I would go the epoxy route too. Rough up the surface a bit, even cut some small grooves in the base aluminum to give it some teeth, a good cleaning and degreasing, then apply two part JB weld. Some porters actually go that route just to redesign the port shape.

 

Had some time so I welded up the intake. Took about 40 minutes. I rough grounded it just to make sure my welds were ok.

I will send it off to the machine shop tomorrow or the next day to face the flanges. I wish my bridgeport was up and running, I gotta work on that one day.


Anyway, got my 3/8 powdercoated bracket and crank pulley spacer. Spacer is 1 5/8".

-- Joe

 

could u not file it flat again? thats a pretty wide surface should be easy to get the file to lay flat

 

Probably could, but I'd feel more comfortable if it was done on a milling machine


Here is a preview of the bracket assembly on the engine. I may have to modify it a bit cuz the blower crashes into the bottom of the shock tower.

-- Joe

 

I would work on your oil drain from the bottom of the blower back into the oil pan. Trying to punch a hole in the oil pan was a horrible experience for me. My aftermarket moroso pan was thick as hell and hard to pierce.

I know you ran blowers previously, but I had belt alignment issues when I first got mine started. I borrowed a gates laser alignment tool (sell for $85 on rockauto.com) and lined up my pulley after moving my bracket towards the front of the car using washers behind the bracket.

Since you are making your own set-up, might want to make sure you double check belt alignment and shim as necessary.

 

I'm running the blower on the passenger side, so I'm draining back to the fuel pump blockoff plate. I agree, the oil pan hole is a PITA to do.

You bet. I'm making it so I can shim the blower back as needed. I'm trying to calculate the correct spacer on the pulley. I believe I need a 3 5/8" between the stock serp pulley and the 10 rib.

I have to make a new 6 rib tensioner too for the accessories.

-- Joe

 

J trim vs T76

-- Joe

 

Intake is all milled. Now I need to just gasket match it.

-- Joe

 

Dang that j trim is huge

 

Joe any updates...?

 

Yup. Intake is gasket matched, and painted. My SFI balancer should be in tomorrow. I'll put that on, set TDC then put the intake back on and set the dizzy.

I still have a lot to do. Exhaust, blower bracket, etc.

Oh, I sold the hydroboost and converted to manual brakes. Gotta bleed the brakes.

Hopefully I can get it done before it snows. I need to get one of the corvettes on the lift.

-- Joe

 

Intake looks good man

 

Coming along fast, not even officially Winter and you'll have most of it done by then, that is great news. How is the clearance with that intake using the stock hood? You have me considering one for my GTA, came out really good...

 

Not sure, stock hood is in the basement. I have a ram-air I hood (first design) which is basically a 2+" cowl.

I'm not sure what the deal is with these intakes. I've not seen one for sale new in nearly a year.

-- Joe

 

Making progress.

New SFI balancer is on.

I checked port alignment on the intake manifold. Looks good with a 1206 gasket. Is there a spec for china wall to intake clearance? I'm curious if I should use the 1206 or 1266.

Next I mocked up the blower. Using a 1 5/8" crank pulley spacer, the blower is spaced out 3 3/4" from the head. As you can see in the pictures it's close to the valve cover in the rear.

The other spacers Vortech sells is a 3 1/4", and 3 5/8". Those may be a little too big.

The next problem, the crank pulley is not hub centric, and the holes are a little larger than 3/8" so the pulley has some walk to it..

-- Joe

 

Def get the belt alignment spot on else its gonna eat and spit belts at high rpm.

 

 

Yep, I used to throw belts on both my S-trim and my P1SC.

Right now I'm trying to determine if I want to stick with the 1 5/8" spacer, or go with a 2" spacer.

-- Joe

 

i made my own spacer, and it made everything hub centric. if you are running ribbed belts you will pretty much have to make your own spacer or be able to move the bracket to an exact amount. like within .050" or so, imo. a cog setup will let the belt float on either the lower or all the other pulleys, so it doesnt need to be quite so exact.

 

I can shim the head unit forward and back.

I've got to do some stuff today, but if I have time tonight I'll mock it up some more in the shop. I can order a 2" spacer, or the other two vortech sizes. The problem is, the farther forward the head unit goes the lower I need it to go for hood clearance. If it goes lower, the air filter has a risk of running into the headers. The shock tower really screws us with big blowers.

