'55 Chevy Turbo Big Block

It all started when we rolled in a real steel classic 55 Chevy down to the horsepower shop for a turtle

powered transformation.

We removed the body from the bel air to swap its weak stock chassis

with one. We had custom made at street Ride garage.

Then we got busy building it up with lower and upper control arms. A mustang two spindle

and a Flaming River manual rack and pinion system. After bolting up a front sway bar and bear brake rotors, we set the tow in

and installed front bill Stein coil over shocks. Then out back, we bolted up an empty curry rear end housing

and moved on to a four L

triangulated suspension

and rear sway bar.

We filled that housing with an eat in Detroit locker set up with a 350 gear.

Then with emergency brakes installed on the axles, we sent them home before bolting up the rear brakes.

We dropped in a 22 gallon fuel tank from Rick's hot rod shop that came loaded with a welding filter and pump. Finally, it was time to drop in a soon to be twin turbo charged 580 cubic inch big block. After walking up a TCI four LAE six speed transmission,

the original old body came to rest on its brand new foundation. A

lot of work done. A lot more to do before. This classic prime five is a finished ferocious pavement pounder. So what's left

under the hood? We've still got headers, our turbos, of course, intake manifold cooling system

and our accessory drive

inside the car. This big pile of wiring

a new AC system, our steering wheel,

all kinds of trim pieces can't forget about that shiny new column there add a whole new set of retro gauges.

This old dash got an upgrade back in the eighties when this type of paneling was pretty popular,

but we're gonna go ahead and upgrade it again and bring it to today's standards. Now that includes new paneling and gauges and just because we're ripping all this old stuff out doesn't mean we're throwing it away. There's plenty of guys working on their own project that can use this stuff.

I'm gonna carefully remove all these gauges and dash pieces. It also leaves holes in the dash that'll come in handy in a minute.

Since new carpets on the way, we gotta remove the front bent seat

and the bottom back seat.

Then of course, the old carpet

and steering column,

we're gonna keep that old Chevy cool as well as classic. This is vintage Airs

GFO kit, especially made for Tri 555 and 56 models. Now, they made some improvements to make these kits more compact and easier to install.

They have separate coils for heating and cooling

and this small permanent magnetic blower. Now, this thing installs with little or no cutting. But

before this baby can go in some more factory pieces have to come out

like the OEM heater assembly.

The aftermarket rat's nest,

the heater blower

and the defroster duct unit that gets replaced by two defroster ducts.

A duct tubing from the kit

with brackets and hard lines attached. The evaporator unit goes up and under the dash from the passenger side

and you wanna loosely secure it to the firewall and to the dash

next, the driver and passenger side ball lubber can go in place

then run a hose through an existing hole in the firewall and connect it to the evaporator drain out.

Now you can cut route and connect all the hoses to the bed.

We use the supplied wiring harness to connect the evaporator to the ECU

and another wiring harness to connect the evaporator to the original control moge.

And since our carpet is gonna be black,

you guessed it, we're gonna decorate our dash to match it with some duplicate

to bring these things up to date. We're mounting a new panel from piece fabrications to the old vessel.

They're made from billet aluminum and we got ours preloaded with classic instrument gauges with a vintage look.

Now we have to drill a few holes in the dashboard to make room for this.

It's a five hole dash panel also from Pete's

with gauges for oil, water temperature boost, fuel and voltage.

Remember what that clock and speaker

bezel used to look like?

Well, check the difference after a little black and silver paint,

nice touch if we do say so.

Of course, the original clock goes back in as well.

I did. It makes this replacement tri five steering column and we opted for the chrome plated steel version.

Well, next, we're covering up the hole where the floor shifter used to be.

Why?

Because we won't need it anymore. We're gonna use this paddle shifter set up from TCI that's designed to work with their six X transmission. Now, this piece bolts directly to the steering column and it communicates with the control unit through a wireless signal. We'll deal with this in a little bit.

We're using direct replacement, auto custom carpeting that year one sent us and it goes in easier if you let it lay flat for a day or so. Like we did

then after a little trimming to get a proper fit,

the finishing touch, a pair of bow

tie door sills again from Pete's.

Well, that's it for the interior beauty.

We'll turn our attention to the beast right after this.

Welcome back to Horsepower's Tri Five Transformation.

You just saw us attack the interior for some cool upgrades like the inside components of an AC system, a

mix of old and new for the dash and with new carpet laid down this 55 interior is now looking almost show car sharp. What you didn't see was hours of bending and welding the

bab up custom headers. We just tested it with our twin turbos. Fortunately, the fit was dead on.

