In the quest for more power for my car, I have made some new friends! i was talking to Brandon who runs Kleeman USA. In talking to him we agreed that a turbo would be a fantastic way to go. I mentioned that turboing a n/a Crossfire hasn't been proven to work becuase of the tuning. He went over the whole fuel management sytem that is used on the Kleeman supercharger system and I was suprised at its simplicity and low cost. Kleeman systems are proven and bullet proof. He went on to mention that the system would work exactly the same on a turbo or supercharger. He also mentioned that a friend of his I should talk to wrote the book on turbo charging. His name is Corky Bell. You can find his books in the book stores and Amazon. Corky is a legend when it comes to turbo and superchargers. You also need to know someone to be able to talk to him. I called and said I was referred by Brandon and was able to get him on the phone. We discussed the project and I am moving foward.

Here is the decision. I can build the system myself and Corky and Kleeman have both offered to consult and provide parts to made it work. I am now confident that making it work great is not an issue. Corky however would like me to bring the car to his shop in San Antonio and let him do the work so that we can make a turbo kit for the n/a Crossfire. If I do this it will cost me more, but you guys will have a complete well engineered kit that will allow you to potentially blow right past an SRT. Corky's stated goal is to sell a minimum of 5 kits. The target price for kits is around $3,500.

To allow Corky Bell to build my kit, I need to find out how much more it will cost and if there is solid interest by at least five people who would do this after it is proven. The only significant difference in what we do to my car and the n/a V6 will be the size of the turbo. If I don't see 5 or more commitments I will do the work myself. So if the system is first rate, runs fastastic and dyno proven and 1/4 mile tested, would you commit? Maybe you have a six speed and want a big performance boost?

 

I would certainly be interested. I've spent more than $3,500 on my car with TVT and am very disappointed with the results.
My only concern is that I live in New York and getting the car to SA might be expensive. Does the $3,500 include installation?
Thanks.

 

This would be a fairly easy bolton kit Than you would install if you can't get the car to him. Corky is talking about also making it easy to go back to stock if you decided to sell the car and keep the system

 

Corky Bell wrote the book on Turbocharging, literally. I would consider a kit designed by him to be a long lasting, well balanced and safe path to the maximum power that you can extract from any motor. Corky and his company are well respected in this industry; they are highly skilled fabricators that produce beautiful (being a fabricator myself, they are beautiful to me) custom manifolds, exhaust/downpipes inner coolers, FMU's (Corky is the father of rising rate regulator technology), and mandrel bent IC tubing. I have more than a few examples of his top quality products on various cars.

I have used Corky Bell's supercharger and turbo kits (twin-screw style superchargers and ballbearing turbos) on my own vehicles and I put one of his superchargers on my brother's car. My brother still has the supercharger on his car (still running like new after 15 years). After 150,000 miles on one of Corky's supercharger kits, I wanted to try something different, so I replaced my supercharger with one of Corky's Turbo Kits. The car and turbo are still running strong (after another 75,000 miles)! I do love the turbo kit that Corky put together and with about the same power as the supercharger, I improved the MPG by about 3 !



If Corky is willing to create something for the NA crossfires, I can assure you that it will be hard to match the quality and bang-for-the-buck that you will find in one of his systems.

Nice find Bob!! Of Course, Brandon would send you to Corky ... I would send anyone (who is looking for a top quality solution) to Corky .

Chris

for anyone who is interested, here is a link to the Bell Engineering Group Bell Experimental Group - BEGi

 

Chris,
Did you just say that you replaced the supercharger on your Crossfire to a turbo?????

 

Sounds very promising. I wish i could commit that kind of money right now but I just added a new member to my family. I am positive in the future i would be interested in one if you had a solid system in place. I'll be in Oklahoma so it wouldn't even be far away.

 

Mike, all the fast guys are going turbo on their SRT-6's : )
.... just kidding of course. I don't have a Crossfire anyway .... just a couple of SLK32's. (and they both have their stock superchargers)


I have more than a few cars, one is a miata (with 250,000 miles now) that has had both a lysholm style supercharger and (ball-bearing) turbo (both kits from Corky/BEGI).


It is hard to beat the instant-on of a belt driven Supercharger .... but turbos definitely have their place
and with the advent of ball-bearing center sections, turbos can perform so close to a supercharger, you wouldn't notice the difference (accept the better gas mileage and the reduced strain on the motor .... keep in mind, it can take 20-30 HP to spin a supercharger).

Chris

 

Thanks Chris for the added info on Corky. I was on his site and looking at that amazing Cobra engine which looks like it is out of some mega buck Italian racer. i will be talking to him again today. His work seems amazing and his prices are more than fair and seem to be in the range that a Crossfire owner would pay. This would also be a great way to increase the performance for those who don't want to give up their six speed manual.

 

Very, very interested.

If he needs a V-6 Limited to work with, I'd be happy to help. I could drive down, fly back.

