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Want to buy a turbo kit but dont know which one????

4K views 80 replies 19 participants last post by  snipe656 
#1 ·
hi im looking into buying a new or used turbo kit, every kit i read is better than the next. my motor consist of a boss 302 block stroked to a 347 with the chp dominator rotating assembly, probe 9.1 dished pistons, custom turbo grind cam by comp, trickflow twisted wedge heads 185's, edelbrock rpm2 upper and lower intake and a 65mm throddle body. The fuel delivery is a aeromotive a1000 kit. Im waiting to buy the injectors and maf due to i dont know what lb ill need cause that would determine on the turbo kit and how big i go. The transmission will be a viper spec t-56 6spd. im looking for a very low 10 sec street car i can take where ever, and i do also want a blow through maf. So if i can get some referals on a good quality turbo kit and a size it would be greatly appreciated. If you need to know anything more i will be happy to answer. Thanks joe
 
#2 ·
I have a very similar setup and I went with the B&G hotside and ebay coldside. For the $ the on3 kit might be a good choice but you may outgrow it early if you plan on pushing the limits of that block. Either way they should both push you past the 10's if you wanted to.
 
#3 ·
I would probably spend the extra money for a nicer kit cause the engine bay has panels welded in and it got sprayed so i only really wanna make it more or less a perminate kit. I will be happy with a 10.00 car cause i wanna be able to take it on trips and all that good stuff. But about the on3 kits i read a lil about them and whats up with the headers cracking? Did they fix that?
 
#6 ·
fmyth- how many miles do you have on the kit? and how is the coating on everything holding up? anything peeling?


331lilcoupe- your build looks pretty sweet man. how was the fitment on everything? i will have a flamin river manual rack and a meizure elec water pump so my only belt will be to the alt will that be a problem for me?


Aslo what size turbo do yous guys suggest me getting. Money kind of is an option but then it isnt i only wanna do this once so i would not have a problem going out of my way and spending the extra.
 
#13 ·
fitment is ok but remember ! its not a kit that in 123 u will have it on! the cross over pipe an the inner cooler pipe from the cold side !are really tight fit! but the quality for the price is good in point! turbo i ran a 70mm 68 ar bec i have a stock block no planing on over doing the block!
 
#8 ·
Outlaw, ill have to look into that kit. I also forgot how does the on3 kit clear a Canton or moroso 7qrt oil pan, and does it come with a y pipe to keep the cat back? Thanks everybody for the replys I appreciate it.
 
#9 ·
The on3 kit clears those pans.. i'm sure many others with ease too....I run a 7qt canton and the on3 kit....The y pipe is a upgrade via on3 performance.(good price on y pipe also)..
 
#10 ·
Well regardless you have a 302 and i have a 351 (figured i would include that before someone else does :D)....WE BOTH have a paneled and smoothed bay.And my kit so on3 says "didnt fit" cause i paneled the bay (still dont understand how chad thinks less then a 1/8th" makes that big of diffrence?).If you go anything bigger then a 70MM with ON3's you will need to move the alt and then figure out the bracketry and mounting unless you get a kit thats a "hit" instead of a "miss" from them.So between fitment issues and stuff missing,misleading,and bolts to long or short i would look into B&G or quicktime or someone else.My buddy and I installed a quicktime system with a percission turbo on his smoothed and paneled 302 coupe and it was like ford themselfs perfected the kit!I would suggest to run the MP (or better brand) 76mm for yours?You can make a nice Y pipe for around $100 thats what i'm looking at in having in mine,just i wont have a cut out but that could be bought for a few $ more for the merge instead of the non cut out merge.You could also run into problems with the ON3 kit hitting the sway bar mounts and other places like some have on here,that seems to be an issue about ON3's kit is it's a hit and miss on getting everything,fittment,and instructions.If i had it to do again i would go with a B&G or equal kit,and deal with the price diffrence and wait time.I contacted B&G about a week ago for their kit and they are currently about a month out.Keep in mind,you get what you pay for and corral seems to be loyal to ON3! :)
 
