Turbocharging my F355 - Or how to remove any market value from your F355 remaining.

I like the 4 unit progressive systems

baby feeding a mommy on each bank but $$$$$$$

 

Threw these on my car, quick, cheap, easy.

Turbo Sound BlowOff Simulator Valve Car Exhaust Muffler Pipe Whistle XL Black

Fake SSQV Dump Electronic Turbo Blow Off Valve SSQV BOV Analog Simulator Sound | eBay

 

This is the biggest mistake that people..first time people, make.. to much reading and "going by the numbers" rather then good ole fashion experience.

When I give advise, I guess i need to state with it that its from someone that has, in the past, street raced and grudge raced, for money, on a closed coarse..of coarse, for many years.. so when i suggest something, its in terms of real world data that can be the difference between winning money or walking away mad and broke..

There is a big difference between performance, power, fast, and quick..

If you want a big number on the dnyo..go one turbo..

if you want to be fast, at some point during a race, typically at the end, or top end, which ever you want to call it, go one turbo.. the biggest you can fit in there.

If you want to be quick from the start, red light to red light or "from the hit" or any time you want an advantage right away... twins is the way to go

If you just want performance it don't matter what you do.. anything is better then stock.

I have always ran smaller FI that would spin faster rather then more top in power.. Id rather have 800-1000 hp for 8 second of a 10 second race then 1500hp for 5 seconds.. because as cool as 1500hp sounds, you not catching someone that makes a "quick" 800-1000hp in any race worth a crap. because they will put 4 lengths on you quick.

I realize these number are a lot more then you want, but its all relative in the real world or cars.. Ferrari or Honda or Chevy, it don't make a difference, pistons still go up and down and quick is quick.. regardless how you get there... chances are, you probably arnt going to use you use your car to go 200+ mph based on your previous statements, its more of ride around town car.. that's why i say twins are much better for what you want to do.

Twins can be made simple and safe.. just trying to get you another way of looking at it, that's all. I feel like if you go with a bigger single, your going be disappointed because you want be able to use it 99% to its usable power range.

 

haven't u considered a pair of gt2860rs? i had pair of those in my skyline gtr and it was brutally fast, with a much smaller engine (2,6). one of those roughly flows 33lbs/min and its compressor-turbine geometry is a good match. or u can go with newer gtx series. Only issue with garrett ball bearing cartridge has, is those phenolic ball cages which has quite a high failure risk if your going to push those too hard. Atleast at turbine side

that being said, i still use garrett bb turbos with my turbo cars. heres a pic of a nearly melted turbine side ball cage.

good luck to the project
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Turbocharging or supercharging the 355 engine is a waste of time. I have done everything to the 355 engine to make it faster. I have installed ti valves. I have increased the compression. I even ran the engine on methanol. The list goes on. The max horsepower was 530 hp out of one engine.
The problem is the engine will never be dependable. I have seen a few turbocharged 355's and they are a mess. It is a road of misery and you don't want to go down.

ps If you increase HP in the 355 replace the driveshaft. It will not handle the extra power.

 

Yes Greg the ole "Propeller" shaft......have a bar of EN24(in T condition) Chromoly to whittle on...LOL

Might want to also consider nitriding process.

Yes it is also a waste of money to do much of anything on the 129 engine....remember it is all about ROI.

 

Dunno, the prop shaft makes a nice fuse. Make that too strong and the failure point moves to a presumably much more expensive and difficult to replace part...

Also one of the reasons I'd go the Toda route rather than FI. The massively increase torque is a lot harder on the drivetrain that spinning another 2000 rpms (assuming you make sure the valvetrain is up to snuff).

 

I take you you mean the shaft that runs from the crank through the gearbox? I have seen a photo of one that broke just past the front splines, are off the shelf better ones available?

As an aside does anyone have the broken front stub available? I need to have a crank altered from a different engine to match those splines, save me having to remove the unbroken one I have in my gearbox. Happy to pay postage and of course a few £££ for your trouble

 

Sorry to sound negative about improving your cars performance but I have been there. I had three engines at one point. My final conclusion was to keep the engine standard with increased compression, straight exhaust and advance the timing. Also get the weight down. We got my car down to 2580 lbs with CF panels and other tricks.

 

Bruce,
That is right. Waste of money and time. Ferrari did a great job with the engine. Not much HP to squeeze without massive investment.
Hope you are doing well.
Greg

 

Interesting, in regards to the exhaust flow I have a 360 Challenge header going into a cat and out a muffler. The 360 header does not have the Y pipe and is a larger diameter than the 355 header. Just wondering how this might affect power in the car and sound of the exhaust. From your testing what worked best? I find it interesting my original Challenge exhaust kept the Y pipe.

 

Hi Erik

Trust you are doing well...


I will let Greg answer the 360 header stuff...if he doesn't want to you can ask Oz as I am a little busy right now and don't have the time to explain.

The reason the 355CH kept the Y-pipe set-up is,it was regulated by the rules of the CH series....the only reason why it remained in the CH cars.

Here is a sound clip..car has 360 CH headers...sound will vary depending on cats and final can(muffler).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOQFKgvA9AU

 

I am not a big fan of the 360 but that car sounds great.

 

I just got done refreshing my engine and installing new exhaust on my 430 CH and a friends 360 CH. I believe both of those cars require back pressure on the exhaust design.
The 355 does not require back pressure but it does require exchange of exhaust gases. I ran a custom 8 into 2 exhaust with no cats and tubi headers. The 2 ends would kiss at the rear. I found this to be the best system for the 355.

Here is an old video of the sound. I remember the headaches from racing all day with the straight exhaust.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9CJ_9QUtz8

Here is an old video of the light weight flywheel from Germany. I am just warming up in the beginning of the vid. You can hear it spooling up at the end of the vid. It snapped the driveshaft that day. We would carry two driveshafts all the time and pull them from the rear.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZEUXh3QsiQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZEUXh3QsiQ

 

No engine requires back pressure or will make more power with back pressure fwiw. It's a conclusion that may be drawn once going too large on the exhaust tubing but what really happens is reduction in velocity on a system that already had low or no back pressure. (so larger just hurt scavenging)

Nice videos! Sounds awesome.

 

I saw that a while ago researching exhausts and it's one of my favourite sounds clips. But does the extra displacement of the 360 vs 355 make a difference?

 

I think the 2 main contributing factors for the advantage of the 360 engine over the 355 engine are:

!. Variable exhaust timing

2. Variable Dual Air Intake(long and short tubes) plenum/system

 

I know the 360 does have the variable valve timing. That might be the difference. We came to this conclusion based on running several different race setups over a 5 year period. The 355 produced the most consistent HP in several different racing environments with the 8 into 2 with the kissed exhaust design.

The 430 and 360 needing back pressure is not a popular statement with the "Ferrari experts" but it's working better then the straight exhaust. We designed an F1 inspired exhaust system with a little backpressure built-in with Capristo headers. The engine is more consistent and dependable at this point. It also sounds good too.

 

I 100% agree with you but you have to understand. We are basically taking a street car engine and using it for a race car. The engine was designed to run with emissions now we are running it flat out all the time. It is not designed to do it. Putting back pressure back into the engine will make it more dependable. Does that make any sense?