-- Joe

 

Figures they stop selling them when I am ready to get one. I'd like to switch to a fiberglass 2" cowl hood this winter myself, as I already sold the twin turbo hood I had. Wasn't too crazy about it. Lot of credit to you Joe, your project is coming along nicely. I didn't even buy the Procharger, still torn between an F1 and F2, meanwhile you're halfway done already. Looking forward to the intake plumbing, wanna see what you come up with because it looks like it will be tricky with that big of a blower...

 

Had a little time tonight to tinker in the shop. So I went with the 1206 gaskets as the 1266 raised the port too high.

I checked alignment as I torqued them down, and the ports match up really good with the 1206. Luckily with this intake I can look down into each runner and see what's going on.

So the top end is all bolted up, dizzy dropped in at TDC. I ordered a 2" crank spacer which should work for the blower.

I was going to install the water pump, but I think the P/s pump bracket I'm gonna use will bolt to it so I held off. Running short water pump + vette accessories on driver side.

I should probably concentrate on the exhaust.

-- Joe

 

Looking good man.

 

Ok. So we're going with 3 5/8" spacer on the pulley.

That puts the crank pulley face at 9 3/8" from the head surface

My 1/4" blower bracket is 4 1/4" away from the blower pulley, so we need to make a mounting bracket that is 5 1/8".

So What I'll probably do is make a 1/4" thick plate to bolt to the head, then use some 1" round stock to space another 1/4" plate. That can either bolt to the backside of the mounting bracket, or I can weld them together..

-- Joe

 

Looking forward to seeing progress man.

 

Spacer should be here Monday, so I can work on it more. I need to get the exhaust finished up too so I can move the car around.

-- Joe

 

That is a big bastard you got there, way bigger than my t-trim.

Just a tip, doing searches i found that you should wrap your headers if you are going to run a filter off the blower. A search on yellowbullet turned up a post by steve morris that said they dyno a motor first, then wrap the header on the side of the blower intake with header wrap and consistently gain 30-40 hp on the next pull with the header wrap in place. I just wrapped mine and picked up a dei header shield to go on top of it to keep the incoming air cooler.

 

this is what i suspected on the ysi 4th gen i did. it pulled air directly off the header and i didnt like it one bit. no room to run a decent sized inlet pipe anywhere.... it would have needed a custom crazy shaped non-round inlet pipe. 30-40hp is a ton.

 

My chinese spacer didn't work out. The center is too large for me to index it on my lathe.

So I ordered an actual vortech spacer.


Anyway, as for the heat. Yup! When I had the s-trim I had the same problem. Where I'm building my own mount, I'm hoping I can at least get it somewhat away from the exhaust. My plan is to fab an insulated pipe to draw air from the fender (behind the shock tower).

Remember I'm doing passenger side mount, so I don't have brake stuff in the way.

-- Joe

 

Looks good. My torqstorm supercharger should be here tmrw and I'm putting it on the same side as you. I heard about the header heat being a problem as well. Thinking of doing what you guys talked about. Also thought about coating my headers but that's like $250.

 

the problem with the 4th gen is the inner fender/shock mount leans waaay in towards the engine compared to a 3rd gen. 3rd gens have a ton more room in that area which will be helpful. in the setup i posted above, i ran the blower on drivers side to maintain the power steering pump position/lines mainly. i didnt see enough of a benefit to run the blower on the pass. side in that car.

 

That's a thick a$$ bracket, I wouldn't expect that blower to move at all.

Are you or Joe going to run a blower brace or a brace from the headunit to the shock tower to put some tension on the bracket to stop the headunit from flexing? I am not sure what is the limit before you need to brace the headunit?

 

The blower has two bolt patterns to run a dual bracket. My plan is to mount it to the 3/8" steel plate I have now, then run another plate over the top. I figure two 3/8" plates with spacers shouldn't flex.

My bracket adapter is 3/8" plate and 3/4" round stock spacers. Welded. Then the blower bracket/plate bolts to that.

I'm just waiting on the vortech spacer so I know my distance from the head. Then I'll turn down the 3/4" stock to size on my lathe, clamp it, and weld it all up. Then stick it in the mill and face it flat.

-- Joe

 

It's a 3/8" motor plate, 1/2" blower plate, and 3/4" supports in between spanning across from engine to frame.
The nmra guys running the ysi always use a 1/2" blower plate, so that's what I did. I wanted it to keep the belts on the pulleys as much as possible.

