Likewise, I had a 79 25 foot Eliminator Trans Am with the same set up.

just my two cents, I agree that it's personal preference and what you like. I've run blowers, prochargers, and am now trying turbos.
the ability to control the boost and the way turbos kick in around 4500rpm is something you just have to experience. I'll never use a rubber band to make boost again

I'm not picking on you,....But your missing allot of the fun before 4,500 rpms too?
We have boost with turbo's at 2,000 rpms and it just gets better from there.

Your right though,.........best way to make boost

Jon

I think you are right Jon, I'm taking baby steps since this is my first turbo experiment. next is a better cam and more aggressive tune

Take your time,.........Enjoy the steps :-)

Here is Bill's single Engine 30' with Earhart Engineering Twin Turbo


Jon

Is that JB weld on that right side exhaust pipe ?

the blowers have insane parasitic hp losses, top fuel cars use 3k hp to turn the blower... turbos are a much better answer, it just took the offshore engine builders time to figure out how to run turbos reliably...

I ran turbos in my boat in 83. We were running 372 c.i. Big blocks. They made 1003 h.p at 12 lbs boost. We were running in sport class and could run with the open boats. Ran 10 races and the world championship with never a tear down other then redoing one head. Never pulled the engines out of the boat. Ran the kilo runs and mercury was there with their truck load of supercharged hand grenade engines and they still couldn't touch us. We ran the biggest wheels we could get at the time and it was before 2 speed trans so we were stuck with what we had.. Love turbos

Cougarman: for sure, I've always preferred the DIY / live and learn approach. Bills engine inspired me, also gave me a lot of ideas. I'm running the same exhaust manifolds for example. I blew it when I sized the wg's, switching to huge godspeeds now.

Hallet: No, I used the original slip on tailpipes and flared the 'temporary' turbo dump pipe to slip in. My buddy that was helping got a little carried away with sealer. Ill have water cooled exhaust built eventually, not sure yet if I like these turbos, I might switch to different ones. These are generic $200 turbos on it now

I'm lucky to have a good friend that built NASCAR motors for years and now drag races making 55lbs of boost with screw blowers. His analogy sticks in my head when he said a blower motor is more like a manual tranny and turbos are like a torque converter. A blower motor hits the rod bearing like a sledge hammer every revolution, turbos apply pressure when the need arises

As you might guess from my screen name I am into turbos a bit. I used to design turbos and air pumps (thats is what our company called blowers).
Back in 68 I came up with the idea of the adjustable waistgate for Indy cars. Have been working on installing 4 to 6 lbs of boost set up on my boat from parts of a couple M&W turbo kits on a pair of 350s. Havent done much to it for a few years. Too many projects at the moment a couple of them are winding down though.
This set up could provide a max boost of 14 lbs give or take a bit.
Also spent 17 years designing engines for one of the big three. Noticed glancing through the posts things about 4 valve heads. Whats great about them is they are about is the pent roof combustion chamber works about the best with todays fuel. least amout of risidual fuel, detonation restance, good air speed throughout the RPM range.