#11 ·
There is no "coating" on any part of the kit. The cold side is stainless steel and the hotside is painted which burns off within a few miles. On my 92lx I split the 331 block down the center in less than 100 miles at 5psi/497rwhp. While the motor was out I took a couple hours and wrapped the entire hotside. This one now has a couple hundred street miles and a dozen or so passes. My 90 has about 300 miles and 1 pass on it. Still working on the tune. Building 4 cars at the same time has turned out to be more than I can handle. Not one of them is "finished".

I've never had a B&G kit or any other turbo but I have installed and owned both a Kenne Bell and a Procharger. I didn't have any problems with the instructions, support, quality or fit of the On3 turbo.

But, as anyone will tell you, if you are going to make a major mod like a turbo, be prepared to run into obstacles. The damn thing isn't going to fall on the car in an hour, you may have to make other modifications and you may have to buy additional items to get everything to work. If your not a professional, plan on a full weekend for the install and have a back up plan to get to work on Monday if this is your DD.
 
#15 ·
Very true about the slap bam bang see ya now i'm boosted!But MY PERSONAL experiance with ON3's kit and my buddies quick time kit...hands down i would of forked out the extra money and waited for the quicktime.shustack do more research and ask more questions before you fork over your hard earned money!Espically with the bay being paneled and smoothed!Check out turbomustangs.com also for feedback!
 
#12 ·
Give Brian a call at BG or Jeff at Pony Down. They can answer any question that you may have. They build every kit in house and can custom build one if you have something oddball with your set up. I have a BG and Brian gave me his home phone number in case I needed him on the weekends or after work. You can't get better support than that.
 
#14 ·
Now THATS customer support!OInly other better support i have heard of like that is from chris at power adder solutions!
 
#19 ·
ok well by most of the replys the on3 isnt to bad of a kit for the price, i did check out b&g's and pony downs and was trying to compare the 3 together and they are all some what similar(correct me if im wrong). But with pony down and b&g they are all made in house so you know them kits are made to perfection. but i was matching the price and its around a 2,000 dollar difference give or take some. To me thats a big price difference. I can more than likely tie up all my odds and ends with that money. So its like im torn in half, cause i want close to the top of the line but i would also like to finish my car, so my head is spinning.:confused: The on3 kits by everybody reviews seem like there is some minor issues but not any major ones so i am leaning to them a lil at this point. Im use to nothing ever fitting perfect with anything cause i am a welder/fab, i went to school for it, but dont want the hassle of building a kit for myself. Also with my luck i have everything new or used usually is always a problem for me. But with customer service man you cant beat that..thats bad ass. I just got off the phone with my buddy who built my motor and he thinks i should go to a procharger d1sc cause its a 6pd. And it will be faster and less work and yadyadyada. But he said its up to me and my money, i think i would go the turbo route for a fast fun street/strip car. I hate deciding for my self cause i like them both but in all reality for what i want i cant make my mind up thats another reason y i am looking for feed back. What would you do if you were in my shoes?:confused: Thanks to all you guys for the feed back, its helpin me alot
 
#20 ·
Hehehe! i was doing the same thing you were same shoes in early december! i compare bg pony down an on3! pony down was the priciest an then BG an yes it was like $2k or so more comparing them with on3! that mean you have being doing your home work!! i came across a novi 2k for 4 $1900 not including mass air an injectors which it could of being 2400-2500 when all parts together! So i maid my mine an whent whit turbo bec more power different! sounds wicked!!! but its all up too??? compare ??:salute:
 
#23 ·
Like i said their kits are hit and miss,and the reason straight from chad himself my kit didnt fit was cause i paneled my bay (which is total :bs:) Research is your best bet and pocket deep enough or not!If i would of known what i know now theres no way in hell i would of bought ON3's kit!Thats just my opinion!As far as S/C or turbo?I would go turbo anyday!More reliable power per PSI turbo is "free" power meaning it runs off the exhust s/c runs off the engine robbing power to make power.S/C constantly puts a load on the engine turbo only in boost.
 
