Turbocharging a 2010 Silverado - Truck Tech S3, E12

our street strip gas-powered Silverado is back this time ready for its final gift today on truck tech step-by-step how-to on upgrading to a turbocharger for big bad dyno proven power [Music] today is a day we've been waiting for for quite some time that's right we're gonna take our 2010 Silverado and give it one final push to transform it into a turbocharged Street terror and we're gonna show you what it takes to make this happen with your LS powered GM truck or SUV yeah from the onset our goal is to make project white noise a high-performance sleeper but we had one condition it needed to be usable for Monday through Friday community and honestly every performance modification on this truck we made sure could be done in a typical garage on a given weekend because early that's the essence of modifying your daily driver it has to be trifle right we swapped in a hotter cab to handle the abuse and boost about to come then lower her 4 inches in the front and 6 in the rear for that slammed look and finally a trance flop to a performance for LA to eat along with a brake upgrade and that's where we're starting today a truck that basically has a bulletproof drivetrain ready for some major power and by the end of the day project white noise will have a turbo and we won't have to worry about things like breaking a differential or blowing up a transmission when shopping for a turbo kit for a late-model Silverado we found a few different options and heck we even considered flipping our factory exhaust manifolds and building a custom hot side but there's one kit that stood out from the crowd in terms of value and quality and that was the trick turbo stage 3 turbo kit but what really got our attention was this exhaust manifold it's made from thick wall cast stainless steel that will withstand the extreme temperatures of a turbo system it features smooth swept runners and a true t4 flange opening for the turbo in the wastegate port is mounted directly underneath now the best thing about a cast manifold is it retains its shape much better than a fabricated one now the heart of the system is the 76 millimeter turbo charger it's good for about 650 to 700 horsepower to the ground and because it's a reasonable compressor size will still have decent spool and amazing top-end power the boost is kept under control by this precision to bolt waste gate which recirculates back into this downpipe that way you don't have that annoying wastegate sound now has two ports for factory o2 sensors and a wideband the kit also comes with this crossover pipe which connects to your factory exhaust manifold on the driver's side and into the back of the cast manifold on the passenger side the compressed air flows through the charged pipes up front behind the grill where it meets the intercooler this is a four inch thick core which will keep all that compressed air under nice cold temperatures it goes through this charge pipe before making its way to the engine which has a blow-off valve by turbosmart and a flange for your factory mass airflow sensor now the best part about this whole kit is it comes with absolutely everything you need to complete the installation all the hoses clamps boots fittings even has some thermal control and an air filter now the only thing you're responsible for are some fuel injectors some tuning and connection to the exhaust of your choice so now we know all the parts it takes to make up a complete turbo system but how do all those parts work together well we're about to show you a turbocharger is used to force air into an engine for more horsepower but unlike a supercharger which is driven by a belt a turbo uses free energy from the exhaust spent in gases spin a turbine which spins a compressor on the other side of the turbine and sucks in fresh air and forces it into the engine the turbine and compressor are connected by a single shaft that rides on bushings or bearings certain turbo race applications can build upwards of 50 pounds of loose pressure what would happen if a hundred percent of the exhaust gas that left the engine were allowed to spin the turbocharger well airflow goes up boost pressure will skyrocket and you'll probably split the block in half hurt the very least throw a couple rods out the side and I don't know about you but for me that's a pretty bad day so to prevent this from happening in control boost level turbo kits include a waist kick it's basically a valve that'll allow a certain amount of gas to bypass the turbocharger to regulate the boost pressure let's say for example the boost pressure is too high well in that scenario the wastegate will open up and the exhaust gas is allowed to exit to the atmosphere rather than spinning the turbo so the turbo slows down and boost pressure comes down as well now on the other hand if your boost pressure is too low the wastegate will remain shut and force all of the exhaust gas up into the turbocharger ooh pressure will come up as the turbo spins faster now as you're driving around the wastegate will be constantly opening and shutting to maintain that perfect threshold of boost level it's set by the type of Springs that are inside but basically that's how they work now as you can see waste gates are pretty darn important now anybody who's seen a car movie has probably heard the one sound that's most commonly associated with the turbo system and that is the blow-off valve but what exactly does a blow-off valve do well picture this as you go into a wide-open throttle rug there's a ton of air that's being pumped into the engine but at the end of that run the throttle plates closed suddenly and that air has nowhere to go so a blow-off valve is installed in the charge pipe to relieve all that extra pressure when you rapidly decelerate and when we come back we're gonna get project white noise torn down ready for its turbo next project white noise is about to get louder our turbo installation begins with first disassembling the exhaust system starting with our modified trans