Tornadom

My friend and I got the idea to turbo charge his Ford Thunderbird. The car is a 1995 Ford Thunderbird LX with a stock 4.6L V-8 under its hood. The motor is the same as that used in Mustang GTs of the same era (1996-1998), and parts are easy to come by. The motor, and chassis are fairly high mileage and no longer being used for daily driving duties. It is quite easy to find internals for the motor (so as to handle boost), and the heads seem to flow pretty well (and heads from a newer 4.6L can be installed for even more flow). The chassis seems to be built decently, and has room for some sizable tires in the rear. Now, for the problem:

To my knowledge, nobody makes a turbo kit for a 4.6L T-bird. Fabrication is not a problem for my friend. He has a lot of knowledge in building, and fabricating parts from scratch. He has done a lot of work on Cal Poly Pomona's race car, and knows his way around things of that nature. I am clueless as to what would be a better setup for that car... a twin turbo setup, or a very large single turbo setup? The car will be built around drag racing (as none of this is smog able in CA), and 11 second runs are the target. Any thoughts about this? Please discuss, or just call me an idiot.

90dxhmt

iTrader: (1)

Might be easiest to build some headers and run them into a merge placing a single turbo forward to one side of the engine bay.This makes exhuast and cold side piping much easier and you cna use like 16guage or similar and brace the turbo for support.The Tbird IRS?Is that Tbird based of the fox body chassis or the SN95 or whatever the 94plus was called?There is alot of diff forms of engine management for Mustangs out there from just using a bigger MAF and injectors to full standalones and other ROM editors etc you are going to have to figure out what is applicable to that year+ chassis.Sounds like a cool project

Tornadom

Yes, this T-bird is IRS... how ever that will likely be changed in favor of a 4 link, and solid axle. This is the T-Bird based off of the new Mustang chassis. We were actaully thinking along the same lines as you with mounting the trubo.

coneheadsracing

Boost it. Fabrication is fun, well the end is anyways They make superchargers for that motor don't they? Maybe a vortech kit? If your looking for simplicity. I've always been a fan of building it yourself, just seems more rewarding to me. To each there own though.

TheCheeseWedge

iTrader: (1)

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Tornadom &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">My friend and I got the idea to turbo charge his Ford Thunderbird. The car is a 1995 Ford Thunderbird LX with a stock 4.6L V-8 under its hood. The motor is the same as that used in Mustang GTs of the same era (1996-1998), and parts are easy to come by. The motor, and chassis are fairly high mileage and no longer being used for daily driving duties. It is quite easy to find internals for the motor (so as to handle boost), and the heads seem to flow pretty well (and heads from a newer 4.6L can be installed for even more flow). The chassis seems to be built decently, and has room for some sizable tires in the rear. Now, for the problem:

To my knowledge, nobody makes a turbo kit for a 4.6L T-bird. Fabrication is not a problem for my friend. He has a lot of knowledge in building, and fabricating parts from scratch. He has done a lot of work on Cal Poly Pomona's race car, and knows his way around things of that nature. I am clueless as to what would be a better setup for that car... a twin turbo setup, or a very large single turbo setup? The car will be built around drag racing (as none of this is smog able in CA), and 11 second runs are the target. Any thoughts about this? Please discuss, or just call me an idiot. </TD></TR></TABLE>

much easier to turbo that car and mustangs because of their maf design. than a honda
off the top of my head youll need
2 turbos (just get simple 14b's or internally wastegated turbos for simplicty)
2 custom flanges to mate headers to turbos
aftermarket shorty headers (turned upside down backwards and port matched)
msd btm
fmu
boost gauge
custom intercooler piping
intercooler
blow off valve
custom downpipes/exhaust
tapped oil pan for return line
supply oil line to turbo w/ t-fitting
preobably other things i cant think of right now but there are sites all over for basic "junk-yard" set ups http://www.homemadeturbo.com and google search turboing mustangs ect