Supercharging my V8 - Will be pic heavy

[J-Meiser]

Hi everyone,

I am sorry for the lack of updates – I cannot believe it has been almost 2 months since my last update! Things have been awfully slow since my last update as I have been in limbo, waiting for various items to arrive and for people to get back to me. I did manage to tick a few items off the list though.

I was able to swap the “problem” bolt on the front of the supercharger for a countersunk bolt and that did the trick nicely. Once again, thank you very much mattdavies for the suggestion!

I decided to replace the stock idler with the new flat idler and add the extra idler in preparation for the longer belt to go around the supercharger pulley. I removed the stock idler in less than a minute, and believed that I could remove the bolt that ran through the fan idler to the water pump without removing the fan idler. I was wrong. I had forgotten that there was a nut fixed to the shank on the bolt, so it was not going to be a quick swap.

The fan idler had to come off. The 4 front facing bolt and 2 nuts came off easily enough, however, there were 2 bolts that secured the AC compressor to the idler and a third that secured the compressor to the block. I only needed to undo the 2 that secured it to the idler. Getting to the higher of the 2 of them was relatively simple, once I removed the igniter and a few other parts, but the lower one was a pain. It was tucked up behind a grounding bolt and it could only be reached by lying on the floor. Even then, could not get to it, even with my slimmest 12mm socket, so I was going to remove the grounding bolt in front of it when (I sprayed penetrating fluid on it in preparation), somehow, my socket got through the gap and seated perfectly on it.

Once I had that one loose, removing the one bolt that I wanted to replace in the first place was a breeze.

Reassembling the front end took me around 20 minutes, including torquing everything up to spec. Adding the new idlers took a less than 5 minutes but I was pleased once they were in place.

I had to try the longer belt out, primarily as I was a bit concerned about the belt clearance between the fan idler and the extra idler and secondly because I just wanted to see it in place. I routed the belt and it fit! There was about 1-2mm of space between the belt as it ran over the idlers, so I was quite happy with that. However, the belt that I ordered was too long. I could get it into place without having to move the tensioner, so a shorter belt has been ordered. Unfortunately, I never took any pictures of any of this, as it was an impromptu test that I carried out a few days after I fitted the new idlers, but I will try and get a picture or 2 at some point.

Back in March, I reached out to a few people about an adapter/spacer and eventually, I managed to find someone who offered to give it a go. After nearly 2 months, here’s the finished item.

Once again, thank you very much for the suggestion, jim_supra! This only arrived on Friday and with the weather being nice today, I figured that I would try fitting it.

I checked the alignment with the supercharger to throttle body adapter first and it was looking surprisingly good. I could not use the stock bolts and nuts at the bottom as they would have been far too long, so I was able to find some spare studs and nuts in my box of bits that did the job perfectly.

One of the studs had a bolt on that refused to move, so I just left it in situ and decided to use it once all the other nuts had been tightened up. A new gasket was fitted, and the adapters were mated.

Next up, I wanted to give the inside of the throttle body a clean. All I used was some Wynns Air Intake & Carb Carburettor Throttle Valve Cleaner Petrol and some tissue and it worked pretty darn well. The cleaner loosened up a lot of the oil/grease/grime straight off, so I only had to get my hands dirty on some of the more stubborn bits of grime. Unfortunately, I did not take any before pictures, but her are some after pictures.

The back of the throttle plate was completely black before, as was the body surrounding it, so it came up quite clean in the end.

Once it was cleaned up, I located the stock lower bolts, fitted another fresh gasket, test fitted the throttle body to the adapter and found that the stock bolts were too short. Going through by box of bits, I was able to find 2 50mm bolts, washers and nuts that did the job and thus, I relocated the original lower bolts to the top, tightened then all up and checked out the final product.

It does mean that I have a multicoloured inlet tract, but I am not overly worried about that now; I can always look to spray the adapters the same colour once everything is up and running and I am happy with it.

I did not get the opportunity to test fit the assembly on the supercharger and in the engine bay, so I will do that the next time that I get the opportunity to do some more work and I will report back on how well everything now fits together then.

Edited May 9, 2021 by J-Meiser
Relocated a picture (see edit history)

[mattdavies]

Glad the counter sunk bolt worked ! 