 

Dual 3/8 steel plates should be super strong, don't see any issues with that

 

Had some free time with the rain and removed the stock k-member. Broke one of the bolts so I'll have to get that out, but anyway it took about 2 hours to get the stock one out. Getting the spohn tubular one back in should be quick.

Somewhat tempted to redo the front lines while I'm there.

-- Joe

 

Ha. Glad to see you put that k member to use. You'll love being able to leave the engine in to do other work that is now very possible .

 

This is turning into a nightmare.

The distance between the tops of the spring perch and the pocket on the control arms are different on the Spohn kmember. (less distance). By a LOT. I hope this doesn't drop the ride height.

Also, the steering linkage hits the k-member. I unbolted it again and tried to pry it back but it's firmly against the frame.

Either Spohn re-engineered it better, or he buys his tape measures at harbor freight.. Not sure which.

If I flip the centerlink around will it totally goof my steering geometry? That's probably a question for twin_turbo, he's good at that stuff.

Anyway, I've got both springs compressed as far as my tool will go and I'm still prying them into place with a bar. (whacked myself twice in the face).

-- Joe

 

Try lowering the car into the ground. Then recheck the steering linkage.

 

Yes, flipping the centerlink around will angle the tie rods and as such make the angle even larger when syeering causing a change in the geometry (the rate at which the wheel rotates), the best way is to get some offset tie rod ends. The way the tie rod routes is not a factor, jsut the vector line betwen the 2 tie rod ends.

 

That won't matter. The contact point is the inner tie rod joint to the k-member. It wants to whack off the grease fitting, and 1/8" or more of the back of the tie rod. I suppose if it could get by that, the next thing in line would be the adjuster.

-- Joe

 

Uggg.

Offset on the inners, so if I flip the center link around it puts the line back inward ?

-- Joe

 

So, after looking at a bunch of pictures I think I see where the problem is.

Everyone having problems has inner tie rods with the grease fitting in the REAR and large rear cap.

The guys not having problems have the grease fitting 90* to the joint, and the joint itself is thinner.

Maybe just a different set of inner tie rods will fix the problem.

Look at this picture. Even compared to a Moog with the grease fitting at 90*, the spohn unit is slim.

Wtf.



-- Joe

 

I ran into your problem with my k member years ago. All I did was flip the center link and switch the side for the tie rods and re aligned it. It's been that way since 2001.

 

Don't want to change the geometry of the steering. I ordered two spohn inner tie rod ends. .$85.

-- Joe

 

excellent!!!

 

Ouch,

this is why I dont buy spohn parts!

Side note is that your Kmember looks alot like my racecraft one and I didn't have any issues with the tie rods. I do remember that I couldnt get them in without turning the steering to a locked out position to get them bolted in. Then they cleared just fine.

If I ever need to replace my moly Kmember Id prob go with the UMI as their stuff is top knotch. I was torn between the UMI and the Racecraft but I got the racecraft for less than the new UMI and it was brand new so I took the opportunity.

 

I've never had problems with his other stuff. I dunno. It's done now.

I'm replacing the brake lines too. Now the question is, do I keep my prop valve or put a T for the front and run a adjustable valve for the rear.. (manual brakes, 4 wheel disc).

-- Joe

 

Hmmm, I don't run manual brakes but I Tee'd the front (added a hurst roll control) and run a SSBC adjustable prop valve for the rears. Honestly in a performance vehicle I don't see the point in the stock prop valve. I also have 13" BAER brakes up front, hydroboost and 11.5" rear disks in the rear. And mine sees 99.5% street duty going to shows etc. I don't have any issues… however I can lock up the front brakes pretty easily lol.

I would do it… but thats just me. And I would bend my own lines in stainless or get that new copper alloy tubing that is sooooo much nicer. Bends so easy, fairs easy and never rusts. I did mine in Stainless and it was a PITA, I use the alloy stuff now and love it.

 

True, I can use my line lock solenoid as a T can't I... Good call.

Ok I ordered an adjustable prop valve.

It's setup for 3/16" line. I shouldn't have an issue replacing the rear 1/4" line with 3/16" I don't think ? I have enough metric adapters to cover the flex hose in the rear, and the two fronts.

-- Joe