After putting my new R/T back together (re-ringed the pistons, new rod bearings, valve job, etc, etc), and with about 350 miles on the engine, I decided to take it over to John's and see what she'd lay down. I was pretty curious as to whether or not everything went back together 100% and that I was making the proper amount of power. The car felt good, but the butt dyno sometimes lies.

The car was all stock except for a 3" turbo back exhaust (no cat and Race Magnum muffler), a grainger valve for boost control, an adjustable fuel pressure regulator, boost and EGT gauges, some light cleaning up of the ports and exhaust manifold, and a Pep Boys cone intake filter. In my usual fashion of keeping expenses low, I tried to do everything as reasonably as possible. Ive got $1500 in the car, plus about $400 in rebuild parts for a grand total of about $1900.

Yes, I am a typical Turbo Dodge cheapskate. But, the car is ultra clean and looks damn good for a grandma-mobile.





I wanted to keep the boost low to start just to make sure things were OK.

The first run was at 10 psi boost. (Stock boost is 11 psi.)



I added about 2 psi boost and ran it again at 12 psi.



Eventually, I got greedy (as usual) and tried to dial in more boost. Well, the vent orifice on the grainger valve was too big (and I didnt have any smaller ones with me), so I couldnt dial in the boost I wanted...all I could get was a wacko boost spike (18-19 psi)and a quick drop right back to 12-13 psi boost The spike started to show up in the lower boost runs, but it was much smaller, on the order of 2 psi, i.e. on the 10 psi run, the spike was to about 12 psi.) You can see the boost spike and boost drop pretty clearly in the plot below.


Ah well....all and all I was pleased. Im pretty sure I can crack 300 whp on the stock turbo and IC with a bit more tuning.