I was happy to see that this thread had been updated and was hoping it wasnt a random bump by someone 

[Pudsey]

Great project this one, been following your progress.

I contemplated the Bullet Supercharger conversion, but when measuring up found the snout would catch the bonnet.

There was no way I was going to cut the bonnet, so put me right off the idea.

Glad to see your persevering with it though.

Keep up the good work. 

[Delboy52]

This looks like something that might help with the bonnet catching the pulley. This offset pulley seemed to be part of a Whipple/3UZ kit that is no longer available.

Edited May 10, 2021 by Delboy52 (see edit history)

[J-Meiser]

11 hours ago, mattdavies said:

Glad the counter sunk bolt worked ! 

I was happy to see that this thread had been updated and was hoping it wasnt a random bump by someone 

So am I!

I didn't really have much to post for a while although, had I known that it was going to be that big a gap before I posted, I probably would have just put up the small posts in the mean time. I will try my best not to leave it for quite so long next time .

[J-Meiser]

9 hours ago, Pudsey said:

Great project this one, been following your progress.

I contemplated the Bullet Supercharger conversion, but when measuring up found the snout would catch the bonnet.

There was no way I was going to cut the bonnet, so put me right off the idea.

Glad to see your persevering with it though.

Keep up the good work. 

Thank you very much!

I spent many an evening a few years ago, eyeing up the Bullet kits. I just couldn't find a way to justify spending that much to my wife... To be honest, the amount that I've spent on this and other parts that I'll be adding (more on that later), I've probably spent way more than that now .

I am doing all that I can to not put extra holes in or cut the bodywork. However, I think that I may have to shave a little off the underside of the bonnet to ensure that I have clearance. We shall see. I have no plans to ever sell my Supra, so at the end of the day, the only person that has to be happy with it is me.

[J-Meiser]

4 hours ago, Delboy52 said:

This looks like something that might help with the bonnet catching the pulley. This offset pulley seemed to be part of a Whipple/3UZ kit that is no longer available.

I knew I should have gone with the 3UZ . That would be handy, but I don't think that that exact kit would work on the 1UZ,due to the water outlets on the front water bridge. If something similar was available for the Ford/Eatom M112 and the 1UZ, then it would be perfect.

I wish that I still had my Soarer, if only to see the differences in the heights of the bonnets. The inlet manifold that I have and the Bullet ones should allow the M112 to fit under the Soarer bonnet without issues, but I don't know what the height difference is compared to Supra. I guess we may well find out properly soon . 

[J-Meiser]

Hello everyone,

Just a small update today as I am still waiting for a few parts to arrive.

I test fitted the throttle body assembly on the supercharger in the bay and overall, I was quite happy with how it looked.

I “fitted” the throttle and cruise control cables to check their routing and I think that they will be fine. The throttle cable will need adjusting before it will fit properly, but I will make those adjustments at the correct time. The line pressure cable looked like it will fit nicely too, although I will need to move a couple of parts over from the stock intake manifold before I will be able to secure it properly.

The pulley on the snout will need to be flipped so that the belt will line up with the idlers. I tried to turn it around but as appears to be my luck with things that should be simple, 2 of the 5 bolts have seized in position. I have tried using penetrating fluid, shocking them with a hammer and chisel and an impact driver and using my mole grips – nothing will make them move. In fact, the metal of the button head has started to strip off from my efforts of trying to loosen them. I am trying to avoid using heat, so I will see what else I can try, otherwise I will have to pull the pulley off and have a go from the inside.

While I had the supercharger out of the bay, I took a close look at the EGR port on the back, and I wondered whether the cold start injector would fit in there. Eyeballing it, it looked like it would, but I wanted to make sure. If I could put the injector in there, it would save me having to block that port and allow me to keep the injector in use, which in turn, would keep my ECU happy.

I removed the injector from the underside of the upper inlet manifold and offered it up. It looked like it would just fit. I cleaned out the EGR port with the throttle valve cleaner and then tried to inset the injector. It was a bit snug, but it fit!

Once it was in place, I checked to see that the end of the injector cleared the wall of the supercharger and had sufficient clearance to be able to inject the fuel properly.

Looking in from the inlet, I believed that it would work fine there, so checked out the bolt holes. The bolt holes did not quite line up though and would need enlarging for the bolts to fit. It took a bit of work, but the holes were enlarged, and I secured it in place with a couple of test bolts.

