Hey everyone

Well I finally got the blower installed and running. I took the car out for a short drive to test things out. After 4 months it's nice to be able to drive the thing again. The Aeromotive pump is loud as hell! I kept the car under 3,800 rpms when I drove around. When I was out I noticed a few things that I hope someone can help me with.

1. The air/fuel gauge is worthless, basically a light show. The gauge seems to work fine.

2. When I open the hood of the car I noticed that the pully on top of the harmonic balancer seems to wobble a little during idle(that or a coloration on the belt gives this impression). When I reved the engine a friend told me the wobble appeared to go away. Is this attributed to the same problem that many people are dealing with concerning the washers and bolt? I only have one washer that came with the kit. Do I just need to torque the bolt on more? I followed ATI's instructions related to that. I also notice a tack tack tack sound coming from the same area.

3. After I took the car out I noticed a higher pitch wine almost as though a small pully was rubbing on something or something else was making contact. It went away again when I pulled into the drive way. I also did not get any SES lights or anything that would indicate that the kit was installed incorrectly. I understand that the supercharger is going to wine, but this sounded like something rubbing. Are there any checklists I should follow to verify that the belt system and pulleys are setup correctly?

4. How do I know I am not getting any belt slip? I noticed on my boost gauge that it sits on 20 (vacume) most of the time until I am under boost. Then it jumps above 10. How do I know I am making 8lbs of boost? Is the gauge accurate enough to make that kind of judgement from?

Please list anything you think I should check or do to make sure my install was correct. Everything seems to be ok, but I want to make sure. I am going to take it easy on the car until 300 miles and retune the belts, oil etc.

Sincerely
Badz2801

 

here are my thoughts.
is the blower pulley clearing the alternator pulley?
is the tensioner pully straight ( square ) on the bracket ( most likely it is since you are making boost, but just make sure)

the crank pulley should be flat with the crank "balancer", go under the car and try to rotate the crank pulley or shake it from side to side, it should not move. if it does then you have to either add washers or cut the bolt down.

the A/F guage is junk , donate it!

do you have the aeromotive pump on all the time? or does it come on under boost?

if the guage is saying 10 psi then i guess you are making it, but!! :
the boost should come in gradually and you said it made 10 psi and you never took it past 3800?

where do you have the boost guage connected?

to check for belt slippage monitor your boost guage under acceleration (not sure of this method when it comes to your situation), if the belt is slipping you'll see the boost climb up then drop or not climb up anymore.

another way is to go under the car and check for black ruber powder around the alternator and blower bracket, that should be a good indication of slippage.

hope this helps.

 

I had the same problems with my procharger that i bought for my 66 nova. The quality of the kit is pretty poor, unless things have changed since i bought mine. I had to make custom spacers to get everything to line up like it was supposed to. Unfortunately this was after destroying about 5 belts at 40 bucks a piece. The only advice i can give is to make sure everything is lined up like its supposed to, because mine wasnt even close.

 

1dirtyZ: Thanks for the help.

I checked the ATI pulley + stock crank pulley this morning. It does not wobble when I pull or push on it. It does not rotate free of the belt system either. I re-torqued this morning only to find that it was still secure and nothing had changed. I still however get the tack tack tack noise, and it looks like it wobbles. I will check for black dust tomrrow.

My Aeromotive pump is run by my Aeromotive PSC. It sounds like it is always on but increases speed as the rpms go up. The pump is also extremely loud and annoying. If it were my daily driver I would have a serious problem with this. I guess when I run FLP headers (no cats) + loudmouth it wont be so noticable <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="gr_grin.gif" /> .

The way I got the boost gauge to go up is to pepper the gas hard yet not exceed 3,800 rpms. It goes up suddently and then back down. I have the boost gauge connected to the brake booster. It looks just like Taxmans setup except without the hobbs switch/surge valve.

Also do you think I should port/descreen my stock MAFS? I was told the screen helps to evenly distribute air flow.

01Z28vert:
I think this might be the cause of things not lining up correctly as well. I used what I thought were the correct spacers for the job and it does not appear to be throwing any belts. I think I am going to put the thing up on ramps and watch it run from underneith. I hopefully I will be able to determine what is happening. When I was installing the thing I changed the spacers numerous times trying to get the best combo. I still thought when it was all said and done that the blower still looked a little skewed.

I definatly did notice that some areas on the kit were not up to par. The instructions flat out suck, and are outdated with the new kit. My kit came with the plastic air box instead of the normal sheet metal version. Based on what I know now, I could have put together the kit from parts for less than I bought it. I also could have found new, better types of material to construct them out of. All that rubber tubing + blower weighs a ton which is very noticable when turning now. I am going to try and lighten the front end with some tube parts, replacing the factory stuff. Im looking for 100lbs off the front end.

Thanks for all of your help, ill keep you posted.

Sincerely
Badz2801

 

what mods and what pullies do you have??
i agree on the aero motive part, the pump is noisy. the old setup used a hobbs switch that activated the pump under boost.

don't descreen your maf! you're going to have surging problems if you do.

you said that "it comes up suddenly then goes down" , did you mean the boost reading?
if it is and that happenes while still flooring it , then you probably have slippage ( make sure by taking a look, also check the belt for missing grooves/ribs).

