Turbocharged Ford 300 Inline Six Makes Over 500 HP on the Dyno - Engine Power S8, E14

[Music] you're watching power nation the ford 300 was never designed for high horsepower turbocharged applications today we push ours to the edge i'm gonna go ahead and make the executive decision to make this the final run it may be the final run anyway i think that's a good idea today on engine power we are getting back on one of the most popular and fun projects we've done in a long time our ford 300 inline six banger now this engine is currently in its naturally aspirated form and it's been through a couple iterations now for some reason you haven't seen this engine before and you don't know how it got here check this out when we found the 300 it was attached to an industrial water sprayer with a little work we got it running in the dyno cell in perhaps our quietest dyno session ever the inline-six produced 88 horsepower and 217 pound-feet of torque this engine is the textbook definition of long but not strong we almost didn't want to crack open this relic of automotive history but we were curious to find just how much power the 300 would make we installed a hooker long tube header followed by a summit racing hei distributor sporting msd wires here we go yep a 625 cfm street demon came next along with a set of harlan sharp 1.6 ratio roller rockers the 300 really perked up laying down 169 horsepower and 280 pound-feet of torque with the engine torn down we honed the cylinders to accept a set of forged 4050 pistons designed for a 390 fe we added a custom ground comp camshaft and wrapped total seal rings around the pistons a pro max 73cc ported cylinder head took airflow to a whole new level this new combination raised our compression ratio from a stock 8 to 1 to 9.95 to 1 and the engine received a stout power increase putting out 270 horsepower and 338 pound-feet of torque the next phase of this engine is very exciting and is something you've all been asking for we're gonna put some artificial atmosphere to this engine with a turbocharger now there aren't really any turbo kits available for this engine so we're gonna have to fabricate our own and that's gonna take some time and ingenuity so we should get started absolutely we had a couple different options when it came to what size turbocharger we want to run now your initial thought just like us is go big or go home this one might be a little bit too big though it's an 86 millimeter and although make great power it would take a while to spool up our next option is a little bit too small it's only a 62 millimeter now this turbo would work but it's a little small so to be a little less efficient at higher boost levels this one though is just right it has a 72 millimeter inducer wheel a 68 millimeter exducer wheel and a 0.81 aspect ratio which is the relation between the exhaust inlet and the exducer wheel size now this one is a great balance between the previous two but the turbo is only one part of the entire system there's a couple other components we need to add this is a vs racing 50 millimeter wastegate that we got through summit racing now wastegate is going to relieve the exhaust gas pressure via a spring and valve this is going to be really important for controlling the boost on the dyno we also needed a blow-off valve to relieve any extra boost pressure in the intake tract when we close the throttle bleeds now before we can put any of this on there's a few things we got to take off our engine first to make room we'll start with the intake manifold it's an offenhauser c series unit designed to increase power and torque through the rpm range it has provisions for a square or spread bore flange so it accepts a four barrel carburetor i'll take all the tight ones don't worry okay nice nice nice all right here comes the big one grab that that's stuck pretty good there they're all out nope not too bad oh yeah there we go gravy so looks really good since we have the intake and header off the engine it's time to start working on how to get that exhaust gas back up to the turbocharger so your first thing you would think of is let's get a header for it or build one well there are no headers that are available and we are not going to build a custom one for it at this time so we've decided to stay with cast iron we have a couple of different examples here and we're going to start with the one that is stock for the engine this is the log style manifold that is stock for the year of our engine it is very compact and very tough but there are a few problems with what we're trying to do with it one has a very abrupt turn out of the exhaust which makes it compact but it reduces its cross-sectional area and it won't flow as well plus it also has just one single small outlet and it's going to be a problem if we try to make a bunch of power so what we've decided to do is run a pair of split manifolds off a later efi 300 now there's big advantages to running split manifolds one there's two outlets so you have double the amount of area and two these are built kind of like a little tubular header so they flow much better than the log style and where they wire out they will come together down into one single pipe and we can get that under the engine way easier and get it up to the turbine wheel up next first we mock up then we rock oh my god if you are spending the time and money it takes to build your own engine the last thing you want to do is to leave metal chips oil or sludge inside your engine block that can hinder performance let alone cause major damage a good collection of purpose-built engine cleaning brushes is an affordable way to get the job done right this set of 12 from moroso have stiff nylon bristles which clean like wire but without scratching your engine it features a wide variety of brush diameters and handle lengths so it's easy to get into those hard to reach places you can also find specialized brushes like these crankshaft oil brushes from brush research having the right tools to do the job makes all of the difference and you can find these and other cleaning solutions at summit racing equipment now that we know what manifolds we're gonna be using we'll go ahead and get them mocked up on the engine and start figuring out our exhaust they do make a stock replacement y-pipe but it's a little small so we just decide to make our own and we'll have two 90s here and a 45 here that will go into a vibrant performance y-pipe that we got from summit racing it has a two and a quarter inlet and a three-inch outlet then we'll 90 underneath the pan and then go up to our turbo and that will complete our hot side the idea of mock-up is to get everything into place exactly where you want it to be we'll just tack weld everything for now in case we need to make any adjustments or changes later on okay right right there [Music] yep all right okay now on this side i'm gonna sneak around there i'll hold the top so you don't burn your fingers no you're right there you're good somewhere yeah about right there [Music] let your eyes go get this burned up with the distributor out of the way we can mock up where the turbo is going to sit we're going to put it around this area because it's right out in the open it will be easy to hook up on the dyno if this engine ever goes into a vehicle we'll have to re-engineer the entire system to fit but for right now we're trying to keep it easy so we made this not to scale drawing to make a bracket to bolt to these four bosses is a good solid mounting place for it and jimmy down in carcass took our highly technical drawing burned some holes in it put a bend in it and even welded up some gussets this will be a nice secure place to mount the turbo just like the rest of the mock-up we're temporarily mounting the turbo how'd that bracket turn out that was a well-designed even though it wasn't scale yeah so jimmy made that work really good not me but i got this fully welded so put this on and then figure out the rest yeah shouldn't be a problem we're way out in the open here it's gonna be very very easy to hook up to so nice slide that across