I am quite pleased with how that turned out in the end, so I will get some matching bolts to secure it in properly at some point, but for now, I will take that one as a win.

[Annabella]

Reference to the stubborn bolts, I have an air heat gun, it has small snouts so the direction of heat can be precise, it's for computer work really but have used it on cars for your purpose, with success. I'll have a look for a link. 

Here 

https://cpc.farnell.com/duratool/d01841/smd-rework-station-lcd/dp/SD01694

Edited May 23, 2021 by Annabella (see edit history)

[J-Meiser]

Thank you very much for the suggestion Annabella, I'll look into that!

[Annabella]

[J-Meiser]

Caution - long post!

Hello everyone,

I am sorry for the lack of recent updates. Truth be told, I have been going in circles for a while now, trying to sort out the fundamental issue of getting the supercharger properly located so that it sits straight, does not interfere with the injectors in any way and allow me to close the bonnet. It has been incredibly frustrating at times, but I have finally made some progress. Please allow me to fill you in…

Back in March, after I first posted about the bolt catching on the front water bridge and the throttle body catching on the valve cover (feels like AGES ago ), I reached out to both Bullet Performance and Elate Manufacturing in Australia about their inlet manifolds. I knew that they would be taller, but I figured that if I could get hold of one, I could at least use it for reference if nothing else. I received one response from Elate Manufacturing but that was it, no follow up to my response. Bullet Performance advised me to e-mail a particular person within the company, but I never got a response from them after that, so I canned that idea and progressed with my low-profile manifold.

Fast forward to the middle of April and out of the blue, I receive an e-mail from Tom at Bullet, asking whether I still needed the parts I enquired about. Tom was knowledgeable and responsive, so I was able to get some of the questions relating to my build answered. It turned out that Tom was the owner of Bullet Performance, so that explained a few things!

In the middle of May, I took delivery of an aluminium plate, and the idea was to create a new top plate for my low-profile manifold, as the top plate that came with the manifold was, literally, millimetres too narrow to accommodate the M112 properly. Cutting it down to size was straightforward, however, trying to accurately drill the securing holes for the supercharger with a hand drill proved to be nigh-on impossible, regardless of how accurately punched the starting point. In the end, I called time on that and reached out to some local firms to find out whether they could drill and countersink the holes that would allow me to secure the top plate to the manifold and the supercharger to the top plate. 

By the end of May, I had taken delivery of the Bullet inlet manifold, top plate, gaskets, and the shorter auxiliary belt that I mentioned in my post on the 9th of May.

I compared both manifolds and there was no way that I could consider using the Bullet top place with my low-profile manifold; there is no way to mount it, due to the location of the mounting points on the top place. However, I could consider using a custom top place with the Bullet manifold if needs be… I decided to cut off the protrusion at the back of the supercharger and move the wiring to behind the heater pipes, thus giving me a little bit more room at the back of the supercharger. This will allow for extra adjustment room as well as giving me a bit more space to run the numerous pipes that will be coming off the back of it.

Referencing my post on the 22nd of May, where I was trying to get remove the 2 bolts stubborn bolts in the pulley, I tried heating it up a bit but that did not make any difference. It was suggested to me to buy some splined bits, tap them into the bolts and then try loosening them that way. It worked and I found out why they put up such a fight; at some point in the supercharger’s past, someone used Loctite (or similar) to keep the bolts in place . The pulley had seized onto the hub too, so I had to use my pulley puller tool to remove it from the hub . Once it was off, I cleaned up both the hub and pulley, then applied some anti-seize compound to try and reduce the chances of it happening again in the future.

I then had the fun task of trying to track down some replacement bolts to secure the pulley to the hub, having never measured US bolts before, it took a while to get my head around that. However, at the time of writing, they have just arrived and have been fitted.

At the beginning of June, I took delivery of another piece of aluminium plate and cut it down to size once more, marking out where it needed to sit in relation to my low-profile manifold and took it to a local firm to drill and countersink for me. While that was being taken care of, I decided to carry out a few experiments with the Bullet manifold, the Bullet top plate and my original custom top plate that had now become my test plate:

1.    Bullet manifold and top plate, bonnet completely stock – Too tall, redundant mounting on top of the supercharger stops the bonnet from closing.

