Supercharger/Intercooler Complete. Treadstone mini review.

[240shorty]

Verbatim copy of my KA-T post. There was some interest here as well, so I'll post my progress.

________________________

Well, it's been a busy few days. I ordered a Treadstone intercooler and a generic intercooler piping kit. After cutting and welding quite a bit, it looks decent.

http://xs67.xs.to/pics/06060/system.jpg (http://xs.to)

As you can see, I went a little smaller than most with the intercooler. I am going to be somewhat limited in boost pressure by the blower, so I don't need anything too extravagent. Dimensions are Overall: 7.80" X 28.00" X 3.50" . It is rated for 760 CFM's @ .5 psi pressure drop. I'm only going to be looking @ 400 to 500 cfms max with the current setup. I also went with 2.5 inch piping all around, save the supercharger output (3"). I don't want Marcus to go on another rant. :wink:

Here are a couple of thumbs of the supercharger setup:

http://xs67.xs.to/pics/06060/pulley.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs67&d=06060&f=pulley.jpg)
http://xs67.xs.to/pics/06060/sideways.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs67&d=06060&f=sideways.jpg)

TurboXS 25mm BOV: Highly recommend larger.

http://xs67.xs.to/pics/06060/Bov.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs67&d=06060&f=Bov.jpg)

Treadstone Intercooler:

I am very impressed with the quality of this unit for the price. It is a 200 dollar intercooler. This company rates intercoolers by CFMs @ .5 psi drop. They have multiple vertical flow designs that I'd love to rock. I opted for a horizontal for price, size, and since it is all I need. I highly recommend this size for a lower boost application. It is mounted above the bottom of the frame with no modification other than removing the wired stuff up there. Horns, etc... It may require a very slight modification to the bumper support thingy, but it will be minimal.

Nice looking welds:

http://xs67.xs.to/pics/06060/welds.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs67&d=06060&f=welds.jpg)

Inlet pic:

http://xs67.xs.to/pics/06060/inlet.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs67&d=06060&f=inlet.jpg)

This intercooler requires either welding / tapping for brackets, or you can do what I did. Bought a few feet of aluminum bar and bent it in the vice to make a hook type bracket. It bolts up to the existing M8 x 1.25 bolt holes in the radiator support braces:

http://xs67.xs.to/pics/06060/bracket.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs67&d=06060&f=bracket.jpg)

I've got some good runs in with the setup as is. It runs pretty strong, but I've got a minor belt slippage issue to tend to at mid to high rpms. This is due to the fact that my bracket needs a small spacer to run completely true and I've only been running one of my two tensioner/adjuster bolts. Mostly cause I'm lazy. I've got no numbers to throw out just yet, but I'll work on it. Mostly it just feels good to be able to boost reliably without worrying about breaking stuff or poppin' off hoses.

Plus I just installed the OBX HLSD only a couple of days back, so I can put the power to the ground. After some early frustration with this car, it finally feels like things are picking up steam. Should make for a decent little track car/daily driver.

Hope you enjoyed my anecdote.

-Steve

[WILDACEX187]

cool set up. wat s/c is that you are using?

[240shorty]

Eaton M62 positive displacement
Mercedes SLK 230 kompressor
1 liter displacement per rev
2 to 1 pulley ratio

[240shorty]

Woohooh!, very good news. I went up town and got a longer adjusting bolt for the charger. I tightened it up and guess what? No more squealing belts. But that is not the good part. Turns out, the belt slippage was worse than I thought. At ~6000 rpms and no slip, the stock MAF is reaching 93%!!!

This should be enough air to be running somewhere around 250 horsepower. This is more than I anticipated. Before changing the bolt, I was seeing only low 80's on the SAFC2. Needless to say, the car is feeling pretty good now. After I figure the horsepower drop to the compressor, it should be weighing in around the 225 mark. Of course these are only estimations, but it's looking real good.

I wanted to get into the mid 13's with this setup and I think it is very feasible; perhaps in the near future. Darned track doesn't open till April 9th. I am going to look for a dyno nearby to get some numbers.

Also, I may yet have some small boost leaks to find. I know my charcoal canister lines are venting to the open air. I'm not sure if those will leak? I also want to double check all of my welds to make sure they are air tight and I ordered some T bolt clamps as I am currently using regular hose clamps.

Sorry if I got a bit excited there, but dammit, I am!

-Steve

[aznpoopy]

congratulations. post a video! :)

[WILDACEX187]

start making kits :). instant powa

[kay_arsen]

start making kits :). instant powa
yeah man

how much the setup cost

[ALTRNTV]

Ooh. Price please.