#24 ·
http://i983.photobucket.com/albums/ae319/shustack93/IMAG0010.jpg. its a bad pic ill have to take some more when the weather is a lil better. But I bought the roller just like it is but there is a panel that has to go in the back still. Ne way hey SMOKEDYA, what did you have problems with as far as being panneled? I know i will have to cut some holes for the pipes that's understandable.
 
#28 ·
One major issue that pissed me off was misleading directions so i cut a 3" hole in my panel that wasent even needed,then later on it said to route the pipe a diffrent way (the correct way),and chad swears since i paneled between my shock tower and firewall thats why i have fittment issues with the DP which isnt true.And your bay isnt paneled like mine,yours is smoothed,mine is paneled.Heres mine
 
#25 ·
As said previously by someone....hang out on turbomustangs.com and do you some research. As for the turbo/supercharger....as many of these guys, I've done both and hands down turbo. The power is incredible and I myself don't miss all the whining. Don't get me wrong, a supercharged car with a nasty cam sounds awesome. I just don't want to be stuck listening to it everytime I climb in my car.
 
#26 ·
Ya, if you want to hear alot of bashing from people who haven't owned the on3 kit, go to turbomustangs. Other than that it's a good site. You will hear pretty good things about alot of other kits. Not trying to bad mouth anyone but I had to notch my frame rail and sway bar mount on my kit. You don't hear me complaining about that. I understand there will be some modifications needed to install a kit. Sorry, it just bugs me when someone has the slightest problem and comes in to every thread to bad mouth a company for little nit picky things. Maybe they should have spent $2k more to find out they have to deal with a whole nother set of (very small) problems.
 
#27 ·
Like i said also!If i would have researched more into it i would of forked out the extra $2000,but me just like everyone else on here went off of everyones suggestions and bought it!Everytime i "bash" ON3 is my right!They left a very bad taste in my mouth and not affraid to express my opinion!Others have had good luck and others havent hence why i say their kits are hit and miss.But i still feel ON3 rushed to get the 251 kits out and is why there is fitment issues with mine?As for my buddies quicktime kit,well yeah may have been the luck of the draw?Maybe not?But i havent noticed or seen many bad comments or problems from their customers.
 
#32 ·
ya i do see the difference in our engine bays. yours looks f-in sweet man props to you on that! . Now i understand the difference in smoothed and paneled. i put the pics of my and yours side by side and i see the differences, where your turbo is i have a lil more room as well as behind your shock tower also. As for aside of the side of the shock tower they look a lil similar. That dp looks pretty tight but there isnt much more room next yo your valve cover. but i think it could be a 1/4 to 1/2 an inch over would help. I could heat it up with my torch and tweak it a lil if i had to. I did do some more research today on on3 kits. There is pages apon pages of bashing on on3 kits on turbo kits. But a lot of that convo was from when his kits had ss headers. And it seems his customer service isnt top of the line. But it does seem his kits have improved. And there is a number of ppl on different forums that do like the kit.

As well i did my research on b&g and really couldnt find much problems at all, and his customer service is kick ass and a number of ppl like his kit and the same goes for pony down. From what i have read it seems like if your on a budget and you want a decent kit the way to go is on3. You will have some minor issues but nothing major. If you dont have a budget, b&g or pony down is the way to go. I will have to sit down and and look at the bills and the income and how much more money i need to finish this car. But for the 2,000 less, im leaning to on3 cause i wouldnt have a problem due to some minor issues. 2,000 is alot to play with when it comes to building a car and that would cover any odds and ends i need from taking my motor out of my 93gt and into that 91lx roller and i need to get a valve job on my trickflows cause they were bought used. But there is a turbo kit on there now i can sell that would help with getting a b&g or pony down. This is like a home made kit i traded for my s-trim and when i put it on it was the biggest pain in the balls i hate the f-in thing. So i just need to take some time and think what i wanna do. But i do appreciate all the help everybody has given me and the advice, it has narrowed down a lot of the options and made it a lil easier for me. Any questions let me know thanks guys!
 