2.    Bullet manifold, test plate, bonnet completely stock – Pulley catches on bonnet liner, bonnet will close.

3.    Bullet manifold and top plate, bonnet liner removed – Too tall, redundant mounting on top of the supercharger stops the bonnet from closing.

4.    Bullet manifold, test plate, bonnet liner removed – Bonnet closes, approximately 1-1.5 cm between the top of the pulley and the bonnet.

With the full Bullet setup, even if I could use it by removing the mounting point on the top of the supercharger to allow my bonnet to close properly, I would have to take approximately 2-4 cm off the back of the supercharger for it to fit properly, due to where the mounting points are located, and I was not comfortable doing that. The only viable solution, if I were to go ahead and prepare this as a backup, would be to make another custom top plate, matching the width and securing points of the Bullet top plate, but move the supercharger mounting points forwards, so that I do not need to cut anything off the back of the supercharger. With that in mind, I purchased a third piece of aluminium plate and I researched pillar drills.

Around the middle of June, I found a pillar drill at Screwfix, cut down the aluminium plate to size and, using the Bullet top plate as a reference, marked out where the top plate to manifold bolt holes needed to be drilled. My low-profile manifold was ready to collect, so I picked it up and instantly noticed a major problem. The edges of the top plate had been cut off, so the top plate was now the same width as the manifold, and this rendered it useless. If I could have used it at that width, I would not have needed a top plate. As you can imagine, I was not happy at all, as I was not asked if the top place could be cut down. So, after all that, it ended up being a total waste of time, effort, and money. It was then that I decided to press ahead with the Bullet manifold/custom top plate set up.

I assembled and set up the pillar drill and then started drilling the 16 mounting holes.

Once the mounting holes were drilled and were checked against the manifold for accuracy, I tried countersinking 2 holes so that I could accurately position the supercharger in the bay and align it with the existing pullies and idlers on the engine. The countersink bit that I had was ok; it did the job, but it was a bit too small. I bought some Neilsen and Silverline countersink bits to try and resolve this but neither of them were great; the Neilsen bits left a hexagon shape instead of a nice, smooth circle/cone and the Silverline bits did not even remove any material, it just skimmed the top of the metal. I started searching for a better countersink bit, but in the meantime, I was able to make use of the countersunk holes that I made and secure the top place to the manifold.

With the manifold and top plate in place, the supercharger was placed on top, and I used my original (stock) auxiliary belt and routed it over all pullies/idlers except the crankshaft pulley, that way I could run the belt without having to turn the engine. After a fair bit of trial and error, I got the supercharger and pulley into a position where the belt ran true and no longer ran off the pulleys and idlers. I was able to mark out the supercharger’s position on the top plate and then utilise the Bullet top plate as a guide to make sure that I was drilling the mounting holes accurately and in the correct place. After I drilled the mounting holes, I then tapped them so that I could get the mounting studs in place and make sure that everything lined up. 

Everything lined up nicely, but after reviewing and test fitting the supercharger, I decided that wanted to make use of the 2 mounting points at the back of the supercharger too and make sure that I drilled the hole for the stock boost outlet port.

The Makita countersink arrived, so I tested it out on my test plate, and it did a really good job! The next couple of days were spend counter sinking all 16 mounting holes for the top plate, drilling, and tapping the two rear mounting points, the hole for the boost outlet port and the pilot holes for where the injector spacers will need to go.

The next day was spent fine tuning and preparing to make the main inlet hole larger.

I decided to carry out another quick test fit of the supercharger on the manifold setup, just to make sure that I was still happy with how everything was fitting together.

I was quite happy with how it all looked and fitted! The next time that I was able to do some more, I cracked on with earnest and finished off the top plate, making sure that the injector spacers had enough to fit. Here are some general pics showing the differences between the Bullet top plate and my own. I apologise for the scars; the angle grinder slipped a couple of times, and I am not an expert by any means. I think that it should do the job though.

I cleaned up the top plate, fully bolted it down onto the manifold, inserted the studs, fitted it into the position in the engine and mounted the supercharger. I then refitted the stock belt once more and carried out another run test (by hand), to make sure that the belt still ran true. Everything was fine.