[neilsan]

that crank pulley adapter looks scary.

[240shorty]

Scary? It's solid man. Maybe you mean from a harmonics standpoint or the leverage from being so far forward? It is offset somewhat by the alternator pulley and the lack of A/C pulley. Unfortunately it's necessary in order to fit a non-restrictive supercharger inlet pipe on the rear and in front of the engine mount.

Cost rundown:

Supercharger 230 shipped
Pulley machine work 100
Metal plate and sheet ~30
Various nuts and bolts ~15?
Welding consumables ~30?
Piping kit 200
Intercooler 200
Bypass 120

Tuning:
SAFC2 300
Zeitronix ZT-2 400
Boost gauge 60

When you put it all down like that, the stuff adds up. A little over 1500 invested. Still pretty economical relative to most any other option, save nitrous, to get to this power level. There are certainly ways to do it even cheaper if you are frugal. If you ran a hacked MAF, you could possibly squeeze out around 6 or 7 hundred.

I fabricated the power steering bracket to make the last 3/4" of clearance needed for the belt to clear the supercharger. The S/C bracket is basically a hinged plate bolted to the stock A/C holes and is adjusted by bolts against another steel plate bolted to the lower two A/C bolt holes. Custom fabricated inlet and outlet for the S/C.

This is by no means a simple install on this engine, in this location. A kit would be difficult. I recommend anyone to give it a try though, it feels good to blaze your own trail.

Tools used/required:

Mig welder
Oxy-Acetylene cutting torch
Table saw w/ metal blade
VSR drill w/ titanium, cobalt, black oxide, whatever bits
Angle grinder
Bench grinder
Decent selection of hand tools

You could get away w/out some of that, but more tools makes for faster progress.

Something to consider though is that upgrading is limited. With this compressor, I imagine 12 or 13 psi would be a reasonable limit. Beyond this, expect high temps and excessive supercharger speed to rapidly diminish returns and longevity. The next upgrade would probably be a sequential, twin charged setup blowing thru a large turbo.

Twin screw (lysholm) or centrifugal would be good options too. I'd love to see someone pull one of those off.

I want to make a vid. I do have cameras, but my internet sucks. I'll work on it. I pulled it into an MSU parking garage today and gave it a few revs. It has a sound of it's own and definately sounds mean, if not a little too loud. But I like it. Alot.

-Steve

[Shift_180]

im in the process of doing one. it will be a roots style kit thats all im allowed to say lol.

[andrewmp6]

the idea is good just looks kinda ghetto made only thing i really see wrong is the crank pulley is why to big

[TheSnail]

^ If you are trying to say "way too big", please explain...

[240shorty]

the idea is good just looks kinda ghetto made only thing i really see wrong is the crank pulley is why to big


Ghetto fab is my specialty. The crank needs to be that big. Definitely can't run a mech. fan anymore. All the stuff in there is trial and error stuff. I cut up my first set of brackets and used them as donor metal for the seconds. At the time, I wasn't sure how it would even end up. I could, and may at some point, remake everything and make it 'pretty'. But that wasn't, and isn't a big concern for me at this point. *Bling* falls at the bottom of my list. It is more important to others. Form follows function.

-Steve

[TheSnail]

^ nevermind andrewpm6, he is an idiot. Last time I was here he did not exist. The nats will go away.

Anyways nice setup. I did a very similar set up using the same supercharger, but I did not modify the crank pully like you did. Props on the custom pulley, and the kit as a whole.

[i8yourfwd]

Wow, very nice dude. Cheap, but decent hp setup. I like it alot :) Props to you.

[Neejay]

Good job man.

[andrewmp6]

thesail your the same idiot that said the vg30deett and rb25det used the same valves and they dont

[240shorty]

Snail, I have seen your old setup. Read your post on here awhile back, but the pic links were dead. I've also seen it used on a Subaru and a Toyota kit track car, but their results were less than what I'd call impressive, horsepower wise. I didn't see how much you made.

I pulled out my knock sensor today. I've had an DTC #34 since I got the car, so I know I'm missing some power due to that. No sense in boosting if I'm gonna give back half of the power to retarded timing.

Thanks for the kind (and unkind) words.

-Steve

[wootwoot]

I want to see dyno charts a this bitch. Please do it soon!

[nissanhprulz]

WOW nice setup looks real nice...

[240shorty]

I want to see dyno charts a this bitch. Please do it soon!


