Have you thought about using a little meth to help with the IATs at WOT. I'm pretty sure I'll be using this on my setup. It won't really help for everyday driving, but it'll definitely help when you want to have some fun.

 

Bit of an update

So, I needed to move the MAF and while I was at it Id like to attempt to quiet down the blower some. My best guess is the inlet design was seriously screwing with the flow characteristics and created an excess amount of noise from all the turbulence

Quick and dirty original design


You can see how the air is forced to squeeze down from a 4" circle to the 1.5" oval. The necking down causes the air to speed up but when it reaches the rotors it must stop until the next rotor moves past and then start again creating a pulsating flow. In short, my design was flawed


Some loving with the saw-zall and grinder takes me back to square one


The smoothest transition I can make is to simply squish the 4" tube. Easy for this strait piece that absolutely wouldnt fit, not so easy for the old tube with a 90* on the end


This is why you use tack welds


Finished. Notice the long strait section of tube before the MAF. Both of the tuners really griped about not having this previously. At the end of the long 90* at the TB, a short length of 4" tubing will be spliced in. This is where the IAT will be located since the one in the truck MAF is going to give a false reading in front of the SC


The FMIC plumbing will look like this eventually, just not as swooping. Ive still go to fit the battery up front. Might have to move it to the drivers side though. Not looking forward to custom cables for that
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/atta...urbo-setup.jpg

Im going with the Saab bypass valve setup. It's supposed to be good for 5-10psi and under 450hp. We'll see. If it's not enough, Ill order a second, not like they're hard to install

 

Looking great Pocket! I'm excited to see some new videos of the beast!

 

FedEx man came at 8am this morning

Pretty


Nice tubing kit, but I cant weld alum, so it goes back up for sale. Ive got a set of 3" exhaust tubing in the mail (ETA today or tomorrow)


Stuffed up in there. Almost like the 3rd gen rad was designed for it


Lots of room on this side too


Fills up the front quite nicely


Support trimmed. Nearly a strait shot


Working on the brackets


Simple 90* and it's done. The last bit of steel after the reducer is for the IAT to be mounted


Now to fab new fan brackets, a shroud, and rubber/plastic inserts to keep air from leaking around the rad/IC

 

Wow! That looks awesome Pocket! I agree with you, thirdgens seem to be made to have inter-coolers in front of their radiators, there is just the perfect amount of space in there for it! Keep those pictures coming, I'm very excited to see your project continue to progress!

 

Looks good. Is there any draw backs to putting the intercooler directly infront of the rad?

 

This is really shaping up Pocket.

 

Mostly fitment issues. Not many people would be ok notching the vertical supports. Plumbing becomes tricky with some setups too because tight bends are considered bad (they are) but for a minimal effort swap like this I could care less about a .5psi drop from two tight 90*s

 

Welded a hard mount for the upper intake section so it wont flop off down the road. Had to add a small ring before the MAF to line things back up. Repainted everything while I was at it


Radiator shroud is done and needs paint. Ill do that when I pull it all again for the cam swap. Fan moved down about 2" and to the pass side about 6". I didnt have any more large metal sheets so I used FRP board. It's about as strong as the stock plastic stuff so we'll see. A fully enclosed fan shroud should seriously boost the cooling capabilities even though its a single fan

 

Tubing came in so I finished that little job




Cam also arrived, big thanks to Phil. Old one should make a great lamp

Last thing Im waiting on are the bypass valves. Vortec sells the Bosch units and rates the for 6-10psi <450hp. I should be ok with one, but learning from the first experience, I got two

 

Great job man, we are dying for results on a dyno tune!

 

strange, but cool.

 

Did the cam swap today, easiest cam Ive ever done, but that was the only part of the day that went smoothly

Found out I have yellow LS6 springs in the cyl heads already. I check the numbers on the cam, its a base LM7 cam . Springs must have been a dealer recall or a demodded engine. Either way Ive got some room to grow

Dowel rods went smoothly and didnt get stuck like the last 2 engines I did. Lifter trays must be fairly recent because after I spun the cam all 16 stayed up. I slid the rods in anyways for GP

Cam slid in no problem, no snags, nothing

Reassembly was a nightmare: first the alt went to the perfect angle to slide right out of the interference fit bracket and fell to the ground while still plugged in. Needless to say, the PCM wire wasnt happy. Not a big deal, it just broke up near the injectors so I had to strip the loom all the way up to the coils. Resistance check was fine, so I only broke it in one place. Got lucky