I then turned my attention to finalising the setup. The Bullet manifold is designed for use with the stock front water bridge, so I swapped out the low-profile bridge for the stock bridge, put the supercharger setup back in and tested – everything fit perfectly. I put in the spare water bridge gaskets that I had (I bought an extra set, just in case) and bolted it down. Unfortunately, I could not get the coolant sensors out of my low-profile bridge, regardless of what I tried. I decided to leave then in situ and order a fresh set.

I moved on to the injectors, fitting the insulators into the manifold, the spacers and then the fuel rails and injectors themselves. One of the securing bolts has gone for a walk somewhere, so I ordered a new set, and I will keep the existing ones as spares. They could come in handy elsewhere.

That pretty much brings things up to date. I now need to reverse my decision to move the wiring loom to behind the heater pipes at the rear, as the injector wiring on the right-hand side will not reach the injectors. I am also trialling the throttle body without the spacer, as the little bit of extra height from the manifold means that it may not be needed. I need to come up with a solution to replace the hard vacuum line for the brake booster, as it is now far too long for my new setup and will interfere with my IACV once it is mounted. All things that I will deal with as I go along.

Thanks for reading and I will have another update when I have made some more solid progress.

Edited July 4, 2021 by J-Meiser
Removed a random pic from the end. (see edit history)

[Noz]

Great update.

Keep it coming!

[mattdavies]

Thats a great update and a interesting read. I look forward to further progress on this 

[J-Meiser]

On 7/5/2021 at 6:44 AM, Noz said:

Great update.

Keep it coming!

 

On 7/5/2021 at 9:01 AM, mattdavies said:

Thats a great update and a interesting read. I look forward to further progress on this 

Thank you both! I hope to post a small update soon, I've been able to get a few bits sorted out . 

[Louishavo]

Hi J-Meiser,

 

Fantastic work on the supercharger, I've been looking to do mine and this has been big inspiration! Can I aske whatever happened to the old Supercharger inlet manifold?

Looking forward to some more updates as I plan to supercharge my manual swapped LS400 very soon!

 

Keep up the great work!

 

Cheers,

 

Lou

[J-Meiser]

Hi everyone,

I know that it has been a while since my last update, and I am sorry about that. Yet again, I have been waiting for items to arrive and trying to rectify my own mistake. I will detail it all in the following post, so I will not waffle on any longer.

One of the first things that I did after my last post was to move the wiring loom to in front of the heater pipes once again and test fit the supercharger with this configuration; it sat correctly but it did require more jiggling to get it into position, so that’s something that I will need to try and resolve in due course.

I took the opportunity to review the current situation and decided that all major development work on the front and sides of the engine have were complete, so I decided to get the HT leads routed and connected again. Once they were sorted, the covers went on, but I could not secure them in place as the new bolts that I ordered from Amayama were not delivered with my delivery at the time (that had been discontinued after I ordered them ). I ordered alternatives from elsewhere, but they were yet to be delivered.

While I awaited the delivery of those bolts, and the replacement bolts for the fuel rails, I decided to start the final assembly and thus, begin bolting things down properly. Everything was removed so I back down to the heads (again), but this time I installed the gaskets, fitted the inlet manifold, and tightened them to the slightly more than the factory torque settings.

The bolts for the fuel rails and the covers arrived a couple of days later, so the covers were secured in place, I fitted the fuel rails, properly located the wiring, connected the connectors for the injectors and others that were in the vicinity. As I was still awaiting delivery of the new temperature sensors and cold start switch, so I was not able to connect them up yet, but everything else was done. Then I started thinking about the injectors. My original plan was to run with the stock injectors, see how things go and then upgrade them if needs be. However, upon seeing exactly how much I would have to remove to fit the new injectors, I debated upon whether to just go with the larger injectors from the start and save faffing later?

After giving it a lot of thought, I decided to go ahead and get hold of some larger injectors and run with them. The stock injectors on my engine are 250 cc and the stock ECU can compensate for a ~15% increase in fuel injector capacity, without having a hissy fit, so I opted to get some 300 cc injectors, which are right on the limit of what the stock ECU can cope with. These injectors were from a Toyota 3RZ-FE and are a straight-swap for my injectors, so I bought 8, checked them over once they arrived and then sent them off to be assessed and serviced.

While they were away, I ordered fresh O-rings and grommets. The ones that were on the injectors looked to be in good condition, practically new, but I figured that I would replace them, for my own peace of mind. The injectors were back within a few days, but I kept them boxed up until the O-rings and grommets arrived.

