The Cal-look Lounge

Hey guys. Been reading on the forum for a while now just trying to soak up information. I built this car the end of 2003 and lost a rod bearing in the original 1200 a few years later. For fun I grabbed a 1600 from a guys garage floor. I had no idea if it ran or not because it didn't have an intake, carb, or distributor. I decided I would just try turbo. I had a new 450 cfm Holley from a dual carb set up I never used for a different project. So I found a little T3 on ebay, put some HD valve springs and chromoly push rods in it, cut up a VW header and welded an up pipe on it and fired it up. Tuned it the best I could at the time and then moved. I recently went back home and picked it up after it sat for like 9 years. I never really drove it before I moved. What little I did drive it, it didn't seem very fast, but again I didn't get much of a chance before I moved.
So now it's here and I did a couple body/paint repairs from the trip. I also took the 1 3/8" up pipe off and put on a 2 1/4" one. I will surely be asking lots more questions soon when I have more chance to test it. For now though I am curious if anyone knows if you can paint a turbo? Will the paint hold up to the heat? Mine is ugly and I don't like it! If not maybe a turbo blanket. Sorry the car is very dirty, but here is a couple pics.
(https://www.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/1702996.jpg)
(https://www.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/1702993.jpg)

Well I guess no one knows if you can paint a turbo, so I will just give it a try. It can't look much worse. Cold side I can Polish to be shiny again.

I think the heat will kill any paint. You could try bbq paint but considering it will burn off a header over time i can't see it lasting. Cool car by the way!

I agree. It's black now so something worked on it, but it's seen better days. I use base coat clear coat on engine blocks all the time and it holds up, but I believe a turbo gets hotter than a block.

And thanks. It used to be super nice but it's starting to show its age now. I'm afraid having an open engine compartment isn't helping it any either. Especially here in florida. It's been getting wet pretty regularly lately.

Hey Buguy, where in Florida are you? I live in Florida as well..Sarasota to be exact. You can PM me if you'd rather..

Your car looks good, nice stance!

You can put one of those diapers on it, but they look kinda ricey.
I went for the old school look by wrapping it instead.
It looks sloppy but covers the rust and helps keep the heat down I guess.

Hey I'm waaaaay over in Port Orange (Daytona Beach). I like the stance but I recently took the 165's off the back and put on 205/65 and I think I need to raise it back to stock or nearly stock height.

And I may end up wrapping and using a diaper too. I can't imagine paint will hold up and my pipes are already getting rusty. But I'd like to take a shot and building my own header from scratch. The one I cut up and made is pretty backwoods.

For the header keep in mind the pipes going to the turbo need to be small and the one exiting the turbo need to be as big as possible.
My header, going into the turbo is stock size (with stock heater boxes), even though the engine is 2332 with big valve 044's a a big lift cam.

That's great to know. When I built this I used 1 3/8" header and then 1 3/8 off the collector to the turbo. I had a feeling it may be too small so I was able to fit a 2 1/4" on there. So I will try it and may end up putting the smaller one back on. Then I replaced the heater boxes with stock size Jtubes. I was hoping they were a restriction too, but I haven't had a chance to drive it again yet. I'm really hoping the performance is better. It wasn't much to brag about before. I just have a tiny bend out of the turbo. I'm making a bigger and longer one soon.
Also I found a nice 390 cfm Holley the other day at work so I drug it home. I noticed when I got home that the housing on the base plate around the secondary throttle shaft is broken. Not sure if it was like that before or if I did it while transporting it. $115 for a new base plate but I'm not sure if it's worth it over the 450 Holley I have now. The 390 looks like it would be better. It has a mastering block with jets for the secondary when mine just has the plate. They are both mechanical secondaries.

I learned that from my friend who helped build an early record setting Red Victor 7 second street legal car.
It had a truck V8 engine in it pushing over 7 liters of displacement and well over 2000 hp. The header size? 1-5/8"  ;)

Makes sense to keep the air speed up!

Yes the speed and heat needs to be there to spin the turbo too. That's why he wrapped my header.

Thread hijack alert!
Small world, Andy Frost runs my local automatic gearbox place, less that 1/4 mile from the house I grew up in! I remember seeing the very first Red Victor there in the mid to late 1980's, the one prior to the one you mentioned.

Bummer! I started my car to let it warm up so I could check and see what kind of vacuum it was making. I can't remember what power valve I put in there but I had planned to pull the carb down just to go through it. It's been sitting a while! Anyway....it ran for a couple minutes and died. Getting plenty of fuel so I must have lost the coil or maybe something happened to the points. I just turned the key off and went home. I worked 70 hours that's enough for me for now. I maybe swing back by this weekend to figure it out.
On a side note. For a backyard very very low buck set up, this car always fires up instantly. I have no idea why, but as soon as I touch the key it fires up. Well.... At least it did before!

Well I put the ohm meter on the coil tonight and it looks like it crapped out on me. Is there anything I should be using other than another Bosch unit? Running a limited 009 on my 1600 drawthrough.

No love here! Well I replaced the coil but the parts store only had some weird brand so I threw it on but will at least get another Bosch. I ordered a 2" mandrel bend and made a bit longer exhaust today. I get condensation like mad with mine and the super shorty I had on there let it spit black water all over the car. So this should get it out and away. I got 2" because that what size the outlet is on my T3 turbo but I kind of wish I would have gotten a 2 1/2". I think it would sound better/throatier. I may make another in 2 1/2" for fun.
https://youtu.be/iZGuFvntQl4

Can't help with coil advice - I generally use Bosch ones! I've had an MSD blaster, which I used with an MSD dizzy and 6AL, and a Pertronix but the regular Bosch blue seem to be fine for me.

Yeah I will still probably ditch the points but I wasn't to do more research on the CB black box before I do anything with the dizzy. I hope to raise the rear back to stock and get the rest of the engine tins on this weekend and she should be road ready.

That's cool! I remember those days well (mid 2000's) when Steve was going back and forth to England from Toronto working on that car. They had the motor on an engine dyno at the Cosworth factory with the header glowing red hot - cool video I wish I still had. The motor was pinning the needle on the dyno for sure. Steve said they made a world record run at the strip after he tuned the new motor that day from scratch in 11 runs.

Here's a vid from 2008 about that car... https://youtu.be/PBwK9Lbfx5Q

So after work I decided to pull the plugs, clean them, and do a compression check. Here is what I got:
1- 122
2- 130
3- 122
4- 130
Do these number seem ok?
Also the plugs are Bosch Super 482. Think those are ok for a turbo engine? They were fairly black but it has only been pretty much idling off and on for the last couple months. Sat for 8-9 years before that.