Turbocharging a 2010 Silverado - Truck Tech S3, E12

Our gas street Silverado is back this time ready for its final

truck

ing treat today. Step-by-step

tech

instructions for upgrading to a turbocharger for the big, bad Dino. Proven power. Today is the day we have been waiting for. Quite a while ago, that's right, we'll take our

2010

Silverado and give it one final push to transform it into a turbocharged Street Terror and show you what it takes to make it happen with your LS-powered GM

truck

or SUV. Yes, from the beginning, our goal is to make the White Noise project a high-performance sleeper, but we had one condition: it had to be usable for weekday commuting, and honestly, every performance modification on this truck we made sure to that could be done in a typical garage. on a given weekend because that's really the essence of modifying your daily driver, it has to be drivable right, we swapped in a hotter cam to handle the abuse and boost that was about to come, then we lowered it four inches on the front and six in the rear for that punch. look and finally a transmission change to a high performance 4L80E along with a brake upgrade and that's where we start today a truck that basically has a bulletproof transmission ready for more power and at the end of the day the White Noise project It will have a turbo. and we won't have to worry about things like breaking a differential or blowing a transmission.

When we shopped for a turbo kit for a late model Silverado, we found a few different options and even considered swapping out our factory exhaust manifolds and building a custom one. good side, but there is one kit that stood out from the crowd in terms of value and quality and that was the turbo stage 3 trick turbo kit, but what really caught our attention was this exhaust manifold, it is made of cast stainless steel from thick wall that will withstand the extreme temperatures of a turbo system, features smooth scavenge runners and a true T4 flange opening for the turbo at the wastegate.

The port is mounted directly below. Now the best thing about a cast collector is that it retains its shape much better than a manufactured one, now the heart. of the system is the 76 millimeter turbocharger, it's good for around 650 to 700 horsepower to the ground and because it's a reasonable compressor size, we'll still have a decent spool and surprising peak power. Boost is kept under control by this precision two-bolt wastegate. which recirculates back into this downpipe that way you don't have that annoying wastegate sound. It now has two ports for factory O2 sensors and a wide band. The kit also comes with this crossover pipe that connects to the factory exhaust manifold on the driver's side and at the back of the cast manifold on the passenger side, compressed air flows through the charge pipes on the back. lead.

Behind the grille, where it meets the intercooler, this is a four-inch thick core that will keep all the compressed air at nice, cold temperatures that it passes through. This charge tube before reaching the engine which has a turbosmart bleed valve and a flange for your factory mass air flow sensor. Now the best part about this entire kit is that it comes with absolutely everything you need to complete the installation. hoses, clamps, boots, accessories, it even has some thermal control and an air filter. Now the only thing you are responsible for is some fuel injectors, some adjustments and connection to the exhaust of your choice, so now we know all the parts that are needed to make a complete.

Turbo system, but how do all those parts work together? We're about to show you that a turbocharger is used to force air into an engine to make more horsepower, but unlike a supercharger which is driven by a belt, a turbo uses free energy from spent exhaust. The gases spin a turbine which spins a compressor on the other side of the turbine, drawing in fresh air and forcing it into the engine. The turbine and compressor are connected by a single shaft that moves on bushings or bearings. Certain turbo racing applications can build over 50 pounds of boost pressure, what if one hundred percent of the exhaust gases coming out of the engine were allowed to spin the turbocharger?

Air flow increases. Boost pressure will skyrocket and you'll probably split the block in half at least. a couple of rods on the side and I don't know about you but for me it's a pretty bad day so to prevent this from happening at the control boost level the turbo kits include a waste kit it's basically a valve that will allow a certain amount of gas to flow. bypass the turbocharger to regulate the boost pressure, say for example the boost pressure is too high, in that scenario the wastegate will open and the exhaust gases will be allowed to exit into the atmosphere instead of spinning the turbo so that the turbo slows down and accelerates.

The pressure also drops now, on the other hand, if the boost pressure is too low, the wastegate will remain closed and force all the exhaust gases into the turbocharger. Boost pressure will increase as the turbo spins faster as you drive. the wastegate will constantly open and close to maintain that perfect boost level threshold, it's set by the type of springs inside, but that's basically how they work now, as you can see wastegates are pretty important now that anyone who has seen a car movie has seen it. You've probably heard the one sound most commonly associated with a turbo system and it's the bleed valve, but what exactly does a bleed valve do?

Imagine this when you accelerate fully, there is a ton of air being pumped into the engine, but at the end of that stroke, the throttle plates suddenly close and the air has nowhere to go, so a throttle valve is installed. bleed into the charge tube to relieve all that extra pressure when decelerating quickly and when coming back. Let's take down the White Noise project and prepare it for its Turbo. The next project, white noise, is about to get louder. Our turbo installation begins with removal of the exhaust system, starting with our modified trans crossmember, followed by the stock exhaust, which will also be replaced.