While I waited for the for the O-rings and grommets, I decided to tackle a few of the smaller jobs that needed taking care of. I cut down the bracket for the line pressure cable so that I could mount it in its now location.

A couple of the pipes on the IACV needed cutting down so that they would allow it to mount in its new location without fouling.

I cut off the redundant mounting on the top of the supercharger as I was never going to use it and with it out of the way, I could guarantee that my bonnet would be able to close.

The vacuum pipe from the brake booster was shortened too and the end was flared.

Once I had finished as many of the smaller jobs as I could, I started test fitting so that I could see how things fitted and whether any further alterations would be needed. The brake booster pipe required a little bit more off the end, as more clearance is needed to stop it from fouling the IACV.

I connected the wiring loom for the cold start injector and fitted fresh washers around the banjo fitting in preparation for the final tighten-down.

I debated for a good while over which way around to mount the IACV. It would fit whichever way around, but I tried to decide on which way would work best for all the piping I wanted to connect to it, as I plan to keep the coolant flowing through it on the colder days when I take it out. In the end, I decided to mount it pipes-down and torqued it on to the throttle body adapter.

I fitted the supercharger again, fitted the bracket for the line pressure cable and tried to find a setup that worked best. It was not perfect when I decided to call time on adjusting it, so I will be making further adjustments once I have fitted the supercharger properly.

The coil pack that was located at the front/top of the engine was fitted and I reconnected the associated HT lead and loom wires.

Referring to my post where I was asking for opinions on air temperature sensors, it turned out that I made a bit of a mistake. The sensors that I put up examples of had 1/8 NPT fittings and the port in the manifold was threaded for 1/8 BSP. I knew that it was a 1/8 BSP but what I do not know is why I was looking for a 1/8 NPT sensor! Anyway, I eventually found one in Australia, so I ordered it and decided to delay fitting the top plate as I would have a much easier time fitting the sensor into position without it. While I was waiting for the sensor to arrive, I decided to measure up for new fuel lines.

I removed the stock FPR as I figured that the AFPR would suit the new setup better. I also ordered new AN fittings for the rails as I would be replacing a couple of the banjo fittings; they would interfere with the supercharger.

The new O-rings and grommets arrived, but I held off fitting them until the air temperature sensor arrived. Thankfully, the sensor arrived a little over a week of me placing the order, so I was happy with that.

Got it fitted and sealed as soon as I was able to.

I then moved on to the fuel rails and injectors. I set up the rails so that I could do a straight swap for each injector. I took a few pictures of the new and old injectors for comparative purposes.

Both rails were fitted into the manifold and tightened to the correct torque settings. I then fed the wiring looms into position, connected the injectors, sensors, and other miscellaneous connectors, then bolted down the housings to finalise this stage.

I then made up the connector for the sensor, ran the loom along the plastic housing that held the factory loom and fed it through the firewall in preparation for connecting it up to the new gauge/computer that I will be fitting once I have finished with the mechanical side of things.

With all those bits now in place, I did a final check to make sure that I had done everything that I needed to do at this level. Once I was certain, on Sunday 1st August, I gave the top plate another clean, I gave the top of the manifold a clean, I ran a bead of sealant around the top of the manifold and bolted on the top plate.

Since then, I have been conducting numerous test fittings with the supercharger to try and find the best ways to route the fuel lines, coolant lines and vacuum/boost lines. I will share more about that in my next post, which I promise I will put up soon .

Until next time!

Edited August 7, 2021 by J-Meiser
Removed random pics from the end. Again. (see edit history)

[J-Meiser]

14 hours ago, Louishavo said:

Hi J-Meiser,

 

Fantastic work on the supercharger, I've been looking to do mine and this has been big inspiration! Can I aske whatever happened to the old Supercharger inlet manifold?

Looking forward to some more updates as I plan to supercharge my manual swapped LS400 very soon!

 

Keep up the great work!

 

Cheers,

 

Lou

Hi Lou, 

Thank you very much! I am glad that it's helping you to with your planned conversion. Please let me know how you get on with yours when you get it underway and feel free to send any questions my way. I will do my best to answer them. 