#36 ·
We answer the phone all day, everyday answering questions. 10am-4pm so I really dont understand how the customer service is an issue. If you have any questions about our kits, call me, if Im not there, leave me a message. Ill call you back, answer any questions that you would like to know. I have told smokedya to return his kit if he has that big of an issue and just never would so it really cannot be that big of a deal. His car is a 351 swapped car so the entire kit is different and the downpipe is 3.5" which is a super tight fit. Just running the 3" downpipe in the 5.0 turbo cars is tight enough. Our next production on the 351 kits we are just doing 3" on them becuase its just not worth it. I personally had no issue making it work but I guess we will leave it at that and go 3" and it will not support as much power but will be easier to install.

tm is a joke and that forum will allow for one sponsor and doesnt like competition. Its easy for them to try and make me look bad when I cannot post on the forum or put my .02 in to back myself up. Im not trying to sway you one way or another I just want to clear a few of those things up that havent been completely clear. We have John with his old 363ci setup(member on here) that was going 8's so as far as running out of room with our setup, that wont be the case. Granted he did custom build a 3.5" downpipe, the rest of the kit really remained.
 
#40 ·
tm is a joke and that forum will allow for one sponsor and doesnt like competition. Its easy for them to try and make me look bad when I cannot post on the forum or put my .02 in to back myself up.
Huh, that's funny. Not how I remember it. I thought it was because you lied and got caught with a blatant copy of someones kit. You said you made it all yourself. Then pic were shown of "yours" and the original you started to back peddle. No, then you made it all but the headers which you found at SEMA. Ducking warranty questions was another big one. Don't make it out to be anyone's fault but yours.
 
#38 ·
the engine bay in the vert i just did is smoothed...and the on3 kit fit just fine.

the 351 kits are a bit different....exc with the 3 1/2 down pipe. some hammering may be required to make the dp fit..

take the hot side and have it ceramic coated.....that stuff wont flake off.



and just to add...1/8th inch my ass.
 
#48 · (Edited)
Yeah your right! espically if they are going to try to make a part for it!.....oh wait you must mean that towards me????Hummm my 351 has a few thousand miles and several runs on it no problems,well that is till i put some japenise ebay turbo kit on it.my buddies 306 ground up resto turbo coupe that i helped with has several miles as well,no problems again.my SSP coupe i built,once again no problems.My 95 i built yep once again no problems!Bottom line to the OP and like i said prior........ corral is loyal ON3 site,do your research!And not only from one site!
 
#43 ·
idk big e, thats a pain in the ass. I think i would get to pissed off cause #### never goes right, or to lazy and would start it and never finish it. For other ppl i wouldn't have a problem doing it and more than likely some one elses kit would look nicer than mine lol. Look i even bought that roller of yurg and it has everything done, cage, battle boxes, subframes. But i didnt mind tig welding your 10pt cage or mig welding the 8pt cage in hoff's car. and i busted my ass and did the best i could on both cages. I think its harder to work on your own stuff. But idk that is a possibilaty. Yurg suggested that to. But i was reading around today and i read on3 forward header thread and i see they had a post in there saying they can get you a precision turbo for the kit. So i think i may go with there kit and just get a precision 76mm .96ar, a water cooled modle and a different wastegate and bov. Also i know i want the 3.5in dp. But it will be a lil while till i have to make a decision so ill just leave my options open before i go jumping in. Here is another question i have for everybody Which is better jet hot or ceramic coating? From what i have read the ceramic looks nice but flakes off after a while, the jet hot is a lil on the duller side but lasts and keeps the temps down a lot better. Whats your take? I would like to get the entire hot side done. As well whats up with most turbo kits not wanting you to header rap your headers? You see it done on a lot of turbo cars and ppl not having a problem?
 
