I keep seeing all of these T3/T4 turbos on eBay brand new for under $200 - they must be Chinese knock offs.
Are there reasonable factory take-off turbos that work well for inlines or is the best approach to use an after market Garrett or ???
Also - given the challenges with the siamesed ports - would a draw through TBI unit make more sense or a blow through?
I have often wondered how well a turbo from a 7.3 ford turbo diesel would work on a 250. Considering that the ford is 400 + ci in and turns a max of 3200 rpm. Full boost comes in at about 1/2 the rpm. The 250 is close to 1/2 the cubes and turns higher RPMs and would need less boost. It could be close.
The 5.9 Cummins is too small.
Those Chinese knock offs will probably give you the same life span as any other knock off.
A blow thru TBI will perform better but there are limitations to the boost pressures they can put up with before the injectors cant push fuel. Upping the pressure is normal but the TBI injectors have a pressure limit( I do not know what it is).
That gives me a few things to look at - I have a freshly machined 302 sitting on the shelf that came with venolia pistons and want to pep it up a bit. My past build with a 270 was all old school and I figure it is good for about 180 HP. It is very good on the road and for the next engine I'd like to do better than that without losing reliability / driveability.
Not sure what kind of boost / compression ratio balance I need to strike running pump gas. I don't want to have to run any kind of detonation control (water or alcohol injection).
It will go into a 39 GMC pickup and I'd like it to be able to get into the 14's without a lot of thrashing.
You could also use one of these as a detonation control devise.
http://jandssafeguard.com/My friend is a distributer for them.
http://www.american-pi.com/MBHD
Master Power sells inexpensive turbo's that have proven to be reliable for around 600. I think you will probably end up with a 62-1 or a 60-1, which are older designs but work well. Both Tlowe and I have 62-1's. There's quite a bit involved in turbo selection.
As far as blow through vs draw through, there are reasons to run both. My 2cents is with tbi to run draw through with a water/meth injection system of some sort.
If you use a ford CFI out of a '84 ish 302 they are 1/2 carb 1/2 TBI that use normal bosch injectors - easy to find the right size injectors. By using a boost referenced fuel reg. you can get as much boost as you want to run without hitting the injector pressure limit with the GM TBI units. Install 3 of them to get enough airflow as they are quite small. Blow thru should work ok.
Cougars are a good place to look.
Too bad we don't have a hook -up to buy Master Power turbos.
If you lived in Brazil ,IIRC, they are about $300 US dollars.
MBHD