Street Flight will be announcing the release of the Duratec turbo kit and it's components in approximently 10 days. Check in with Keith at Street Flight for more details at 480.615.4366. The first will be a limited production of 20 kits, first come first serve at discounted price.

There will also be the announcement on my website. BOOKMARK IT!!!

Chris, what are your thoughts on Kaiser initial numbers with the Turbo?

It still needs just a hair more tuning. This will happen soon. You also need to take into account that the ambient air was 100F. I'd say that is pretty damn good for the temperature.

We are doing Craig Flango's car right now.It should be interesting to see what we can do with the lower compression

I was quite impressed with 290+ FWHP / 265 FWTQ before final tuning & with 100 degree weather myself...

Can't wait to see some numbers after tuning & later when the temps fall!!!

I foresee 400 crank HP...

Wow ... 400 Hp. I hope the folks who get this get their transmissions suitably upgraded. I heard about this turbo kit from a work colleague in Phx. I thought he was talking trash, apparently not...

What's the latest on engine mangement? Is it somewhat simplified from what kaiser was running with all the MSD stuff? Also does it learn with the temp, ie if we get -20 in the winter up to over 90 in the summer, will this require constant tuning for the different seasons?

so after the 20 kits, its going to go up more than $4500?

A release will be made in approximently 10 days by Street Flight. I do not hold the power to answer the question of how much it will be. It's not up to me. I can say that after 20 kits the price will go up a bit due to the extensive parts list that you will see on the release.

There is a split decision in engine management which requires more data aquisition. This is what causes the 'approximent' date of release.

YAY. Now they can get to work on the CAI for the Zetec!!!

Keep us posted on the initial price, may have to have a SC'ed tour and a TC'ed tour :p That would be fun, wouldnt know which to drive

Price is $5000.

so the initial price is $5000 dollars before or after the discount?

That's the price and they need 20 or they won't make them, that's what Kieth told me yesterday.

Haven't at least 20 people put down a deposit for the kit though? If it were up to me, I'd give the first 20 kits to the first 20 that made deposits. Or maybe the ones that put up the most??

suppose i put $5000 down right now...would i get a turbo kit regardless of the 20 orders or not?

If my stock engine didn't have over 100k on it, I'd get this before thinking about the 3L. LOL! I've probably spent about that much on the 3L parts already anyway.

Jesus, some of our cars aren't even worth $5000!

lol Rip off??

I'd wait for a parts list before passing judgement.

If you feel it's a rip off, build it yourself and then tell us about it.

Don't forget to include costs for all the dyno runs to tune it.

And the fact you'll have to warranty your product if you decide to sell it to the public.

And you're selling to a very limited audience if you do.

This isn't Wal-Mart we're talking about

I meant no disrespect to anyone - I was interested at first, but I finally got impatient and sold my SVT before the kit came out.. But for the price of my car and the turbo kit, I can get into a 400+HP Twin Turbo 300ZX, and not have to deal with traction issues and the delicate tranny.

I'm still looking forward to 1/4 times on a cool non-humid day, when you've got the Quaife installed. Show me a mid-13s timeslip, and I'll be mad impressed.

Well duh we can all go out and buy a RWD sports car that is made to handle 400hp, but guys like me enjoy CHEAP INSURANCE and FWD FOR THE WINTER. Compare apples to apples and see if the SVT or cougar with a TC is a poor car.

I dunno where you live, but insurance on a 1990 TTZ is actually the same as my 98 SVT was for me. Not to mention the SVT isn't really that great of a winter car, though I managed to limp through a few winters w/o drama.

Let's all get real.. The reason people don't want to get rid of their Contours is because 90% of people are upside down on their loans because of the pitiful resale value of these cars. So they feel they have to make the best of a bad situation by modding their current ride.

Thats a good point, lots of people are upside down. I guess I would still rather drive a 10 year newer car then then old Z, even though the Z is faster, personal preference I guess. Each to thier own!

I run snow shoes on my car in the winter its handles ice very well, anything over 6" of snow is a problem though cause it hits the GFX.

How much is your ins? Mine is $70/month and will go to $60 after this weekend when I get married, and next march it will go to $45 after 3 speeding tickets drop off. Me likes

Exactly

Mine was $192/month.. And I'm 27 years old, no accidents, a single ticket. NJ insurance sucks.

Lower compression heads/pistons? Any forged internals added and if anyone has a ballpark figure, how much? I know this has probably been asked ad nauseum, but humor me if the information is out there...

Have any of the test mules' trannys/engines had a problem with their newfound muscles?

I tend to be a worrywart, so a new cluth/quaife is going in soon. I'm just trying to find out how much I'm realistically going to have to sink into this thing to make damn sure I won't have a mechanical nightmare on my hands, as the turbo package has been calling my name for some time...

Now just to get the wife signed off on it.

..COUGH.. 1.8t VW ..COUGH...

I pay $350/mo for my insurance......lots of tickets, suspended license and more

I agree with Cartman, I sold my tour cause I was upside down, I know that didnt help the fact financially, but the car went through 2 trannies!

You ok pascal? Whats wrong that blow off valve coughing again on you :p

just trying to be the last post whore before the T1 goes down

Guys I think you need to see the picture this car is putting down 294 to wheels in the 100F and in the winter it will rise over 300+ to wheels were talking alot hp and a flat a strong torque curve of about 300+ lbs pushing a 3000 pd car. This car with slicks will definitely break into the 12's in the winter nights.