I want to see them too, but I've got to wait at least another week. I completely thrashed my clutch. It drives, but it is broken and vibrates under throttle. It will not hold power anywhere above maybe half throttle. I'll try and do it as soon as possible.

[SR240DET]

i wounder if you can add a little bit higher compression pistons since its kinda low boost

looks like ill be bustin out the books for this one tomorrow...

[wootwoot]

Also, I diddnt see this anywhere in the posts but maybe my brain/eyes are just dumbies; How much boost are you pushing through this beast? and, come on! Get exhaust on this puppy. I can see that stock manifold sitting down there and it has to be causing somewhat serious restriction with so much more air being flowed through this deal. They arent to much money at all if you go Megan style or something similar =)
Hopefully my eyes are not flawed..

[240shorty]

I do have 3" exhaust all the way back, but I have not got a header for it yet. That is probably one of my next upgrades.

Boost wise, it is about 10, and it varies slightly with loading. I took it out for a drive today after bypassing my bad knock sensor. I managed to max out the stock MAF @ 6500 rpms, despite a badly slipping clutch. I can't get into it off the line, but if I ease onto the throttle and slowly increase, it will hold.

http://xs68.xs.to/pics/06070/safc2.jpg (http://xs.to)

My timing is set at 18* or 19* and I'm running AFRs in the 11's. It didn't explode, which is good.

I'm really wishing I'd just ordered a centerforce clutch from summit. I'd probably have it back in by now.

[Rogue240sx]

you've just got me interested supercharging again. I wish someone would just sell a bracket and pulley setup though. It would make my life that much easier. where's the airfilter located?

[Pank]

thesail your the same idiot that said the vg30deett and rb25det used the same valves and they dont

and you're the idiot who cant even correctly spell the name of the person he's insulting, and who flat out just made up a new engine code.

to the OP:
props to the custom work, cant wait to hear it

[240shorty]

I have been putting this off for over a week, but it's time I updated.

This will come as a large disappointment to those who have been following this and/or want to build/buy their own supercharger setup. I have hit a 'bump in the road' and have decided to go another way.

First the story.

The sequence goes somthing like this. I had just replaced the KA in my Zenki, due to developing a rod knock (while running N/A oddly enough) while I was trying to run down a power issue. This is probably 3 weeks ago. Went down to Carlock, IL and picked up a new engine. Swapped it and ran it N/A for around a week. Then, the weekend before last, I decided to go to Chicago. I installed the S/C for the trip and it was running great. After moving the boost guage behind the throttle plate, I was only reading about 5 psi, so I had plans to go to a larger, aluminum pulley. I'm not sure why the large discrepancy on the gauge, but before I was reading pretty close to 10 psi and never below 7 or 8 even at WOT. This was with the gauge placed before the throttle plate. I don't think a fully open throttle plate is much of a restriction.

The car ran very well nearly the entire trip. Approx 8 hours round trip. Pretty good power on the highway. And the sound... man I love that sound. On the return trip I got dealt a harsh blow. I was just cruising down the highway at a steady clip. Suddenly I hear noise up under the hood followed by something banging loudly and violently on the bottom of my car. I get to the shoulder with the quickness. I pop the hood, expecting the worse. I find that the crank pulley (which is ironically, the ONLY piece I had welded by the machine shop) has been severed from the crank pulley and has gone it's own seperate way. I walked back up the highway and find the mangled remains of my former supercharger pulley.

Before you dismiss the whole idea. I know why this happened and it is preventable. The guy at the machine shop only essentially tacked the outer rim of the pulley to the crank pulley, rather than welding around the entire circumferance. He used about 8 short runs around it and left much unwelded. In hindsight, I should've welded the remainder myself, but figured his work would hold up. Obviously it did not.

So here I am smack dab in the middle of a moral dilemna. Do I continue down this road or go another way? The factors:

I don't like the inaccessiblity of the supercharger in it's current location. Installation involved removal of the power steering. The charger had to be put in without either the inlet or outlet piping. Installing these while mounted required alot of time and effort as all of the bolts are in confined spaces. All in all, removal or installation of the supercharger in this position was a tedious multiple hour job.

I have not liked having so much leverage on the crank pulley so far forward from the beginning. It was necessary for this mounting. I question the long term longevity of such a setup.

The ultimate potential of this setup with the M62 is not that high. 12 psi or so maybe.

I've got a stroked 5.0L looking for a home. I was having thoughts of V8 power.

My brother just grenaded his turbo, and is doing a V8 swap, leaving me with a mani and wastegate and I already have the necessary goods to go turbo. Turbo option becomes a serious contender.

