New performance Slant article in Hot Rod

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I hear ya,Again only time will tell.I use 2018 as a dead line.Maybe some other parts will show up between now and then.Many think I am nuts as I have a 500 inch RB carb to pan that has been waiting for it's day in the sun for over 10 years now that will be perfect for the Belvedere.Along with all the other parts for it too in boxes.BUT I guess I'm not over the SLANT SICKNESS as of yet...........Who knows, maybe I can trade my 79 Chrysler 300 for a nice little "A" Body to build instead."Dare to be different" as they say..

Yep; put the 500-inch RB in the Belvedere and trade the 300 for a 60's slant six Valiant. Get some cash to "boot" for the 300 and buy a righteous turbo for the slant. Built right, it may well outrun the Belvedere... LOL!

Stranger things have happened... [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QzUfV8iTpQ"]Turbo Slant Six 10.74 @ 127 mph 7-19-10 - YouTube[/ame]
 
^^^that^^^ is the most logical strategy........,but then again, how often have
we followed THAT exactly ?!!!!
 
So.... that's why my 3.3-liter V-6 Dodge minivan was "lazy" at Vegas...

You could just put a hairdryer on the slant and race at home... :blob:

I sure like mine...

Is it complicated to turbocharge a Slant 6? It looks pretty cool and I bet it's a quick little thing! :D
 
Is it complicated to turbocharge a Slant 6? It looks pretty cool and I bet it's a quick little thing! :D

Good questions! My experience (limited to approximately six years with slants and turbos) is this:

There are a couple of stumbling blocks along the way, in turbocharging a slant six; the main one is evident in any kind of turbocharged, blow-thru carbureted car, and that is, "tuning." It is not easy. But, the problems of tuning a carb on a blow-thru slant six would be about the same problems you'd face, tuning ANY carbureted motor, V-8 or six, or, 4, for that matter, in a boosted environment.

The best thing about slant sixes is their super-strong infrastructure. They can withstand abuse (excessive boost) that would turn most other engines into a pile of scrap.

I have a frriend who has run THIRTY-SEVEN pounds of boost as an experiment on his turbo slant, with no apparent damage. Don't try that with your thinwall cast 360 Magnum.:D

The worst thing about a slant six is the strangulated, asthmatic. choked-off cylinder head, which makes turbo or supercharging almost, a lead-pipe cinch neccessity, for most serious high-performance output.

Ten pounds of boost can take a lethargic, 18-second A Body down into the high 14's, which is 383 Road Runner territory.

You can build a ten-pound (boost) motor using stock slant six pistons, rods, crank. cam and valvetrain and a stock, unported head and have a fun, pump-gas car that will surprise a lot of V-8s. Just add a 2bbl carb and manifold, a turbo and a "PISHTA" J-Pipe...

But, even with this mild-application, the tune is ultra-important, with special attention needing to be paid to the Air/Fuel ratio and, total spark advance.

You will, absolutely, need a high-quality, wideband, data-logging, 0-2 sensor ... and they are not cheap, regardless of the carbureted system you choose. Maybe one is needsed for the F.I. systems as well; I don't know about them. Forget about trying to tune a blow-thru, forced-induction induction system (carbureted) without one... Those sensors have very recently come down from $300.00+ to about $200.00, and one of the new ones are not affected (damaged) by leaded fuel. I wish they'd had them available when I bought mine.... ask me why I wish that...:banghead:
The next build-level would be the 15-pound and up, system that utilizes the stronger, more boost-friendly, forged internals (pistons and rods) , which will make possible horsepower-levels of 300, 400, or even 500+...

It costs about $1,100.00 for forged pistons (including rings,) and forged rods. These forged pieces have a lot more resitance to the damaging forces of detonation and usually last a lot longer than the cast, OEM (original-equipment manufactured) parts. A higher horsepower engine, you would probably want to O-Ring the block (Iskenderian rents a pretty fool-proof (I made it work!) tool, for cutting the O-Ring grooves, and supplies the needed wire.) Stronger ARP head sstuds help seal the cylinder-presssure, and a new cam and lifters is usually usedd, but is in no way, a typical high-performance grind. Turbo motors like this one seem to work best with canshafts thaat have near-stock duration, wide lobe separation (115-degrees?) and somewhat increased lift. Even the 500-horsepower motors have a slow, smooth, dle, much like a stock motor. No drama, here... A relatively mild, 5,500rpm refline is the max; they just don't perform well, after that...

The intake system seems to work well with a holley 2350 (350 or 500CFM) Super Six 2bbl manifold for the 10-pound motor, while any of the 4bbl manifolds (with a Holley 600-650 DP) with blow-thru mods, will feed the highter-output motors, effectively, with a heavy-duty mechanical (but boost-referenced with a tube from the intake manifold to the backside of the pump-diaphragm,) while the higher boost motors will need a full-blown, electric pump (a Walbro gsr392 is the one I use,) and a boost-oriented, presssure regulator to reduce the line pressure to 6 pounds (plus boost,) , from 50. That system also requires a return-line -to-the fuel cell.