Next, I couldnt find my balancer tool. Dont you hate it when tools grow legs? Anyways I had to improvise, and I figured a trip to the hardware store would be all I needed. Apparently metric bolts are still heresy and threaded rods are even more witchcraft. Luckily I did find two large bolts with a decent amount of threads that matched the balancer bolt, so I got them, a nut and some washers. Did you know they have metric washers? And they're 4x as expensive as normal washers. Needless to say I walked out with the std set. My balancer wont care if the washer has an extra .035" of clearance from the rod. Once i was home I cut the heads off the two bolts, chamfered the ends and welded them together so the threads were out at either end. I threaded it in the crank snout and set the balancer in place behind some washers and the nut. Ready to go or so I thought. The new nut was 15/16" as opposed to the 1" OEM. Guess which socket was missing from my toolbox . Long story short I ground the nut flats down to fit a 7/8" socket

After the accessories were back on I moved to the trans lines. Previously I had swapped out my hard lines with OEM quick connects (terrible POS, leaky, floppy etc) for AN stuff just like my fuel system. After much searching I found the trans case took 3/8NPS. The radiator fittings were a bit more trouble to ID, but about a dozen threads indicated it used the same as the case. They didnt fit . So I cut the SS line long and slide a few inches in and sealed it with hose clamps. Looked awful and i was keeping it for long. I had to take a trip down to the local hydraulic company to actually make a decision on what threads it used. Best help I got from the trans forum was that it was some sort of inverted flare and inverted flare fittings dont use a thread size, it's simply based on the tube diameter. Nonsense, its a 1/2" x 20 thread. Anyways, the correct fittings arrived today so I went to put the hose ends on. For some reason the lower end would not stay on the SS line for anything. Id push it all the way in, visually check it, mark the depth with a sharpie and screw the blue piece in. All seemed well and Id do the final tug to make sure it was locked and it would slide right off. Word to the wise, never assemble AN hose ends when you're frustrated, it will only make you more angry. I took a chill break and cut another 1/2" off the hose. Went right on then, no idea what was the matter

And for the grand fiasco of the day, the new black rattle can paint i bought sprayed on black, dried gray and wipes off with a paper towel! Everything will have to be sanded completely clean and resprayed. Im thrilled

Tomorrow Ill finish up with torquing the rockers, welding the BPV ports on, sanding and respraying the plumbing, resealing the blower in/outlets, reassembling the nose section and giving everything a thorough cleaning

Edit:
Trans side is actually 1/4NPS

 

I envy your motivation.

 

I wish I had the time he has to do all this. between work, and the house I just bought I'm all tapped out.

 

nice! your right I prob would have ran the intercooler pipes through the fenders like my old procharger setup.. but keeping it on a cheap budget its hard to do that

 

Well, good job man, it hate when the easy stuff turns difficult but it always happens like that.

 

Last few parts started arriving. I ordered a bosch BPV then saw a good deal on an alum cased unit with different springs so I got that too

Im down to the last few things

BPV, 1" silicone coupler for the pressurized side hasnt come in yet, so heater hose and worm clamps rule until it blows off. Outlet is on the SC inlet


Damned trans line fittings


Drivers side is mostly finished. IAT isnt threaded yet because my tap set doesnt go up to 3/8" NPT. I need to get another


Hard to believe it's intercooled



To do list:
Tap the IAT bung
Fab the radiator filler panels
Figure out a new radiator overflow tank (Honda unit most likely)
Various vacuum caps for the reverted PCV system
Fill with fresh coolant
Tune

 

Sooooo....think you will dab some type of box that will pull air thru the formula hood hole? Might as well right? LOL

 

Eventually, but not right away

 

Ok, i thought so with all the work done so far, what is a touch more.

 

I gotta give you some major Kudos here Pocket, this project is really neat! I've just barely started to learn how to weld so that I can start learning a bit more about fabrication, so getting to see things like what you did here, is very educational for me, and I really enjoy reading your threads! Keep it up, and I'll keep taking it in!

 

If you do, you should make it out of something which is not metal, that way it cant heatsoak air coming in at low speed

 

I was planning fiberglass since the area is so complex

Anyways, she's done and ready for a tune

 

SICK BLOWER WINE love it lol

 

sweet! anxious for the results.

awesome craftsmenship and budgeting abilities.

 

Right after I posted that, I started wondering about what material would work and thought about fiberglass being ideal, I am so glad you will be able to do it!

 

That seriously reminds me of the fella that runs around with a leaf blower working for the lawn service!!! LOL

 

sick build i barely came across this! make sure you post some hd vids!