We remove everything from front to back in the engine bay, we will remove small parts like the intake pipe from the engine cover. The factory air filter housing, everything to get to the passenger side exhaust manifold, the spark plug wires and dipstick were removed and ours was like this. rusty we had to cut it off with all the bolts removed the collector comes out and can hit the scrap pile the new cast stainless steel collector is lowered into place temporarily for the mockup the AC line has to be bent to make room for the waste gate , 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 the clearance as I go, we're looking for about an inch of clearance, we lower the downpipe into place and then the turbo connect the v band and put the turbo on the flange again temporarily once you know everything will fit remove it all install the gaskets and permanently bolt on the manifold before installing our wastegate we need to set the initial boost level and that is controlled from Springs Now, when you buy a wastegate, it comes with a variety of different springs with different tensions, color coded and each one represents a different level of boost, depending on how many springs you use, you can consume as little as a pound and average boost up to 25. we want to run about 10 pounds of boost and for us that means a single Green Spring is installed, the wastegate connects to the manifold with two bolts to insulate the tubing and protect our cables and coolant lines .

We'll wrap the downpipe with this Dei Titanium Exhaust Wrap that will keep our Silverado's engine bay cooler and we won't have to worry about melting anything. Now we can install the downpipe and Turbo for good. The turbo intercooler trick is simply the following. Mounts in front of the radiator with the supplied brackets that attach to the center support at the top and bottom. I will mark and drill a hole through the plastic to allow the intercooler tube to pass through. I'll make the connections on the driver's side to the engine and the cold side is done man it looks like you already have it yeah everything is simulated you know this kit came together super easy the only thing I don't like is that all this Brushed aluminum is a bit flashy, that's what this truck is supposed to be like. be a sleeper, whatever we do about it, yeah man, I absolutely agree with you that we can prep this aluminum and give it a nice satin finish that way, at least when you open the hood, nothing hits you, you know, I think which would look great that way, okay, let's tear it down completely.

The turbo can now pump air into the engine, but lubrication is also important. I will drain and remove the oil pan for the next modification. All turbochargers use pressurized engine oil to provide lubrication and cooling, but we need a way to get the turbocharger oil back into the engine, so we'll use the drill and tap provided to fit a 3 8 pipe connector. on the side of the oil pan to provide that. grease somewhere to go now you can do this operation with a tray still in the vehicle, but the only way to ensure that one hundred percent of the metal shavings are out of the tray is to remove it and also our truck is two wheels. drive so it only took a few minutes to remove the oil pan anyway, the strange thing is one of the hardest materials for paint to stick to hard surface, it's hard to break into to get that tooth you need for it to the paint is bitten off for good adhesion, now sand with a red pad it looks like you are breaking up the surface but you are not, it is basically enough to take the shine off the pipe.

This is where guys usually have problems and while the paint starts to peel off the aluminum along the way, the red pad just isn't aggressive enough now. You could chemically wash these parts, use an aluminum-specific primer, or even sandblast them to get good adhesion, but that's a lot to deal with when you only have a few small tubes you want to paint, but there are a few easy steps. that you can follow to make the paint adhere. One thing with aluminum is that it needs to be clean, and as you just saw, LT had greasy hands on all this stuff, so the first step is to wash with a harsh cleaner like acetone.

I will sand the tubes with 180 grit sandpaper. I know it seems aggressive, but for aluminum it is not, just break the surface to achieve good adhesion. The next step is one of the most important steps in that self-etching primer, it is a mixture of phosphoric acid and zinc the way it works is that the acid forces the zinc to the top of the metal and it is purely a surface coating, so which we only need one coat, once we let it dry for about 20 or 30 minutes we can follow up with some vhd black wrinkle finish, this will give LT that sleeper look you are looking for under the hood and while it is dry, I can reinstall the oil pan and then insert the oil cooler adapter that will feed the oil to the turbocharger.

The following forced induction requires a massive exhaust. I needed a way to get the exhaust gases from our turbo downpipe to the bumper of our Silverado, so we went to MagnaFlow and bought an exhaust for a Power Stroke six-liter. Of all things, I have a stainless steel wire in the middle and Let's show you how to make this all work, but why did I choose a mid-2000s Ford kit? I knew the 6L Power Stroke kit had dual exhaust, which left a lot of tube to cut for our single, four-inch system. It will guarantee us a minimum backpressure in the turbo.

Vibrant performance V-band clamps will give us leak-free connections and quick removal if we need it. This MagnaFlow muffler has a straight through design and will give our truck a smooth tone without sacrificing flow. See, that's what it takes to get a power racing exhaust on a Silverado. Now we need to add some hangers and finish welding it, but this baby is done so far. We've taken care of induction and our four-inch exhaust will provide a path for that combustion exhaust, so now it's time to address fuel and spark. These are MSD Pro Power coils and will actually spark several times at lower RPM for more combustion, you will get better throttle response andhigher RPM performance.