My engine is not far from stock (Tune, intake), and I could easily reverse all mods prior to delivery. The Ansa muffler I'm using is only worth 1-2 HP, tops. So that is negligible.

Just let me know...

 

I would be interested as well, but would want to see all the numbers and proven reliability BEFORE ponying up the money...

Some around here have been getting that backwards lately.

 

This is not a group buy and no money up front. you get to see pictures and dyno graphs before buying anything. I spoke to Corky again today and he really wants to build kits for the n/a Crossfire. I just don't want to dissapoint him with no sales if he goes to all the work to engineer this kit. We have a long history on our site of complaining about how hard it is to make the n/a faster. In talking to Corky, I pointed out that the n/a Crossfire gets knocked for not having enogh HP. We also discussed having a cost that is reasonable compared to kits for other cars, and comparing the costs of the kit vs. selling a car and buying an SRT. We also discussed that the six speed only came in a n/a Crossfire and there are guys who would like to go faster but are not willing to give up the 6 speed. In talking price, Corky said $3000 would make it hard to squeeze a profit and $4,000 would be easy to do. I told him he should target $3500.

The cheapest way to turbo a car is rear mount and most likely the way we will go. Corky needs a car to look at, so we need a San Antonio owner to drop by his shop so he can take a look at how best to turbo it. the next step after that is for me or one of you to drop off your car. Being the guini pig could have advantages, but if Corky cannot make this work then it trully can't be done. Makeing it work will depend on fuel management. the fuel management will be based on the rising rate fuel regulator (invented by corky) which is the same system used by Kleeman on their superchargers. It is inexpensive and bullet proof if set up properly.

 

Keep me posted. If he wants a local one to look at, by all means go ahead as it will be a moment before I can swing the PTO to get down there.

Once he determines it's a "go", if he needs a 6MT car to work with and tune, I could make it happen.

I was looking at the Cobra project... INSANE.

When he creates this kit, is he going with a polished tube or a black textured one? The black on the Cobra looked SICK!! Will we stay with the two-stage intake manifold, or will he create a one-off?

One more question for him, since he's considering a rear-mount -- could the Turbo cars utilize the shorty headers from Speedriven? Or would we have to stick with the stock manifolds?

I'm thinking shorty headers + 90-100 HP from a turbo would be

 

I was thinking the same thing with the downtubes + cutouts. Drool.

 

Add those on too, haha.

 

The shorty headers are no problem. Not sure about black or polish, he probably would do it either way. Intake manifold stays the same. He ran some numbers today based on the n/a cars 215hp (175-180 at the wheels) and your hp estimate is hopefully a little low.

I want the charge pipe to follow the angle that is on the passenger side of the E320/E430 engine cover so that we could use an engine cover for a more factory look. I just got off the phone with Brandon at Kleeman and this kit would basically be a Corky Bell designed system using Kleeman fuel management which was based on Cory's invention. Kleeman is more familiar with how to adapt Corky's principles to the unique challenges of the Mercedes engine. Brandon is exicted to help because he said there would be "ice cubes in hell, before I can teach Corky anything". But getting Brandon's help would speed up Corky's learning curve of the Mercedes engine mangement system. Corky was also very excited to hear that Chris (LateModel) is working with our group as well.

The first step is to get a local San Antonio member to drop by their shop to look over the car and determine the best way to turbo it. I just posted a new thread on the Coupe forum looking for someone. If you know any owners in San Antonio, Please have them get in touch with me.

We may also have lined up the first car to get the turbo! If would be nice if it doesn have to be me as my car is my only car unless I can share with my wife or son. I am very confident in this project! We have a legend in the business and Kleeman supporting us. Does it get any better?

 

Sounds promising!

I like the idea of utilizing the ML-320 engine cover... nestle a BOV right in the cavity where the MAF harness comes out on the ML motors, and you're golden.

 

Given numbers I'd be very, very interested at that price point, so I'd encourage you to have him do the work and develop a kit. I don't think I'd be in the first batch of buyers because I'd like to see how the 6MT holds up to that power (and if a Wavetrac will be an absolute necessity). Does anyone even make an aftermarket/performance clutch for this transmission+flywheel?

 

Exactly! But the n/a ML engine uses the oil cooler like the AMG engines so they may have a fitment issue around the oil filter. The same basic cover from the 320 cars will fit perfect.

 

The wave trac is not nessessary as I am still runing the stock n/a 3.27 rear end behind my V8. 20,000 miles now with no issues. As far as the M/T goes you may get your wish as the the first cars may be a M/T coupe and my automatic.

 

Bob, you have hit the lottery my friend. If Bell Engineering is doing this, you will have a definite one of a kind...and you 6 guys, this is a bargain for his engineering. Their mustangs, I have seen with their kits, that you would love, and think, your XF could look like that. Better keep tweeking mine, I hear footsteps, or is that a whine....lol