Our 753HP 3.3L Indy V6 Turbo featured on FULLBOOST.com!!
As featured by Luke on FULLBOOST.com! Watch FULLBOOST.com - Buick INDY V6 Resurrection
1984 Buick INDY V6 3.3L Turbo StageII race Engine - modernised, and made durable for 753hp at 6300rpm spaceframe Sports Sedan.
Customer Paul recently tasked us with his very rare Buick Indy V6 turbo to fully refurbish, re-wire and modernise with a state-of-the-art, Supercar-style MoTeC M1 ECU. Having a fully featured Engine Dyno, with lab-spec instrumentation, with up to 240 individual channels logged at up to 200 times per second, we are a premium provider of true Race Engine Development and mapping services. Bought as a "rebuilt" engine, initial investigations proved this to be far from accurate! In the end, the project scope included modernisation of cam profile, developement of a Drive By Wire throttle system, and sizing an appropriate turbo/compressor to better suit circuit racing, rather than the constant high-speed oval racing it was designed for.
In 1983/84, Indy cars were allowed a custom race engines, on methanol, up to 8 cyls and 2.65 litres, having around 9lb of boost, and making upwards of 950hp at 10,000-12000rpm. Such engines included the Cosworth DFV-derived versions, a few remaining Offenhauser 4cyls, and later on, the Chev-Ilmor engine from the UK. At this time, a second tier class was introduced for "stock-block" style production V6's, up to 3.4L, 2V per cylinder, with pushrods, with the class aiming to encourage US manufacturers to enter Indy car racing.
Buick took on the challenge, very sucessfully, basing the 1984 version on a dedicated "StageII" V6 block (pre VN 3800 style), nominally around 4.1L, with a destroked crank, custom high flow alloy heads, dry sump, titanium Del West valves and custom jesel valvetrain, and a primitive EFI sytem for fuel and spark that predated even the "808" ECU on the VN commodore! These engines made ~850hp at 8500rpm, with virtually no boost below 6000rpm, as they were designed to operate almost constantly at full power on the big Indy oval.
We took all the original parts of the AJ Foyt teams' old engine, a built a durable, powerful and totally unique engine for an LJ Torana Spaceframe Sports Sedan, and as per modern Sports Sedan style, the passenger being the relocated mid-mounted Indyv6, for far better weight distribution!
A state-of-the-art MoTeC M1 ECU, the same family used in V8 Supercars and many other high-end categories, was the only ECU considered to give complete control, and protetion to this rare and valuable engine. The precision of the integrated Boost control and Drive By Wire makes it easy to have driver response to the pedal able to be changed instantly at the flick of a switch, taming a 753hp/1125kg Beast into to something that is esasy to drive, and therefore easy to drive fast. The engine development focussed on driveability all through the range, a trait often lacking on all but the highest end race cars. Engne protection from loss of oil pressure, coolant loss/overtemp and hot oil, as well as sudden overboosts are all managed by the protection strategies built in to the MoTeC M1 ecu, and enabled by Drive By WIre throttle being able to close up and protect the engine.
This philosphy is typical of all of our race engine development done here at Octane Alley - from National Level circuit cars, Hillclimbs, Speedway, off-road buggies, powerboats and motorcycles, we work with the customer right from the beginning to develop a package that gets the most value for their budget, good performance, exceptional durability and full-range engine optimisation and mapping. Variabe valve timing engines is our specialty, and a core skill truly understood by very few. Our team includes a lot of OEM engine design and development experience, from manufacturing thru to testing and validation. We are "data-driven" - we make engine spec selection based on measured data from our lab-spec engine dyno, empircal engineering calculations and a combined team experience of almost 65 years of race engine machining, building and development.
Please sit back, grab a beer or two (it's almost 30minutes) and enjoy the story of "our" INDY V6 Buick as told to Luke Foley from the widely esteemed FULLBOOST.com performance car web channel. Subscribe to their YouTube channel to see more of the Buick story, and the brains behind it's awesome MoTeC control system, the detailed boost control, and the benefits of Drive By WIre in future episodes!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8vMyidSgdc
Engine Brief Specs:
1984 AJ Foyt Buick Stage!! INDY V6
4.030"bore x 2.75" stroke. 90 degree even-fire V6. 2V per cylinder
LA Billet custom crank (original)
Carillo Rods (replaced with new)
CP Forged Pistons (custom copy of existing piston)
Holset HX40Super custom Billet Comp wheel (86/62mm), Turbine 76/44mm Twn Scroll
Exhaust manifold modified to split pulse (twin-scroll)
Original methanol INdy V6 Biosch Motorsport Injectors
LS2 Coils (custom instal to replace old 3x2 coil pack)
72mm Bosch GM VE V6 graduated bore Drive By WIre Throttle body
PWR water to air intercooler
Twin Tial MVS 38mm External wastegates (4.5lb spring)
MoTeC M1 ECU, GPA, Level 3 logging (302 channels, up to 1000 times per second..can do up to 1000channels!!)
Turbospeed control to protect turbo
753hp at 6300rpm (22psi boost), ~900Nm max torque.
Seemelessly adjustable boost from 4.5psi to 28+psi via ECU..~405 hp at 6400rpm on 4.5psi boost.