We would need more fuel if we kept these stock injectors, the truck would start and run, but as soon as it accelerated it would have problems, the engine would run lean and potentially throw a grenade at it, so we went to Summit Racing and chose these 72lb Ditch Works injectors they have a maximum duty cycle of 93, they have a good flow pattern so you still get a good idle and easy tuning, and they will also run on E85 fuel and along with our hotter coils we are also going to put a MSD LS coil power upgrade harness, features a high current relay and will deliver more reliable power than the OE harness can provide.

Some in the races sent us this vibrant performance for port recirculating oil catch can. Its job is to separate the oil from the crankcase vapors so that they are not absorbed back into the engine, something we recommend for any turbo application. You know the old saying: rust never sleeps well. Rust evapo is a water-soluble solution that wakes up rust particles and removes them from almost anything. It is safe for the environment and will not damage aluminum, copper, brass, plastic or vinyl. These pliers were found hidden in the garden along with some wire cutters that we've been soaking for a few hours.

Check it, it doesn't rust anymore and you can pour them again. bottle and use it again and again, visit evaporus.com for more information. You wouldn't spread your toast with a screwdriver, so why use a kitchen paper towel in your garage? Scott Glass Shop Towels are the right tool for the right job, whether shining a chrome exhaust tip or cleaning a stubborn windshield Scott Glass Shop Towels reduce lint and streaks and are ideal for glass windshields. and mirrors available at your favorite automotive retailer Looking for a replacement grille for your classic to newer model truck, so LMC Truck has a large inventory of both molded and billet aluminum grilles for Ford GM and Dodge '47 and up.

This is a factory reproduction grille housing for a '91-'93 Ram truck. It sells for $140 plus shipping and will really brighten up the front of your truck for your application. See lmctruck. com Foreign with everything buttoned up, our Silverado turbo is ready for some tune-ups, the dyno is next, we're back in the Tech truck and it's doomsday for the White Noise project. We invited Alex Pipes of Pipes Performance Tunes back to the shop to make some necessary adjustments. to the 5.3's computer, since we added a turbo, did a cam swap, and put in a four-inch exhaust, but before we get to the numbers, Alex and LT need to drive the truck to gather data so Alex can create a two personalized, how?

The installation went well. The turbo installation was great. Everything practically screwed together. You know, I couldn't be happier. I have installed many replacement parts in my time and you wouldn't believe things that just don't fit. but this kit is the trick turbo installed perfectly all bolted aligned sealed no leaks um and I'll tell you what my right foot is getting a little anxious tell me about custom fits how important is it for a vehicle like this to have a custom fit, no a custom fit, you definitely won't have precise fuel delivery. Driveability will probably suffer from some safe idling or off-idling situations, they won't be as desirable as you'd like.

Your airfield relationship. it could be off what you want it to be and if that happens especially on the lean side that could cause possible engine failure so with a baseline dialed in we'll strap it to the dyno and start focusing on the throttle wide open, the tune is pretty close, so let's do a pull 426 404 sounded really good, loud, cool, well it looks like what we need to do first is adjust the mathematical transfer function to make the AFR exactly what we want it to be, so it's a little bit out of place right now, no. by far two or three percent um, we'll make some adjustments to the math curve.

We're a little rich here, about ten nines, an AFR, which you want to be about 11 3-1 all the way through, as you see here, we're getting close. to our target right at about 4600 RPM and then we start to taper off getting a little bit back to Rich again, so I'm going to make some adjustments to this area of ​​the math curve and then maybe adjust the spark. Little by little we are going to try to increase the boost sum also with the boost controller and see what we can get. The power on that last maximum boost pull we saw was about 5 PSI, so we're going to try to increase it.

This time the Boost for more power between the minor changes in fuel mixture timing and boost, we've already gained an additional 18 horsepower, not bad, and Alex will dig into that HP tuning software and continue making adjustments with the updated computer we will do another pull this time we will be up to 481 gaining another 35 horsepower after another adjustment to the Boost controller we will run a total of eight pounds of boost and one of the last adjustments Alex has done is in the variable timing of the cams and we think this race will be right at The Sweet Spot and Alex sure managed to get 498 out of this bad boy's wheels and we'll call it a 500. guys, we did it.

Pretty impressive, we have 500 horsepower behind the wheel from a stock bottom line and 5.3 and it just shows what Alex from Price Performance can do with the HP tuner software. It was a pleasure to be here and I can't wait to see what this is. What happens on the track, yeah man, we appreciate you coming for us, no problem, okay, let's unhook this, let's do it.