supercharged, ZQ8 converted daily-driver

Joined: 05 Sep 2007 Posts: 109

Purpose: make a reasonably quick daily-driver that could handle piss-poor roads, 5 months of winter/snow, lots of highway driving, and occasional hauling/towing. When I started I had no mechanical skills or money so an engine swap wasn't an option. I also wanted the option of putting it back to stock if I ever wanted to sell/trade it.

I started with a low mileage 2003 extended cab sonoma with the Z85 suspension/towing package.
The first thing I did was fancy it up with a canopy, a class 3 hitch, a uhaul trailer, 2500lbs worth of crap, and then drove it 5400kms across Canada

After 50+ hours of driving in 7 days I realized the 60/40 split bench had to go so I swapped in a set of 8-way power leather buckets from a crewcab sonoma. You can see the old seats on the table

Before I planned on the blower I added the typical bolt-ons - March underdrive pullies, an ebay CAI, and a hypertech programmer. That made a noticable difference in performance but it wasn't particularly satisfying Smile

Joined: 05 Sep 2007 Posts: 109

The stance obviously sucked and needed to be addressed. Since it was daily driven in snow I didn't want to go too low and I was also on a budget. I picked up a set of ZQ8 coils and bilstein shocks for almost nothing and added 3" blocks and a ZQ8 swaybar in the rear (still no pics of the swaybar).

I picked up a set of 16x8 wheels and 245/50 tires off of a 2000 Trans am for dirt cheap off of Ebay and found 2" spacers to fit them

The power steering box had crapped out during the cross-country drive so after lots of half-assed patches I finally found a basically new ZQ8 box and swapped that in. This is not something I would repeat without some knowledgable help. I figured it would be a good "learning" project - I was wrong!

Joined: 05 Sep 2007 Posts: 109

At some point I decided that I wasn't happy with the power and found a used powerdyne kit on s10forum for about $1k. Despite what the seller said it needed a rebuild - headunit bearings aren't supposed to come out in pieces!

After alot of screwing around with shops I found a great shop to help me put it in and tune it - AFI performance here in Edmonton. The kit was also missing a bunch of pieces but fortunately there was another truck at AFI with a busted powerdyne that we stole some parts off of Very Happy

. The tubing is 3.5" steel and I'm running a Greddy type-S BOV. For some reason it also came with an 8-rib pulley which I eventually replaced. Pic's of the initial install

For fuelling I picked up a Cartech adjustable FMU that got mounted on the tranny crossmember

Joined: 05 Sep 2007 Posts: 109

I forgot to mention exhaust - I had a custom 2.5" catback bent up with a dynomax ultraflow muffler before I got the S/C on - sound clip
http://videos.streetfire.net/video/6bff95e8-d5ae-42da-a02e-9981013a342e.htm

column mount boost gauge - with the 2.75" pulley it was hitting 9 psi on the dyno

Before I got the FMU on we tried to tune it a few times but the 8-rib pulley and lack of fuel were obviously problems. The belt would skip around at high rpms and it ran out of fuel at about 4000 rpms. I think the best second gear dyno pull below 4000 rpms was 200 rwhp but I didn't even keep the graph. At least it sounded good - here's a vid from one of the dyno runs

While waiting for another appointment to have it tuned the headunit bearings let go again while sitting at a stop light?? Shocked

Probably from over-tightening the belt to compensate for the 8-rib pulley - at least that's what I'm telling myself! I sent the headunit to 928 motorsports and got the super-powerdyne rebuild with their redesigned billet impeller, input shaft, and ceramic bearings, housing polish, venting etc...

Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 5:16 am

prettttyyy cool

Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 7:17 am

Glad you made the party Tyson!

Joined: 08 Jan 2008 Posts: 64

mmmmmm....supercharger

Joined: 05 Sep 2007 Posts: 109

Thanks guys!

to continue the riviting story Very Happy

... 928motorsports claimed that the super rebuild would push about 20% more boost (maybe 11 psi now?). It definately builds boost alot quicker with the new headunit parts and the truck feels much stronger on the low end than it did before. I still haven't pushed it to redline yet though so I'm not sure what the peak boost is going to be.

I figured I needed to do something to protect against knock/detonation, especially since the fuelling system isn't so hot. I picked up a progressive methanol injection system off of ebay and I'm in the process of working out the kinks in that now before I have the truck tuned again.

I mounted the pump and controller on the heat shield for my intake and tapped the windshield washer tank for the meth supply.
(mocked up - i ground off the screws on the final install)

not sure why they made the tubing red, it kind of sticks out. the charge piping was thick enough to tap it for the injector threads so it was an easy install

After I got it installed and wired up I realized I had the wrong MAF sensor controller. The new part should be here any day and then it's off to the dyno.

I'm also going to pick up a 2.25" y-pipe from CRMB on s10forum and I've got a flexalite FLX220 e-fan in the garage that I need to install. It'd be nice to get those on before the dyno runs to tack a few more HP on the graph but if that doesn't happen it won't be the end of the world Razz

Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 6:39 pm

Looking good T I'm running the 210 fans also I love them I made a pretty nice aluminum shroud. The only thing that I can complain about is that they are loud. BUUUUT I just noticed they came out with an S-Blade version see link below and I'm gonna find out if they will fit on the older fans for quieter/better performance. I'll let you know what I figure out also if you are looking for a controller you have three options 1) the stock bordon tube/cappilary gimmick (i don't like that) 2) the VSC (I'm running it right now and I like it) or 3) I talked to current performance a while ago (see second link) and he said he might make up a harness that'll let the OBDII computer run the fans. I'm planning on switcing to this when the custom tune gets done for the blower.

http://www.flex-a-lite.com/auto/html/whatsnew.html

scroll down and look at the 410 fan

http://currentperformance.com/index.html

Call and talk to Jared I never did follow up on the harness

Joined: 05 Sep 2007 Posts: 109

Thanks for the info Persio. I haven't gotten the wiring to run the fan yet so I'm going to shop around for a VSC controller. The blower is pretty loud now after the rebuild so another noise won't make much difference!

