Buick 3.8 V6 Engine Under the Hood

Here's pictures of the final motor and a couple in the car.



This is the driver's side. These are ATR headers wrapped with ThermoTec wrap to keep the heat in the headers. The crossover pipe connects here and directs the exhaust into the collector to the turbocharger turbine wheel. The turbo is a TE 60-1 with a 4" inlet, 2 1/2" outlet and a .82 A/R exhaust housing. The guy who I bought it from ran 10.80's with it. I haven't gone that fast yet.

 

Passenger side view. The crossover pipe comes up under the motor in the back from the left side and adds to the collector through the connection you see in the forground. The black hole you see on the face of the turbo is the bypass hole the wastgate uses to allow air from the collector to go directly out the exhaust instead of through the turbo housing. The wastegate is used to limit turbo pressure. I've heard more than one person say they put an aftermarket wastegate on and got better spool-up. Maybe their old wastegate puck didn't seal properly or the modifications they made to their header helped, but a bigger wastegate won't do anything to make a turbo spool up faster.

 

Front view of completed motor.

 

Here's the motor on a hoist going in the car.

 

Finally, it's in. All that's left is the hood and to fire it up. Yes, it runs fine. There's a lot of tuning to go. Changing the cam requires changing the fuel map and other things down in the idle area. That is the hardest area to tune a DFI. The stock ECM has more resources devoted to proper idle and drivability. The DFI does better at going fast.

 

Here it is a few days later. It runs great. Click on the picture for a big view.