crossmember followed by the stock exhaust this will also get replaced we remove the entire thing from front to rear up in the engine compartment we'll remove small parts like the engine cover intake tube factory air filter housing all to get to the passenger side exhaust manifold the plug wires and dipstick are removed and ours was so rusted in we had to cut it off with all the bolts removed the manifold comes out and can hit the scrap pile the new cast stainless manifold lowers into place temporarily for mock up you have to bend the AC line out of the way to make room for the wastegate this is an important step and you can easily kink the pipe if you go too far so I'll take my time and check clearance as I go we're looking for about an inch of room lower the down pipe into place then the turbo connect the B band and set the turbo onto the flange again temporarily what you know everything will fit remove it all install the gaskets and permanently bolt on the manifold before we install our wastegate we need to set the initial boost level and that's controlled by springs now when you buy a wastegate it comes with a variety of different springs at different tensions which are color-coded and each one represents a different boost level depending on how many Springs you run you can go as little as one and a half pounds of boost all the way up to 25 we want to run about ten pounds of boost and for us that means a single green spring is installed the wastegate attaches to the manifold with two bolts to insulate the pipe and protect our wires and coolant lines i'll wrap the down pipe with this di titanium exhaust wrap that will keep the engine bay of our silverado cooler and we won't have to worry about melting anything now we can install the down pipe and the turbo for good the trick turbo intercooler is next it simply mounts in front of the radiator with the supplied brackets attaching to the core support at the top and the bottom I'll mark and drill a hole through the plastic to allow the intercooler pipe to pass through make connections on the driver's side to the engine and the cold side is done it looks like you've about got it yeah it's all mocked up you know this kit went together super easy the only thing I don't like though it's all this polished aluminum is just kind of flashy trucks supposed to be a sleeper anything we do about that yeah man I agree with you there absolutely we can prep this aluminum throw a nice satin finish on there that way at least when you pop the hood nothing's just bang it out at you you don't think it'll look really nice that way alright let's tear it down absolutely the turbo can now pump air to the engine but lubrication is important too I'll drain and remove the oil pan for the next bit of modification all turbochargers use pressurized oil from the engine to provide both lubrication and cooling but we need a way to get that oil from the turbocharger back inside the engine so we're gonna use the provided drill and tap to put a 3/8 pipe fitting in the side of the oil pan to give that oil a place to go now you can do this operation with a pan still on the vehicle but the only way to ensure a hundred percent of the metal shavings are out of the pan is to take it off and besides our truck is a two-wheel drive so only took a few minutes to remove the oil pan anyway [Music] aluminum is one of the hardest materials for paint to adhere to the hard surface is tough to break through getting that tooth you need for the paint to bite into for good adhesion now sanding with a red scuff pad it looks like it's breaking the surface but it's not it's basically just enough to get the shine off the pipe now this is where guys usually run into trouble and while their paint start spilling off aluminum down the road the red scuff pad just isn't aggressive enough now I could chemically wash these parts using an aluminum specific primer or even sandblast them to get good adhesion but that's kind of a lot to deal with when you just have a few small tubes you want to paint but there's a few easy steps you can take to get the paint to stick one thing with aluminum is it needs to be clean and like you just saw LT had his greasy hands all over these things so the first step is to wash with an aggressive cleaner like acetone next I'll send the tubes with 180 grit sandpaper I know that seems aggressive but for aluminum it's not it's just enough to break the surface to get us good adhesion next is one of the most important steps in that self-etching primer it's a mix of phosphoric acid and Zeke the way it works is that the acid forces the zinc into the top of the metal and it's purely a surface coating so we only need one coat once we let that flash for about 20 or 30 minutes we can follow that up with some VHD black wrinkle finish this will give LT that sleeper look he's going for it under the hood and while it's drying I can reinstall the oil pan then sandwich the oil cooler adapter which will feed oil to the turbocharger next forced-induction calls for a massive exhaust we needed a way to get the exhaust gas from our trick turbo down pipe to the bumper on our Silverado so we went to Magnaflow and picked up an exhaust for a six litre power stroke of all things I've got some stainless steel wire in the mid and we're gonna show you guys how to make this all work so why did I choose a mid 2000s Ford KITT I knew the six liter power stroke kit had dual exhaust which left plenty of pipe to cut for our single system and four inches will guarantee us minimum back pressure on the turbo vibrant performance v-band clamps will give us leak free connections and quick removal if we need it this Magnaflow muffler is a straight-through design and will give our truck a mellow tone without sacrificing flow [Music] well there you go that's what it takes to get a power stroke exhaust on a Silverado now we have to add some hangers and finish weld it but this baby's done so far we've got induction taken care of and our four inch exhaust will provide a path for that combustion to escape so now it's