It's not easy, nor cheap, but having an A-body that will runs as fast as high tens (and, maybe faster,) is possible and, is a breath of fresh air (no pun intended, ) in a sea of engine-swapped A-Body 360s (and, their stroker-variants. )

Hope this helps... Here are some pics of mine; 3,000-pounds, 225 on 15 pounds of boost; 12-seconds flat at 112mph... More to come.later this year with 20 pounds of boost....:prayer::prayer::prayer:
 

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This just looks fun. Maybe I won't make a plan for BB displacement for my D150 afterall!

I think a turbocharged slant six properly belongs in a vehicle in which the ready-to-race weight needs not to exceed about 3,000-pounds. My '64 Valiant 4-door weighs 2,680, ready-to-race, with nobody in it.

My "daily-driver" is a 1993 Dakota short-bed, regular-cab pickup and the lack of weight on the drive wheels is painfully-obvious, especially, on rainy days like today, when apprently, the oil in the asphalt is somehow, brought to the surface and causes wheelspin even at light throttle settings. I can't imagine what it might be like to drive with 400. turbocharged, horsepower. A bigger, full-sized (D-150) pickup might weigh more like 3,700 pounds, but its fowward/rear weight distribution would likely mirror the egregious, front-bias I experrience in my Dakota.

I think a 500cid. engine in that D-150 might also be really hard to hook up.

The problems a slant six would have in the engine bay of that truck would be different, but, just as hard to deal with.

My Valiant is not without SERIOUS (traction) issues, itself. The last time I had it at the drag strip, (with a spool-equipped 2.76:1, 8.75" rear end,) it spun the tires so bad at 60mph, the driver had to lift the throttle THREE TIMES before the eighth-mile... which surely affecteted the 91.5 mph, eighth-mile speed... and, that was on some fairly-new 9"-wide Hoosier slicks. If somebody told me that, I would think they made it up... but, it's the truth; It actually happened.

I don't know how to deal with it. Maybe 200-pounds in the trunk... dunno. But, I gotta do SOMETHING...

All I know is, it makes a LOT of difference which chassis that engine goes into.
 
Bill, your car is just plain COOL.Well engineered and......COOL !!
 
Bill, your car is just plain COOL.Well engineered and......COOL !!

Thanks so much for the kind words! I just wish it would hook up... I never have had a car with traction problems like this... I'm stymied! Battery in the trunk, no front bumper (nor mounting hardware, ) has a liteweight, fiberglasss hood, CalTracs, a 2.76:1 rear gear, nearly-new, Hoosier 9-inch wide slicks and a spool, 90/10 front shocks, and with all that, it spins so badly at 60mph, that it gets sideways to the extent that the driver has to get off the throttle, or, risk hitting tthe guardrail... ruining the run.... at only 15 pounds of boost... NO wheelspin in the first 60-feet... It starts about 50 mph...

Drivin' me nuts... :banghead:

It's just NOT that powerful.... only 91.5mph in the eighth (getting on and off the throttle...)
 

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Bill, is it any way related to spool? As in, is that the same speed range you get full spool and/or boost?
 
Bill, is it any way related to spool? As in, is that the same speed range you get full spool and/or boost?

Not particularly as much as the peculiar dynamic that turbo engines exhibit in efficiency
under load. Notice Bill's running 2.76's, and as anyone who has driven a turbo car daily can
attest, they pull stronger on a hill than on the flat. The old "trick" on the FWD cars was to
turn the a/c on "HI" at the line,it would reduce lag on the launch,and the computer auto-
matically kicked off the a/c after it detected WOT for a set duration.
I'm guessing that once Bill's car gets to that point on the track, it hits it's efficiency "stride"
and does what snails do best..PUSH!!
As to why, I have a couple of thermodynamic & mechanical theories, but I'm not 100%
sure. I'm certain there are hands on engineers that can explain the phenomenon, any on
this forum are welcome, but I think we've strayed into that other forum on this..........
 
Bill, is it any way related to spool? As in, is that the same speed range you get full spool and/or boost?

I think it MUST be, but, it was waste-gated to a maximum boost of 15 pounds, so, I am not sure how the spool factor would come into play....

Just a couple of races before my run, a pretty-fast Mustang hit BOTHguard-rails and was totaled. I think the track operator just needs to treat (VHT) the surface all the way to the eighth-mile finish line; this is absurd...
 
Not particularly as much as the peculiar dynamic that turbo engines exhibit in efficiency
under load. Notice Bill's running 2.76's, and as anyone who has driven a turbo car daily can
attest, they pull stronger on a hill than on the flat. The old "trick" on the FWD cars was to
turn the a/c on "HI" at the line,it would reduce lag on the launch,and the computer auto-
matically kicked off the a/c after it detected WOT for a set duration.
I'm guessing that once Bill's car gets to that point on the track, it hits it's efficiency "stride"
and does what snails do best..PUSH!!
As to why, I have a couple of thermodynamic & mechanical theories, but I'm not 100%
sure. I'm certain there are hands on engineers that can explain the phenomenon, any on
this forum are welcome, but I think we've strayed into that other forum on this..........

I am not driving the car now, choosing to watch it, instead, for chassis-reaction and other clues, but two runs were made that day, and they were both identical, with regards to this wheelspin phenomenon; I don't think it was a "fluke." :banghead:

Beats the hell out of me...
 
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