The car is neck snapping at 3500 rpms and revs like a b*tch from what Keith said.

Look SS run low 13's with less hp and more weight and break into 12's with slicks.

Give it time

Show me the time slips and I'll believe it.. I'm still a believer in that the tranny won't be able to handle the power, Quaife or not. There are too many parts of the car which aren't equipt to handle this kind of abuse. Running slicks is just asking for trouble.

But, I'll eat my humble pie if you guys do get into the 12s and have no issues with the car afterwards. Heck, I'd probably buy another Tour and get it Turbo'ed!

From Gary Mumm's site:

"We had a problem with the teeth of the gears stripping. We're making good power and on hard acceleration, the weak link was the gear teeth. Here you see a stock gear stack on the right...compared with the custom gears we?re running shown on the left. If you look closely, you?ll see the teeth on many gears are a LOT thicker. BTW, this was a very expensive -- and difficult -- conversion."

"12/10/01
Bluntly, the weakest area of the car so far has been the transaxle and axles. We?ve broken several axles and transaxles. The majority of our problems have been in this area. The pictures below show some of the work we?ve done to get the reliability up."

they were running like 300 hp right? IIRC there custom gears were something like $5,000!!!

Exactly.. And I think Buckshot's problems at Spring Zing showed you just what could go wrong..

How does that show us? He was naturally aspirated when it happened. He drove up from Iowa and then had trouble autocrossing IIRC. It showed us that problems can happen no matter what you do.

Right, with stock power, he was able to do that.. With a turbo, your chances of that happening are 10x worse. We've got people on here that have gone through multiple spider gears because of wheel hop and such. All it's going to take is one bad launch with the turbo to destroy it, unless you spend the extra bucks for the Quaife. Even Terry agreed on this point.

As I said before, to build a reliable turbo SVT is going to cost a tremendous amount of money. If you feel fine driving a $30K Contour, fine. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night, knowing that I'll never see $25K of that again.

I'll take 2, that is if you can get a turboed SVT for 5k: 30k-25k. I do see your point about the reliability of forced indution. However if the car was not going to be used for drag racing applacations such as 3 or 4 grand launces with slicks and driven with common sence, there is no reason why there should be any problems with the turbo aplications even with the stock trans..

And wouldn't it be neet the next time your crusin down your local Blvd. at a 30 Mph role and and the guy beside you in the Z06 gags on it and is left inhaling the fumes from your blow off FFFPPPSSSSSHHHHHH!!!!!!! :p

Trying to be "real"
1) Mine is paid for
2) Resale losses are little worse than other similar sporty 4-doors (and no worse when you factor in the big discounts many of us got ..paid 18.4K new in my case)..

3) Really why i keep it is that I do not want to part with 50K for a new M3 and that is the only car that is tempting me away from the SVT. I have looked at the competition ..WRX, Altima, Maxima, IS300, A4, and do not find them more entertaining or desireable. The SVT is as much fun as my old MR2 turbo if not more so. And that blows me away.

But as to the turbo..I do agree that the tranny, halfshafts are going to be a problem if the car is pushed hard (racing). Not sure about motor, I have been surprised at how well Duratecs have delt with 260-295 FWHP from the S/C.. good tuning, good oil system, good cooling/intercooling, keeping stock redline and a DMD..maybe a decent life at 300 HP???

I think that a lot of the problems with Capaldi and Mumm blowing up trannies is in the fact that they are running racing clutches, solid motor mounts, and 300HP+ normally aspirated. Not to mention that they are probably running synchro-less and are shifting the daylights out of them under hard power. Lots of abuse.

With a turbo, the inherent lag in the system should help to dampen the power transfer through the tranny so that it doesn't stress the components nearly as much as a full racing setup would.

The synchros and differential gears are known weakness that need to be addressed, but has anyone actually stripped a halfshaft or gearset yet - other than Mumm or Capaldi?

Whats that supposed to mean??

UH zo6....405 hp....i don't think so, maybe a base line corvette, but not a zo6

Rick was running aftermarket hubs or something, parts which did not include a crown nut to keep everything bolted together right. That is what caused his problem...I was there, saw it happen..and saw the diagnosis as they took the car apart in the parking lot of Gingerman.

I agree, leaving the car with the stock tranny, you'll destroy something by putting on slicks. But, I think it takes ALOT of abuse to strip out the gears. Of course, you've got Mark who's been running 350HP @ the crank, and has had no problems with his tranny, but if I were doing this project with enough money to do it right, I'd be looking at a Quaife, upgraded driveshafts, solid motor mounts, and a beefy clutch. As far as the engine goes, again, Mark is proof that the engine can handle the power just fine. I mean lets face it people, it's a great freaking engine!!

As far as those numbers go lets not foget about Turbo focus guy that is putting 330 to the wheels hp/tq. I am wondering at what hp do we have to worry about the stack of gears shearing off. As far as rick goes his prototype hubs wore out. The splines stripped within the hubs. Was said by terry that hubs were not made within the tolerances that they needed to be. IF you have ever but your own have shafts on you will find out that you have to beat the hub on with a hammer. Very tight fit. I am told ricks were a little looser. I am a skeptic that the car will be able to hold that kind of power but I am looking at other weaknesses like the motor mounts. I think everything can be addressed and will by someone in the near future.