 

I wouldnt think you should hit 10psi for any reason if you dont go above 3800 RPMs even if it is to the floor. My original ati pulley wobbled a little. Never had any issues with it on the road. I do not know yet if the MMS pulley is going to do the same thing since I just got it put in last night. Thanks again for that advice on the bolt badz2801. I have a walbro inline pump thats on all the time and it is louder than hell. I'm going to try putting some sound dampener under the car in that area and maybe under the carpet on the inside of the car. Anoying! I have gotten pretty use to it though. Mostly because I dont really have much of a choice. Good luck with your boostage.

 

Were you sure to clean the inside of the factory crank pulley out very well. Kinda neglected that on mine and it didn't sit quite flat at first, but straightened it out with enough gentle tapping of a hammer. I would also recommend leaving the maf as-is. Your saying the vacuum gauge goes from inbetween 10 and 20 on the vacuum side, to over 10 on the boost side, then falls back down? You sure that's the right pulley?? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="gr_grin.gif" /> At around 3k rpms, you should be able to floor it and the needle will move towards 0 from the left side and pass it to about 3 or 4 on the right, basically instantaneously. The af gauge can be usefull. After comparing atap readings you'll learn how many greens equal how many mV. If you see anything other than green under wot, then you have a problem.

 

1dirtyZ: As of now I do not have any engine mods on the car. I had a lid + GMAFS and usual free mods but those have since been removed. I run the stock 2001 346 ls1 block. I have a stage III clutch and suspension mods.

The boost guage when I jab the gas jumps up past 10 and then falls back below 20 when I let off the gas. The gauge reads vaccume at all times (I think this is correct I was worried about fuel pressure the most). I will take it back out and see what the boost gauge reads again. I will also check the belt again since I am going to take it off to make sure everything is correct. I have the 8psi system, ill check the numbers on the pulley when I take it off.

Thanks for the info on the screen, do you think I should port it at all? I know that less restriction is better but I dont want to have problems.

1slowCamaro: Thanks for the tip on the pulley and no problem for the info on the bolt. I thought about using some of that sound reducing material as well. I am trying to keep my car light so I dont think ill be doing that though.

AzzHauler: I cleaned it pretty good, my car is also in like new condition (10,000 miles). I keep it extremely clean (not that it couldn't still be the problem). Yes the gauge only reads vacuume and does fall back down below 20. I dont get anywhere near 3 or 4. Thanks for the info on the guage ill give it a shot when I take the car out. It is raining today, so my baby will have to wait for another day.

Also what should the car feel like when I get on the gas? From the testing I did, it did not seem any faster than stock. At WOT what should it feel like? Should I break my Nittos loose at WOT with an M6? I know that dumping the clutch will make them spin, but should they spin when just flooring it (during the winter I could do this stock)?

Sincerely
Badz2801

<small>[ April 07, 2003, 10:14 AM: Message edited by: badz2801 ]</small>

 

from the way you describe it your never even going into boost.

the gauge has to swing past the zero into the numbers on the right hand side. the numbers on the right of the zero are measuring boost. if it stays left of the zero thats just vacum.

 

Correct it reads vacuume only. Does this mean my gauge is incorrectly installed or am I not getting any boost? I would assume that I have to be getting some boost for the engine to run.

 

I have an M6 and my Nittos do not spin right when I floor it. But thats when its 70+ degrees out. Once the car gets to maybe 2K - 2.5K rpms they start to spin in first. I know you probably checked but are all your hoses tight? I cant believe you're not getting any boost. Getting my kit to work correctly has been a pain. I was everything but impressed when I took it out for the first drive. I was use to a 150 shot of N20 and the supercharger fun factor is poop compared to nitrous when talking about throttle response. I do believe nothing can beat the response of N20. My setup still has bugs in it like a leaking passenger side header which is severely hurting my power because of the effect it has on the passenger side O2 sensor. I also still have the gay stock clutch which cant hold anything. My power on the dyno dropped after 5200 rpms which must have been clutch slip or belt slip. Once you get it to run how it was meant to run you will be happy with it. Good luck!

 

no you don't have to get any boost for it to run.

if you don't give the car enough throttle you will never produce enough load to go into boost. I have acutally seen quite a few people make this initial mistake thinking it's purely based on rpm

boost is based on rpm AND load.

how much throttle are you giving it? I am now guessing your babying it with maybe 1/4 to 1/3 throttle.

try flooring it from a 2,000 rpm roll. by 4,000 rpm you should see a couple psi of boost. don't rev it up to 6k if your not confident in your tune. but floor it until about 4,000rpm and tell us what you see on the guage. If it doesn't swing over past zero into the 3-4psi range something is wrong.

 

Ok great ill give it a shot. I think my tune is fine as GWP did it. I just wanted to make sure I did not break anything the first time out. I also checked all my hoses three times before I started it.

Sincerely
Badz2801

 

Sounds like something is not hooked up right.

If you get boost, you WILL notice performance WAY different from stock.

Double-check your installation.