never happily cohabitate on any engine project.

say again repeatedly until it sinks in.


I am not gong to argue the merits, or lack thereoff of EBAY chinese knockoffs. That being said, here goes:

the cheapest you can pick up a new turbo that is made by a reputable maker is about 700ish, this will be a non ball bearing, non cnc milled compresor wheel and will probably be a T3 or T4 variant of the standard garret turbo. if you get one with a built in wastegate it might run another 100 or so, but this is cheaper than a quality external wastegate (which runs another 300ish)

next a set of turbo headers from a reputable maker, figure 1~1.5K depending upon design.

upgraded injectors figure on adding about 50~70% extra fuel flow in Lbs/hr depending upon your HP goals (yes you need to determine this first so that you can order the correct sized turbo.) this will add about 600ish for new injectors.

upgraded fuel pump and rising rate pressure regulator figure 400 ish for the pair.

reflashed ECU with dyno time to correctly dial in the combo. (I actually have no clue what this costs in the states, but here in japan its ¥¥¥¥ I would guess it should still run a grand in the states.

so without upgradeing anyof the drive train to accomodate the extra power, or the cooling system to deal with the extra heat, or a better exhaust to really take advantage of the tubo we are at 3800~4000 depending on options need I go on?

obviously their are lots of internet fanboys who will tell you different they will be like "yo cuz get xyz turbo from abc car and we can weld up an adapter"......please ignore them and take some advice from a person who has raced turbo powered cars for close to 20 years anything short of a 15K investment on the entire system is a total waste of time and money as the things you skip to get it together will break in short order leaving you with an expensive turd. IMHO anything less than about 20k will not last that long with any real abuse as their are just too many subsystems that need to be upgraded to take it from non turbo to turbo charged properly.

Now a belt driven centrifical supercharger (like banks or insert other brand name here) could be put together for less than 5K if the boost levels are kept reasonable. (hell I think they sell a kit for a 4.6 mustang which could be quickly modded to work on the truck