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Although not publicized, KMP has over the past year been involved in two customer driven custom turbo projects. Individuals came forward with specific requests, we discussed their needs and intentions, and we built what the needed. Without trying we seem to have fallen into the custom fabrication business.
There are a number of ways a turbocharger can be mounted on a 6G72
or any
engine for that matter. The spectrum of methods can range
anywhere from
ideal to quick & dirty. While both
ends
of that spectrum will result in boost, the ideal system will deliver
better
spooling and a higher top end than the quick & dirty setup. The ideal also requires lots of fabrication
and a hefty design effort to achieve maximum performance making it
expensive. The quick & dirty way
sacrifices
performance in favor of negligible engineering, minimal fabrication
efforts, and a small price. As with most
things, price often shares a
relationship with the quality or performance of the final
product. In
other words, you get what you pay for. This particular project is
toward the upper end that specturm.
Brent Seman, a fellow 3.0 nut, began discussing plans for a turbo
setup with
us back in January of 2005. He wanted something special. He wanted something different.
He wanted max performance at a price that wouldn’t
break the bank. Over several months, we
discussed turbo sizing, oiling, oil lines, header designs,
intercoolers, and a
number of modifications that would be required to turn his ideas into
reality. He did a tremendous amount of research and legwork,
which, in
the end, resulted in a pile of parts and a rough design for a turbo
header and
wastegate setup. Toward the end of May and after many
discussions, we committed
to building the KMP version of this vision, a one-off custom
crossover-mounted
turbo header. The header was finished in August and sent to
Jet-Hot for
coating, before finally being installed. Thus far, the result has
delivered outstanding results. The pictures below are what the
setup looked like when it left our hands.
We would like to publicly thank Brent for the opportunity to build
his turbo
setup. It was an interesting project, and it will no doubt have
an impact
on our turbo header designs moving forward.
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| Here we have the front view
of
the setup as it would sit in a car. The stock front exhaust
manifold
has been retained.. At the lower right is a Tial wastegate.
The turbo is a big T04E with a divided T3 flange. Note that the
upper plenum has been reversed. |
Here's a closer shot of the wastegate plumbing. The wastegate is fed by two bends breaking off from the legs of the crossover that later come together. The output of the wastegate just dumps out in front of the trans. |
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| Here's a shot of the setup from the end. Here you can see the legs of the crossover feeding up into each half of the divided T3 flange. You can also see how the wastegate plumbing comes off of the crossover legs. | Here's a shot of the back of the setup. Note the rear manifold. |
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| Here's a closer shot of the rear
manifold. It is intended to be a simple low profile log that
mimicks the front, although this one probably flows better than the
front does. |