I wanted to build an M90 based, top mounted supercharger setup, but was hampered by my lack of TIG welder (aluminum) and the cost of another supercharger. (I was until yesterday, still layed off.)
___

So after hashing it all through, I've decided to go with the tried and true KA-T. I've got a pretty large Holset (H1C) arriving Thursday and hope to be up and running in short order. My wastegate is set @ 11.8 psi stock, so I intend to start there.
___

FWIW. I would very much like to have built a setup around an M90 using a modified intake on some custom bracketry. I think this would be the ticket, allowing both a smaller crank pulley and allowing it to be closer to the engine block. Were I to try this again, that is what I'd attempt. Or a twin screw in the same location.

I don't want this to dissuade anyone from trying something similar. It DID work, It CAN work, and I'd maintain that it could make solid power. And for the record, I don't know that I've heard a meaner sounding engine. I've simply decided to try something different.

-Steve

[Rogue240sx]

just out of curiosity what are you doing with the supercharger stuff?

[aznpoopy]

damn i'm sorry to hear that.

why don't you just weld that pulley back on and rock it for the time being. you already put so much work into it man...

[fatalfury64]

yeah. you should weld it back and continue with the supercharger.

[240shorty]

The pulley is toast. It got bent badly trying to make it under my car. It is a long tapered pulley which is not common, pulled from a pile of engines at the local yard. I have absolutely NO idea what it came off of or where to find another one like it. My turbo gets here tomorrow and I figure on installing it immediately, so 'the time being' is too short for the effort. I don't mind having 'wasted' so much time on it; I was layed off anyway and I learned a great deal doing it.

Right now I have all the piping and brackets lying in a bin. I'm reusing all the piping. The supercharger I'm not sure, but I do have a CRX that is pretty darned slow. :naughty:

The whole design was fairly simple. It used a pair of door hinges welded to a metal mounting plate for the supercharger, which were bolted to the top A/C bolt holes. Adjustment was acheived by a bolt between the top front s/c bolt to a piece of modified angle iron which bolted beneath the lower PS bracket and extended forward toward the radiator. This allowed clearance for the PS belt. My modified PS bracket was easy enough. It was a squarish plate with two ears attached to it to raise the PS by 3/4" or so. I had also modified the adjusting bracket to eliminate the lower bolt hole, replacing it with a tab for more clearance.

That is most of the required work. I don't really recommend using this mounting for the charger in this location for the reasons previously stated. Clearance to the side rails is minimal; clearance to the sway bar is minimal; clearance to the motor mount is nearly touching, and you can't install it with the front jacked up because it will bind. Clearance to the distributor is a fraction of an inch. With all of this, the pulley is still several inches forward from the crank pulley, and the supercharger belt requires a great deal of tension to prevent slippage.

All of these factors plus the ease of changing to turbo should help you understand why I'm changing my mind. To continue with the supercharger, I'd only be satisfied with a full redesign and even then I'd still be limited in power potential. Eventually I might end up in the same spot as I am right now, so I'll call it like it is and make the switch.

I could do a twin screw or centrifugal, but the cost and effort would greatly exceed the reward for me. I haven't the time anymore and it would set me back considerably. I want to track my car this summer, and this (turbo) seems like the fastest way to my goals.

I think there are still a few others working on something; hopefully the idea doesn't die here.

-Steve

[aznpoopy]

well at least we know it works and how it can be done. good job on that...

good luck with your future plans

[BLKS13]

Do they make kits or no?

I've been looking around trying to get some solid information on a s/c for a ka.


If you know link's, post em up.

Thanks in advance.

Btw: nice setup bro. Looking forward to seeing a vid!!

[blackflag_Rms13]

1) No kits, custom fab...

2) 8 month old thread ;)

[Pank]

yeah, i was getting ready to make fun of that guy that trolled TheSnail, but then realized i already did it EIGHT MONTHS AGO

[aznpoopy]

Btw: nice setup bro. Looking forward to seeing a vid!!

you won't get one... the crank pulley grenaded on him because the shop did shitty welding and he decided to go ka turbo.

[zugoi]

Well i think there was a soundclip of the car. It sounded really nice.

[sposa]

Hey can i have some pics of the supercharger and accesories?

[dub40sx]

holy shit. 3 years old man! 3. Learn to PM people

[Phlip]

3 years and a bump, when there are 2 threads from this quarter with more current information and pictures.
I appreciate the attempt to search, but laud the application of the information gained.