I still have the "old" inlet manifold and the other parts that went with it. My plan is to move them on once I have got my current setup running and I am happy with it. I am hanging on to them for now, just in case I need to swap back to it for some reason, although I really, really, REALLY hope that it never comes to that.

J

[J-Meiser]

Hi everyone,

I was hoping to have some good news to share with you, but unfortunately, that will have to wait.

After my last post there has not really been much to comment on as almost all of my time has been spent trying to figure out the best way to route the boost, vacuum and fuel lines that run across the engine/supercharger. I did not take many pictures of this as there was not really anything to photograph.

Bolting on the supercharger was a relatively simple process, once I was confident that I was at the stage that I could seal it and bolt it on. I was able to check that the alignment was still fine by using my stock belt and bypass the crankshaft pulley. Once I was happy, I fitted my 2730 mm belt as the 2690 mm belt would not go over the tensioner.

Once I had finalised the routing of the vacuum and boost lines, they were all secured in place, although I am awaiting a few clips to finish off the PCV vacuum lines. I decided to forego the throttle body spacer as there was sufficient room for everything to run/fit. 

After soring out the lines, the throttle body adapter and the throttle body, the fiddliest parts of the latter stage of this build were getting the 3” silicone pipe into place on the throttle body and the adapter ring, as it was a VERY tight fit and routing the upper coolant pipe through the gap between the belt, beneath the supercharger pulley. It was incredibly close, but it fit!

After that, I refitted the battery tray, the battery, connected it up and then enlisted my wife to help me with the first start...

As you can see, it was not to be.

After a few tries, a bit of fault finding (I forgot to reconnect the coil pack at the top of the engine and fuel burst out of the front of the left/passenger-side fuel rail due to me not tightening up the banjo bolt enough) and some help from my kids, I got it started!

However, there are 3 things that I need to fix:

1. The supercharger is VERY noisy. At first, I thought that it was the bearings at the back of the supercharger, but it could be the bearing in the snout. I replaced the coupler and put fresh oil in the snout during the build process, so I can rule those out. I am going to need to narrow it down and go from there.

The thing is, the pulley always turned smoothly, as I turned it frequently during the build process. I turned it by hand and, in the later stages, by belt; as explained earlier in the post. As a result, I never suspected that anything could be wrong with it.

2. It will not start with the MAF sensor connected. It starts when I disconnect it and continues to run when I connect it but it is not playing ball when everything is connected up as it should be.

3. It is idling rough. When it does start, the idle is quite high initially (~2000 RPM) and when it drops down it is VERY rough. Since I recorded these videos yesterday, I’ve been giving it a lot of thought and I believe that it’s a vacuum leak. That would explain why it is running “better” without the MAF sensor connected, but I am happy to be corrected.

I could be wrong about the bearings in the supercharger though; from what I have read, it could be noisy due to a vacuum leak. I am going to start with the vacuum leak and go from there.

On a positive note, most of the work that I have carried out over the past 10 months has been successful! It is just these new issues that I could never have foreseen without trying to start it up. Now that I am aware of them, I will do my best to fix them and if anyone can help or has any suggestions, I would be very grateful to hear them.

I will keep you posted, thanks for reading/watching!.

Edited August 23, 2021 by J-Meiser (see edit history)

[Tyson]

There's the nice whine of a supercharger and then there's that  Hopefully it is something that is simple like a vacuum leak and not an expensive repair on the SC. Have you took it for a test drive yet?

[J-Meiser]

Yes, I had the exact same thought!

I'm really hoping that's all it is. More parts are scheduled to arrive this week, so I will continue troubleshooting and I hope to get to the bottom of the issue sooner rather than later.

All that I have been able to do so far is drive it back into the garage. With it running as rough as it is, I don't want to run the risk of causing any damage to either the supercharger or the engine, so I'm only running it for short periods while I try and fathom the issue.

Edited August 23, 2021 by J-Meiser (see edit history)

[Pudsey]

Congratulations on getting it running.

Have you sprayed a bit of WD40 or something similar on the pulleys or belts.

Might just be belt squeal.

 

 

 

[J-Meiser]

Thank you Pudsey!

No I have not, but when I was listening for the source of the noise yesterday, it was definitely coming from the supercharger.

[Hammer]

Great work, glad it fired up. Love this thread, really interesting, thanks for doing the updates.

[Noz]

Very cool update. Can't wait to see outcome on the road.