You also didn't see the firewall get a makeover by first applying some por 15 marine clean degreaser and cleaner.

After washing it clean, we coated it with their metal ready rust remover and pre primer leaving it on for about 15 minutes before another rinse. The final step, two coats of por 15 gloss black paint.

This is a treatment that not only makes it look good, it prevents rust by keeping out moisture.

Next on our punch list, the drive system and vintage air makes one for the big block chevy to include the water pump. This main bracket for the compressor alternator and everything else we need

with mounting studs in the engine. The first thing to go on is the water pump

then with spacers in place, the ac compressor and alternator assembly mounts to the studs.

The tensioner may look pretty play next to all that chrome, but not to worry. The kid includes this cool cover for it.

Hoy

can go on now first for the crank

the water pump

and another cool cover for the ac compressor.

Finally, the serpentine bell gets routed and the drive system is done

not to be outshined. Our headers are back from Nitro plate where they got a highly polished aluminum ceramic coating. They call nitro plate bright.

Now they can withstand up to 1300 degrees of heat with excellent thermal properties to cut down under hood temperatures

that'll even help horsepower.

The turbine

super teas are decked.

Each one has a 25 plus P SI capacity.

So together they can make over 2000 horsepower on this engine

even running ours at about five P si each we should make close to a grand.

The toughest part with fabricating our headers was avoiding interference with the steering shaft.

Here's a little tip for keeping the steering safe,

remove one of the set screws and mark a spot with a pilot bit on the shaft,

then pull away the column so you can drill into the shaft with a larger bit,

put it back in position and the set screw goes into the column and it'll never pull out of place.

Here's how we'll keep the 55 cool. It's a handmade auto rad radiator assembly with a complete core support

that boasts right to the chassis and front fenders

to give ours the clearance we need though, we reverse the 14 inch fan location. So they now push air instead of pulling it.

The next step involves voting up the F

air condenser assembly to the inside of the core support

and attaching the drive

our beer

kit came with all the stock style hard lines. But since we're far from that, with the new core support, we're gonna have to make templates and send them down to the AC shop. When we do it that way, we're not without the car and we can keep on making progress.

We're finally ready for that intake. It's an Edelbrock Victor Junior designed for multi port ef I

this tall deck manifold is designed for a basic operating range of 1500 to 8500 RPM.

Before loading it with a RP bolts. We need to coat the threads with some lock tight N I CS.

The

Brock aluminum fuel rails came with our intake and for injectors, we used a little company we found at fuel systems dot Bis.

They turned us on to these from Simon that flow 80 pounds per hour. Plenty to feed a hungry big block,

90 millimeter throttle body. That's what it's gonna take to feed a turbocharged must or big block like ours. This comes from acu

fab and it's actually the application for a fox body. Mustang comes with provisions for an idle air bypass. We don't need that

and throttle position sensor which we definitely gotta have.

Now it attaches to this elbow on top of our intake which you definitely can't buy off the shelf.

It was custom made by a little company called high performance controls. And well, after this step, you're on your own

feeding charged air from the turbos to the intake. Now is all about creating a path of piping

in our case, using left over three inch exhaust pieces of couplers and a lot of time and patience.

Our 55 engines almost buttoned up and well, the whole car will be after many hours of plumbing and wiring and such.

Hey, we covered a lot of ground though, mainly showing you how you can take a classic steel body from a weak stock frame and

put a modern firm foundation under it with brakes and suspension. Talk about your best of both worlds. Well, coming up, we got a little test to show you that involves a little part that plays a big role in keeping your engine together.

Hey, welcome back to horsepower and a little heads up tech segment. We're calling

bolt basics.

There are hundreds of bolts and studs in a typical engine

stands to reason then that using the best quality fasteners, proper torque specs and lube are critical to keeping everything together,

especially for high performance use and abuse. Of course, there's a lot more to it than knowing righty tidy, lefty Lucy. In fact, what happens between the first twist of the bolt and that last click is often a mystery.

All metals have some elastic properties which means they can be compressed or more importantly stretched when a bolt or stud is stretched,

it has a natural tendency to return to its original wing.

That's why when you torque one down, you're trying to stretch it just enough to add a clamping force that'll keep it in place. This is also known as preload,

maintaining and achieving a both proper clamp load is all about overcoming friction and even a rps can't do that without the right lobe.

