Turbo kit for Pantera

Thinking about boost you say?

I've considered turbo'ing my car and at least for the time have decided against it. There are quite a few turbo cars on this site but my personal favorite is Blaine Cameron's (aka Pantera Turbo). Have a looky here at Blaine's build.

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/316764

I corresponded with Blaine and he gave me some very good advice. Without going into all the details, you need to go buy a book written by Corky Bell called Maximum Boost. I bought it from Amazon but it was published in 1997 and is readily available.

In my case, I concluded that building a turbo engine was not worth it unless the build was designed to operate with significant boost (and this is a performance not financial conclusion though the latter may hold as well). For me that meant at least 1 atmosphere. Even on premium pump gas if properly done this puts obtainable HP in the range of 800-1000HP on a >400 CI engine. This requires a purpose built engine with some serious consideration and engineering given to oil control to make the turbos and engine reliable, and intercooling to manage detonation. Without the latter, forget it; you're just building a grenade. EFI is a given. Getting this kind of power to the ground in a Pantera is a whole other discussion but in short it won't be usable except at higher speeds. Blaine's car is intended for open road racing.

IMO, although it minimizes some of the challenges stated above, from a performance perspective, a boosted engine in the ~1/2 atmosphere range just doesn't offer enough performance increase to warrant the additional weight and complexity when compared to a well built normally aspirated engine of the same displacement. >600HP, 400 CI, pump gas, street engines are achievable and reliable depending upon upkeep and driving habits. .

The "kit" at the link in your post does not appear to have any intercooling provisions. It does appear to have a couple Nitrous bottles and spray provisions. The turbos need to be properly sized to build a sensible system. The auction makes no reference to the turbo specs. From my view, they are about the only thing of potential value in the auction presuming they are in good condition. Do you really want to build a twin turbo system around two ebay snails of unknown provenance?

My 2 cents,

Kelly

The ebay kit is Lance Nist's. He did a similar dual turbo conversion on my first Pantera in the early 1980's. It involved a rebuild of the 351C incl. forged 7:1 pistons and crower cam.
It used early turbo tecnology and was a PITA to keep running well.
Mine ran about 14 psi on then available 95 octane gas. It ran 117 mph in the 1/4 mi., and this was typical of other Nist turbo panteras.
That seemed fast at the time, but my '03 Z06 corvette does that stock.
IMO, I'd pass on the ebay kit.
Either build a strong NA engine or have someone who knows what they are doing build you a turbo engine using modern EFI and engine controls($$$).

Just my opinion,

Jack

I don't know if its possible to fit but these guys make a kit that would be right up the pantera alley, rear exhaust mounted. Might be worth looking into:

http://www.ststurbo.com/

Years ago at Monterey Bart had an unreal set up on his group 4 with 2 turbos and intercooler. I still remember that event where the group was going to dinner and he was racing some other dude and his car was unbelievable fast and on one shift I remember seeing fire spit out. Our Maserati biturbo broke down that year on the trip, so we had some funky rental trying to keep up with the group. I would love to ride in a Pantera with the turbos, as I know in my little Maserati biturbo it is some real smooth kick of acceleration when the turbos kick in.

I've discussed this too with my brother-in-law who is a knowledgabel guy. To put it short, he said that a 5 year or older turbo-kit versus a new top of the line kit of today has no chanse since all parts at all time will be made better. And to considder a 10-15 year old "stone age" kit for your car versus up to date advanced stuff like you see in the pics above makes no sence.

While on the subject of 'boost', what do you guys think about a centrifugal supercharger?

I've always thought that would be an easier (relative to turbos) add on, especially for anyone that has removed the A/C. Cost shouldn't be astronomical maybe $2500 - $3000 and if you stayed at around 7 psi boost you could add one to a 9.5 CR engine with no charge cooler and after parasitic and efficiency losses get maybe 30-35% HP gain.

Julian

quote:

Originally posted by Joules5:
While on the subject of 'boost', what do you guys think about a centrifugal supercharger?

I've always thought that would be an easier (relative to turbos) add on, especially for anyone that has removed the A/C. Cost shouldn't be astronomical maybe $2500 - $3000 and if you stayed at around 7 psi boost you could add one to a 9.5 CR engine with no charge cooler and after parasitic and efficiency losses get maybe 30-35% HP gain.

Julian

my concern would be having enough room. I think they generally take up quite a bit of space on the front of the engine.