 

Awesome build, but damn that blower sounds horrible!!! That can't be normal.

 

It is. I have two currently and they both sound like that. The rougher the inlet ducting is, the noisier they get. Believe it or not, the new intake seriously quieted it down

 

dude, i have to say, this is by far my favorite build thread on TGO.

 

This is ridiculous. And I wholly support it LOL! Can't wait to see the end result.

 

i wonder if a set up like this will work on a carb set up?? ican get my hands on a few of these that are just sitting around... it would be nice to mash the skinny pedal and see the boost just to 8-10psi and not have to wait. why did u do a fmic and not the water to air that usually goes under the supercharger it self?

 

That is perfectly normal. It's nearly as loud on the intake side.

When you put a cold air kit on a Grand Prix and remove all the intake sound dampening baffle box from the inlet side they sound like that.

When you run them at high RPM it sounds like an indycar.

When you do it on a lightning or cobra with the bigger versions of the blowers, and then run them on the dyno, its enough to bring you to your knees without earmuffs.

 

No reason it cant work with a carb, just be sure its a blow through. These blowers arent happy with a draw through system. I used an ATA for lower IATs, plus since I have a remote mount I dont HAVE to use the sandwich style IC, any of the more efficient front mounts are options. This one offered the cleanest package

 

Hmm... maybe I'll finally get around to getting a cold air kit for my GP. With the stock airbox it's absolutely impossible to hear ANY whine.

 

my 97 GTP had the horrible stock "kidney" intake, no whine at all. cold air kit (box, filter, etc) helped remind me there was blower on the car

 

Yeah, since I've postponed my plans to trade it in for a truck, I should probably build something. Unfortunately, nobody makes a CAI for the new GPs, so I'll have to find time to rig something up ******* (hmm... rhymes with "sledneck") style.

My stock setup really looks pretty simple... airbox into a short elbow right to the throttle body. Must be some funny business going on inside the airbox to quiet the noise.

 

i actally had a eaton on my colbalt ss with the smallest pullie and a aem intake fully tuned, i loved the sound they put out...
my vw g60 corrado had a BBM Lysholm and it was super loud no matter what u did. all the time it was just noise. most of the cars we deal with have wipples and kennebells they all have diffrent sounds. u come to love it all.

i was thinkin of doing a similar set up, with the side mount eaton and a fmic with a bov blown though a carb. not expecting much but would be a cool one off set up. and ,much easer set up then a turbo. plus i hate wating for boost. like seeing 10psi once u tap the gas.
and it would be nice since i just did the serptine set up. and the passenger side only has the ac delete pullie and no smog so its kinda useless.

how do u control the boost on the supercharger it self.? i know the pulley should limit u but on some eatons there is a vacuem bypass valve. and my colbalt had a plater under the supercharger it self to quiet it down.

 

Looks like you´ve got a impressive amount of work done in a short time. One of my best friends here in Sweden did a VERY similar build/setup on his 3.0 V6 Alfa Romeo 75, also with a Eaton blower from a Jaguar XJR. It´s been working very good for 2 year now once he got all the "bugs" out..
It´s a bit "strange" about the noise from different blowers...Even the same model of supercharger can make very different noise on different cars. Anyway, what I wanted to say was GREAT JOB, post some more videos once you get it going, we all love to hear it rip :-)

 

what is that charger off of?? i found one off of a 93 bonneville ssei for 100$ thinkin of picking it up if it looks ok.

 

this is awsome cant wait to see some #s

 

how much boost is the m90 actally giving u??

 

Burnt a valve in the #3 hole. In the mean time it made 130hp 320tq at 2800rpm @ 4lb of boost

Now I get to do a set of heads for it

 

GAH! How? POCKET! What did you do!?

Did you run it without a tune? noooooo

 

anyone have a set of heads so we can get some numbers out of this car???

 

Friend has a set of 853s for sale, but he would be better off finding something local to avoid shipping.

 

john, you got a line on another set already? i know that you had another 5.3 in the car at one point. you just going to use the heads off your old motor? if not i got a set you can have, just cover shipping.

 

First motor sold 3 days after i pulled it. Not sure how the valve bit it, but its not holding compression. We hooked a compressed air line to it with the rockers off and it was very audibly hissing out the tail pipes. I figured good used heads would be cheaper and faster than machine work on my existing heads. Shame too, so clean

Ive got my eyes on 4 sets local, it'll be back together soon, just not in time for autofair