here it should fit pretty good i got attacked up right now somewhere in there good yep all right this thing this square how the hell did you get it square uh a c clamp and an arbor press get that right there not bad it it it'll fit which is good so this would go down it has to be up on that like there perfect oh you'll be like right okay yeah all right good quick get the welder now that we've got our hot side tacked up we know where everything's going to be we also went ahead and mocked up our wastegate that we got from some racing now all we got to do is take it all apart weld it and then put it back together again since we don't have to worry about fitting this system into a vehicle at least for now the fabrication process is pretty straightforward all said and done we probably have a few hours in mock-up and a couple hours of welding in this project up next the inline six gets an efi system that's ready for big power the turbocharged ford 300 is almost ready for the dyno cell everything has been mocked up and the turbo piping has been finished welded let's move on to final assembly [Music] good [Music] now that we have our hot side fully installed we wanted to take a second and explain why we put the wastegate where we did it's important you don't put the wastegate at a right angle or an obtuse angle to the exhaust flow you want it in line or on a bend like we have here this is going to make the wastegate a lot more accurate when you're controlling the boost pressure [Music] most turbochargers require pressurized oiling just as important is a free-flowing and large oil return line this will help keep your exhaust smoke free something like that [Music] we're almost ready to start our ford 300 but there's a few components we got to add first most importantly how we're going to mix the air fuel ratio since we added a turbo we're going to go forced induction we wanted to go with a throttle body efi unit from holley this is their sniper x flow unit and although we just ran it on our little bitty 305 it's also going to work great on our big six because it's good for up to 800 horsepower naturally aspirated due to four 120 pound injectors it's also good for 21 and a half pounds of boost because it has an integral two and a half bar map sensor these units are super easy to use because they only take four connections to run and all the tuning and setup can be done with the handheld you don't even need a laptop even for boost controlled afr and timing adjustments we also needed a way to get our charged air into our throttle body so we got one of holly's efi car hats painted it white to match the engine naturally and with that we should almost be ready to go sniper throttle body units will fit on a square bore flange or a spread bore flange making them very versatile what do you think of that right there that's nice you made that in the lathe yeah a little neural action and everything so how long did that take you um not long 20 minutes we're using a charge air cooler from a previous diesel project this contraption this should be sized nicely for the inline six's power level [Applause] up next pat goes over to the dark side i think we need more boost and i can't even believe i'm saying that i feel like it's like an invasion of the body snatchers the ford 300 is in the dyno cell and we've outfitted the wastegate with a seven pound spring as a safe starting point for our dyno session boost [Music] all right now you have a boost control on that right now don't you i do and it's closed all yeah so that's two two pounds of boost space okay two pounds two and a half through peak torque so now we have we have some control over over the boost go put something in it for boost i don't i don't know what that is i'm not sure what the increments are on that boost controller so we're just gonna go probably one maybe so go two clicks on it right now everything is ultra safe air fuel ratio is oh yeah eleven four [Music] everything looks good how many how many clicks you're putting it three because i like to party that's a fun sound right there isn't it oh yeah [Music] well i made the difference oh yeah yeah that's a difference that is a difference oh heck yeah look at that 436 pound feet that's mean 345 horse at five thousand go put like go put some more clicks in it two more put two more two more we made a series of dyno runs adding more boost each time eventually i got a little greedy though see what it does i i don't want to know what you did until afterwards nah you don't [Music] that might need a bigger in springer now yeah yeah yeah 453 how big how big a change was that six clicks we are on a really light spring in there yeah um that's that is so almost to six psi i think we need more boost and i can't even believe i'm saying that i feel like it's like an invasion of the body snatchers or something like that because i uh naturally aspirated guys so uh but i want to see this thing i wanna see it make some power yeah let's go let's do it oh very nice [Music] see if i can do this without him well i'll tell you what let me help you i thought i got a pair of gloves somewhere i can help you if you want you're going to take too you're old does this help might do this end i'm going to get that other side on there i'm going to do it just like this it just looks awkward and takes forever normally if it takes a bunch of spring pressure you take this entire unit off and go stick it in like an arbor press or a drill press or something that helps you compress that spring yeah well when you get into higher boost levels because it's all about surface area i mean some of these are you know 100 pounds pressed so there's no way you're doing it the way i just did it but for these little bitty springs it'll be okay everything's the same did you back that clicker off yeah i backed it off so we could sneak up to it because okay those springs together should be around 12 to 14 pounds i don't think we want to hit that all at once oh my oh my whoa 540 pound bait my 400 horse i saw it crack 500 pound feet and i stopped looking at the screen and started looking in there i i made sure that oil pressure was fine i i watched between the oil pressure and the torque meter yeah i was watching in there i'm waiting for maybe parts to fly on that's wow no part's gonna fly out maybe 10 pounds of boost oh wow that's a big gem that's a huge job that was not exactly intentional we're starting to get into the realm of i don't know what parts we'll take oh yeah head gasket i don't know what to get this stock head gasket cylinder block right again i'm worried about splitting a cylinder oh 497 575 pound feet oh my gosh all right how much boost was that oh i don't know i'm scared was 12. okay that was 12. yeah oh that's spicy we got to do it go put two more clicks in it okay oh my gosh now i'm getting scared i'm gonna go ahead and make the executive decision to make this the final run it may be the final run anyway i think that's a good idea because yeah it might actually be come on baby i didn't even see what it makes what were you worried about i don't know what were you worried about oh my god 5 17.8 597 pound feet oh that's spicy we're like we're like we're like so close there's literally only one way to find out you're right just two more clicks it's nothing there's two more it's just two more clicks you you're very bad influence but uh it's just two more clicks it's just two more clicks just it's just two more clicks yeah see yeah put two more in it i recant my last statement and say that was the last poll yeah i thought it was going to be last fall [Applause] [Music] i think we're at the end of this oh i think we're on the waste gate there yeah i i watch watch this yeah that's a good idea we shut it off yeah we have a 308 cubic inch in line six in inline six ford 4.9 liter old school carbureted manifold and this thing just made 522 horsepower and 597 pound feet of torque okay so we went from 270 to 522 and from 338 to 597. that's crazy oh my god that's a high five for more information on anything you've seen on today's show check out powernationtv.com

