Turbo System - THEN
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This Stillen diagram shows the system components as they existed when we purchased the VW Bug in 2017.
Original Turbo System
The original VR6 Turbo was a Garret T2 air-to-water with the Stillen turbo intercooler tucked under the rear mounted radiator.
Photo February 2017
The First Attempt
One of the first things we did upon arriving home is move the radiator to the front of the car and relocate the turbo intercooler as shown. The turbo intake was moved to its new location as well.
That didn't work so well either... chuckle. The entire set up was wrong. Not only could we still not access the engine bay, but there was no intercooler fan. Most of the air was preheated by the engine before reaching the unit and it relied on natural airflow for cooling.
Photo September 2017
The Schimmel Setup
Bill Schimmel pitched that huge turbo intercooler and replaced it with a smaller setup installed horizontally below the black engine apron panel and the aluminum ice can seen here.
It was my decision for Schimmel to retain the existing turbo and ECU.
We dyno'd the car with this setup and the best we could safely pull was 338 WHP at about 15 pounds of boost. We could squeeze high 300's at higher boost levels but it ran too hot and was running lean. There were a number of things holding back the output... turbo size, cooling capacity, injector size, ECU and so on. These are discussed in detail below. But for now, let's just look at the updated turbo system we have now.
Stage 3 Build - Turbo System - NOW
This diagram shows the system components... except that we have added a CSF dual flow heat exchanger on the line between the intercooler pump (#8) and the intake intercooler itself (exchanger #3).
Getting Rid of the Clutter
The stainless Cool Can...sometimes called "Ice Can"... (which was installed during our engine build by Schimmel Performance) had an internal water pump to circulate the water. Braided lines and AN fittings throughout.
As mentioned, the Stage 2 engine built by Bill Schimmel was maxed out at 338 WHP because we had used the T2 turbo, ECU and some other components from the original build in NY. After the dyno tuning to 338 WHP, I took the car to a test-and-tune day at a local strip and it ran 12.9 at 114 MPH on some pretty hard street tires (later upgraded to Nitto 235/45/R17 97W NT05's). The car was quick but not ideal for what I had in mind. At time of writing, I have not tested the car with the Nitto tires.
Our dyno testing is done by Sasha Kurashka of Schnell Engineering at RS Autosports in Woodbridge Ontario so it was decided to have Rob (RS Autosports) do a Stage 3+ upgrade with a target of 450-500 WHP at moderate boost. I didn't want to blow it up...just have some fun. After all, I'm well into my 70's so I wasn't looking to break the car or the bank. Sasha is the tuner and Rob owns RS Motorsports which houses the dyno. These guys work on some pretty exotic builds. There were a lot of upgrades done to achieve our goals but for now, let's finish off the turbo discussion.
ABOVE PHOTO is after the upgrades by Rob at RS Autosports.
The large air filter and bulky intake was replaced with a shorter version mounted directly to the turbo; the Cool Can ("Ice Can" above) is now accessible. Rob replaced the internal Cool Can water pump with an external K-Tuned pump Part Number:KTD-WTR-PM2. There's more.
Upgraded Turbo
A new T3 .82 A/R Precision Turbo 6266 Gen2 was installed at RS Motorsports.
The 4 bolt discharge was ported from 2.5"to 3" so we could retain the coated downpipe custom made by Schimmel Performance.
The Turbo Blanket is #FPRO35-008-05M by PTP Turbo.
In-Line Intercooler
The original intercooler was upgraded to a more efficient CSF 8030 Dual Pass Exchanger from CSP Racing. The new unit was installed horizontally below the Cool Can.
The Spal fan is 7-1/2" Spal #30100358 and is a pull-fan on top of the intercooler so that it pulls air through the intercooler from beneath the car and not from the engine compartment...every little bit helps.
Custom fabricated aluminum mounting bracket.
More Details
We upgraded from a Tial 38mm to a Tial MV-R Silver 44mm turbo external wastgate that dumps into the wrapped straight pipe.
The wrapped engine exhaust is also a straight pipe (no muffler) exiting through the custom fabricated s/s exhaust tip.