#50 ·
Hands down jet hot!Header wraping well in the old days it was from rust since your suppose to wet the wrap to get it a tighter wrap and cheap material would cause cracking.But better material now adays resolve that issue.
 
#54 ·
I see where this thread is goin!!!!:shakehead
 
#55 ·
1sickpony is a good friend of mine, im just working my ass off lately and thats the last thing i wanna deal with is building my own kit. I would rather just buy one and be done with it. To me it seems like everybody hasnt had the best of luck with the on3 in the past, but i have seen on a couple forums most reciently they have solved alot of probalms they have had in the past. Which is good, everybody needs to learn when you are starting out a business its very hard on your self, you tend to make more mistakes than the companys that have been around the game. I know alot about running a business cause my dad owns a welding and hyd. shop. Stuff goes both ways when it comes to problems. When your whole line of work starts having problems ppl tend to panic. Which leads to more mistakes. The only think ya can do is try to resolve them asap. I seen he only has been in business 2+ years. I think ppl need to cut him just a little slack, or one thing to do is try to put your self in his shoes. I am in no way on his side, im juist giving my .02 cause i have been there somewhat, weld something wrong, make a hose to short, weld something and somebody goes and does what the machine isnt suppose to to and then its my fault when the weld breaks. We are only human, everybody makes mistakes. But thats just my .02 and i think we all need to get along lol, were all mustang owners here and i asked for everybodys advice and i got alot of reviews and i thank yous fot that. But we should be helping each other than bickering with eachother. Nobody is going to get anywhere with that over the net. I dont wanna piss anybody off with this reply so no harm intended, if i did offend somebody im sorry.
 
#63 ·
I dont have to lie about anything, 10sec you just constantly follow me around and just try to post anything negative about me and my company. I know I must of done something to get under your skin as I honestly dont even know why you chime in. You never have anything good to say, its a joke. I will tell you one thing, people like you are the ones that give me motivation to continue and build my business. Just knowing that I have your attention and others, I must be doing something good. I do apprecate that

The funny thing is that there is not any issue with our new setup. Look at the dyno pull, it was about 10-11 seconds long on the loaded dyno. Only had about 1psi that was repeatable on every single pull, that is not an issue what so ever. Look at how many people just tune on a dyno jet that is non-loaded, do a pull and lasts maybe 5-6 seconds. Hate to tell you but even a kit that is not properly setup and too small of a gate wouldnt even really show creep. Put it on the same dyno that we did the testing on and I bet things would be ugly. Keep trying to point out negatives and Ill continue to defend and prove you wrong. Time and time again

Those that have installed our kits and support me, I apprecate it and thanks for standing up for me in the threads.
 
#64 ·
Dont sweat it, Chad. I think most people make their own decisions. I for one could care less what turbo kit it started out as or resembles or was copied from. That's a poor argument. I'm thinking about a kit myself... I'm going to look at the offerings, the prices, the materials...I'm going to realize that kits go through revisions (all of them do) to fix bugs/gain clearance and so on...and I'll make a decision. It's really not that hard. If we made computer buying decisions based 100% on past products, we'd never buy another Windows PC again (remember Windows ME?).

There are only so many ways a turbo kit can be made/routed. If I wanted to go into business manufacturing a kit, I'd be STUPID not to look at the kits made previously. If my kits end up looking a lot like ABC company - than that means I liked that style the best. Where do you draw the line? "Hey, don't copy the kit that has the coldside IN the bumper cover, that's lame. Make a kit where the cold side comes OUT of the bumper cover"..lol - OK, that's a little excessive but you get the point.
 
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