time to address fuel and spark these are MSD pro power coils and they'll actually spark multiple times at lower rpm for a greater combustion you'll get better throttle response and higher rpm performance increased air is going to need more fuel if we were to keep these stock injectors the truck would start and it would run but as soon as you got into boost you'd have problems the engine would run lean and potentially grenade on you so we went to Summit Racing and picked up these deets 72 pound injectors they have a 93 percent maximum duty cycle have a nice flow pattern so you still have a good idle and easy tuning and they'll also work with e85 fuel and to go along with our hotter coils we're also going to throw on an MSD LS coil power upgrade harness it features a high current relay and will deliver more reliable power than the OE harness can provide Summit Racing sent us this vibrant performance 4 port recirculating oil catch can its job is to separate oil from the crankcase vapors so they don't get sucked back into the engine something we recommend for any turbo application you know the old saying rust never sleeps well evapo rust is a water soluble solution that wakes up rust particles and removes them from just about anything it's safe on the environment and will not harm aluminum copper brass plastic or vinyl these pliers were found hidden in the yard along with some wire cutters we've been soaking for a few hours check it out no more rust and you can pour it back into the bottle and use it again and again go to evapo rust comm for more you wouldn't butter your toast with a screwdriver so why use a kitchen paper towel in your Raaj Scott glass shop towels are the right tool for the right job whether it's for shining up a chrome exhaust tip or cleaning a stubborn windshield Scott glass shop towels reduce lint and streaking it's great for glass windshields chrome and mirrors available at your favorite automotive retailer looking for a replacement grille for your classic to newer model pickup well LMC truck has a vast inventory of both molded and billet aluminum grilles for Ford GM and dodge forty-seven enough this is a factory Reproduction grille shell for a 91 through 93 Ram pickup it sells for a hundred and forty bucks plus shipping and will really brighten up the front of your truck for your application check out lMC Truck com [Music] with everything buttoned up our turbo Silverado is ready for some tuneage the dyno is next we're back on truck tech and it's Judgment Day for project white noise we invited now its Heights from Heights performance tunes back to the shop to make some required adjustments to the 5.3 computer since we added a turbo did a cam swap and threw on some 4-inch exhaust but before we get to the numbers Alex and lt need to drive the truck around to collect data for Alex to craft a custom tooth so I have the install go well the turbo install went great everything pretty much bolted on you know I couldn't be happier I I've installed a lot of aftermarket parts my time and you would leave the stuff that just doesn't fit but this kid has a trick turtle installed perfectly resting bolted right up lined up sealed no leaks and I'll tell you what my right foot is getting a little bit anxious talk to me about custom tuning how important is it for a vehicle like this to have a custom tune well without a custom tune you're definitely not going to have precise fuelling drivability is probably going to suffer some sure idle or off idle situations are not gonna be as desirable as you would want them your air fuel ratio could be off from what you wanted and that happens especially on the lean side that could cause potential in Japan so with a baseline dialed in we'll get it strapped to the dyno and start focusing on wide open throttle the two is pretty close so let's do a poll 4:26 404 sounded really it's wrong well it looks like what we need to do first is adjust the math transfer function to make the AFR exactly what we want it to be so it's just a little off right now not by much two or three percent we'll make some adjustments on the math curve we're a little rich right here about ten ninety one AFR which we want to be about eleven three two one throughout the run as you see here we got closer to our target right at about 4600 rpms and then we started tapering off going back a little rich again so I'm gonna make some adjustments in this area of the math curve in this area of the map curve and then maybe adjust spark advance a little bit we're gonna try to increase the boost sum as well with a boost controller and see what we can get to power on that last poll of the max boost we saw is about 5 psi so we're gonna try to increase the boost this time to get some more power out of it [Music] between the minor changes in fuel mixture timing and boost we've already gained an additional 18 horsepower not bad at all and Alex is going to dive deeper into that HP tuner software and keep making adjustments with the computer reflashed will do another pull this time we're up to 481 getting yet another 35 horsepower after another adjustment to the boost controller we'll be running a total of 8 pounds of boost and one of the last tweaks outs is made is to the variable cam timing and we think this run is going to be right in the sweet spot and it sure was Alex managed to get 498 to the Wills out of this bad boy and we'll call it 500 guys we did pretty awesome we've got 500 horse at the wheels from a stock bottom in 5.3 yeah and it just shows what Alex from PI's performance can do with the HP tutor software absolutely it was a pleasure being here and I can't wait to see what this thing does at the track yeah man we appreciate you coming in for us no problem alright let's get this thing on hooks do it [Music]

Channel: POWERNATION

Views: 1,306,850

Rating: 4.8590355 out of 5

Keywords: Automotive;, Cars;, Vehicles;, How-To;, Auto, News;, Howto;, How, To;, DIY;, Car, Tips

Id: qaWUqbO-VLk

Length: 19min 42sec (1182 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 09 2019