Channel: POWERNATION

Views: 530,848

Rating: 4.9451165 out of 5

Keywords: Car, PowerNation, howto, how-to, diy, automotive, cars, trucks, automobile, do it yourself, automobiles, auto, powerblock, Turbocharged Ford 300, ford engine, ford 300, Inline Six, horsepower, ford 300 turbo, turbo, boosted, turbocharger, boosted engine

Id: SZoV6E5DDXI

Length: 21min 35sec (1295 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 22 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/smthngeneric]

How about no

[u/makesameansandwich]

I thought about doing 1 of these as a swap in a ranger. The engine is so long though. Same problem the barra has. Did see barra swapped mustangs with TT setup on TRC a few weeks ago. The 300 is all about torque, so high horse power numbers would be harder to get. And, not as stout as a 2j or barra from factory.

[u/azextech]

I saw somewhere not long ago some guy put 735,000 miles on one of these, never had it apart!

[u/Drzhivago138]

I love the 300, but what would it go in? Modern engine bays don't usually fit I6s.

[u/GOOSEBOY78]

hey OP google the ford barra. aussie best performance ford secret straight 6. leaves the 300ci in the dark ages where it belongs.

I own one (N/A)

it came to the usa as a forklift and generator engine... so shouldnt be too hard to find (LPG = propane) is the one to go for

https://youtu.be/hPpzdjT9P28

[u/GOOSEBOY78]

https://youtu.be/kgHLg\_wsnP8