A lot of choices out there. But using some of their studs and the strain gauge,

we're gonna test some different results.

First, good old motor oil on the threads of this. A RP stud and nut, which has a torque value of 125 ft pounds.

So when the torque wrench clicks, the gauge needle should be at 18,000 pounds.

And on the first cycle, we're at 15,000, not enough.

And eventually we do hit the target

but only after several cycles

next with a new identical stud and nut. The ever popular Molly Lou.

And once again, when the torch bench says we're there, we're really 3000 pounds under

several cycles later, we're at 19.5, about 1500 pounds over the target.

This is a lube commonly called peanut butter. It's used by a lot of top fuel race teams who torque their stuff down once, make a five second pass and then tear the engine down before the next run.

I can see why they use it. It torched down at 18,000 pounds the first time.

However, it's not recommended for street strip engines because on each follow up cycle, the gauge goes up several 1000 pounds above the target.

On about the seventh cycle, we're all the way up to 30,000 pounds.

Uh oh, that wasn't the torque wrench. Now, let's see what we got here. Now, that sound was obviously threads letting go inside this nut

and it's not going anywhere. Imagine if this was in your engine,

you'd be screwed. No pun intended.

Finally, a R P's ultra

torque lube made without Molly or metals and formulated to achieve the target pre load on the first torque cycle with repeatability.

Plus, it prevents seizing and galling on threats.

On the first torque sequence, we're at 18 5, which is right in the ballpark. But A RP claims ultra lube will maintain that preload level within 5% on all following torque cycles

and it does on the second

and the third

and for two more cycles be before we call it quits

other recent tests. Measuring rod boats stretch with different lubes revealed pretty much the same results we got.

So while using quality fasteners and the proper torque specs are critical.

It's the lube that lets you hit that target preload and hit it consistently. Today, this A RP ultra torque was the only one that really made the grade

you're watching horsepower for a DVD copy of this episode, just go to power block tv.com and order your copy for just 595 plus shipping and handling, start your own horsepower collection delivered right to your door from the power block.

Here's a welcome blast from the past for anybody with a period. Correct. Hot rod Edel Rocks 94 2 barrel carburetor discontinued in 1957 is back. Can you see this baby on top of a flathead?

Now, it features a die cast bowl and air horn,

cast iron, three bolt flange

and linkage that makes it for an easy set up in a two or three carve configuration.

Now, while it looks the same as the old days, well, the price has probably gone up a bit 350 bucks.

You know, I hate to give them the big head, but Mr Mike's done some pretty ingenious work constructing all that turbo tubing,

check out the T connection with the fitting for the blow off valve. Not bad. Can you imagine the under hood heat? These turbos are gonna turn out though?

Well, that's why a pair of these titanium shields that de I makes is a pretty cool idea.

They can handle up to 1800 degrees of direct heat.

It can also increase horse power and reduce turbo

lag.

Well, header heat is another source of high temp troubles under your hood. We've used this de I header wrap in our own

dyno where it proved to reduce temperatures considerably. It's also good for improving exhaust scavenging.

Well, another way to reduce under hood heat is that reflect to cool.

You just trim this stuff to size and apply it to the underside of your hood with a self a hesive backing.

They also make this slee kit that protects ignition wires from heat in style. It's made from the same high temp composite fiberglass as their boot covers installs easily and well, even comes with these shrink tubes for a kind of a sharp finished look. What do you think?

Well, outside of the engine bay, a heat screen is a matting that's made of aluminized mylar

and you can use this stuff under your carpet to protect your interior or in body panels to protect painted surfaces. These are all hot parts designed to

beat the heat. One of your street machines, enemies,

we know some of you guys are asking yourselves where's the inner cooler? Well, the answer is these turbos are so efficient and we'll only be making about 10 total pounds of boost to reach our 1000 horsepower goal. We're not gonna have that much air charge temp. Now, by the time that mixes with the fuel and the runner, they're gonna be pretty low. Now, if you guys are planning on adding a single turbo or even twinge to your engine, here's a way to take some of the mystery out of what you'll need to reach your power levels. All you need to do is call turbine

X and give them the information about your engine

bill. Send you a chart that shows you what kind of horsepower to expect at various boost levels with and without an inter cooler

when you're building the project with this much power, there's a lot of small details you have to deal with and we just don't have enough time to show them all. But the next time you see this thing, we're gonna show you how to tune it. And most importantly, we're gonna have some fun with it. After all, it is the ultimate sleeper. We'll see you next week.