I picked up the new meth-injection controller yesterday and it should only take a few minutes to get on - the pigtail is the same as the previous controller so I basically just need to mount it and plug it in. The weather has been great here lately too so now I'm itching to get the fat tires on and get the tune finished!

Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2008 1:15 am

Cool no problem. Hey how is the Fire Chicken doin?

Joined: 01 Feb 2008 Posts: 564 Location: Warner Robins, Ga

awesome truck man, i love that supercharger whine.

Joined: 05 Sep 2007 Posts: 109

The firechicken is running/driving like new but still looking like a bag of ass!! Very Happy

I got the meth working over the weekend and it made some noticable power right off the bat. I'll schedule the dyno tune this week and see how it goes. Here's a few short vids - 1st is launching at a few psi with winter tires and sandbags in the back and the second is merging onto the freeway. I suck with the camera work but it's better than nothing I guess

Joined: 05 Sep 2007 Posts: 109

painted the wheels this past weekend

Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 10:27 pm

It's hard to tell from the angle what were you going for? The Hyper-Black look?

Looks nice though.

Joined: 05 Sep 2007 Posts: 109

they're sort of a gunmetal grey or charcoal I guess

Joined: 01 Feb 2008 Posts: 564 Location: Warner Robins, Ga

looks good man. i like it.

Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 5:12 pm

rentedmule wrote:

they're sort of a gunmetal grey or charcoal I guess

That green stripe is ugly...lol

I'm surprized at how well they look on the truck. I never liked those rims on the Firebird or T/A, whatever it was.

Joined: 05 Sep 2007 Posts: 109

they almost went on the truck with that fancy green stripe - I forgot about the tape until I was mounting them! The wheels probably wouldn't have been my first choice either but the deal was too good to pass up

Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 10:33 pm

They do look good on your truck though. Mr. Green

Joined: 11 Mar 2008 Posts: 40 Location: Fresno, CA

Wow! those rims have never looked better!

Joined: 15 Jan 2008 Posts: 135 Location: New Jersey

awesome project

Joined: 05 Sep 2007 Posts: 109

update time! As some of you already know the S/C headunit crapped out on me again so I'm contemplating ditching it and going with a different power adder (like alot of powerdyne customers Very Happy

). I'm reasonably confident that I'll have the headunit repaired under warranty but I'm not sure I want to put it back on the truck for reliability reasons.

If 928 motorsports can convince me without a doubt that it'll be reliable I may consider it but otherwise I'll sell it. I'm thinking a 75-100 shot with a dyno tune will be cheaper and easier but we'll see how it goes! I may even have money left over to get some suspension bits so I can hang with you guys on the corners!

Joined: 13 Feb 2008 Posts: 186 Location: Statesboro, Ga

Since you've already got the pipes for boost, why not sell the headunit and put a turbo between the y-pipe and Cat converter? It'll need some new pipes for routing, a wideband o2 sensor, and perhaps some tuning, but you'd make the same power or better with more reliability. Your mileage may improve too.

Joined: 05 Sep 2007 Posts: 109

I could definately make more power more reliably with a turbo setup but almost nothing from the S/C kit itself could be reused. I could use the FMU, the meth injection system and the boost gauge but the rest would have to be fabbed up. Turbo systems are pretty involved, even the remote mounts. I wish I would have gone that route from the beginning but I had very little knowledge about the actual mechanicals 1.5 years ago when I got the S/C and I wanted something that required minimal custom work. Money is the bigger issue right now though, I'm not sure I can actually afford anything else if I get rid of the S/C!

Joined: 05 Sep 2007 Posts: 109

Apparently I haven't updated this in a long damn time!

The S/C went back on the truck with a much larger pulley (2 sizes up) and it's been problem-free for months since. 928 only charged $100 for replacement parts. I'm down to 7-8 psi now and it made ~225 rwhp on the dyno. I have a feeling there's more in the tune but the shop seemed to be getting annoyed with the truck so I didn't push it. It's not a monster but the throttle response is great and it'll light the tires easy enough.

On the handling side all I've done since the last update was install a 33mm front swaybar (once upside-down and once rightside-up) and poly bushings on the mounts/links

Also a billet grill and crappy new mirrors - speedy

Joined: 13 Feb 2008 Posts: 186 Location: Statesboro, Ga

The grille looks great.

Joined: 01 Feb 2008 Posts: 564 Location: Warner Robins, Ga

nice man, sucks you had to lose some psi, but drivability is more important.

Joined: 15 Jan 2008 Posts: 135 Location: New Jersey

That's what I like to hear! This truck is awesome, keep going with it

Joined: 05 Sep 2007 Posts: 109

Got my E-fan installed this weekend

Joined: 29 Oct 2008 Posts: 48

Thats 75rwhp Very Happy

HAHA! JK! I want a efan... Cant gut spending so much money on a flexalite and wiring harness... $$$$$$$$$

Joined: 13 Feb 2008 Posts: 186 Location: Statesboro, Ga

No need to spend alot of money on an e-fan setup. My used olds aurora fan only cost me $13 and it blows my old $120 permacool fan out of the water. Thermostatic controllers range in price from about $25 to $100 depending on what kind of features you want.

Joined: 01 Jun 2008 Posts: 232 Location: Whitmore Lake, MI

BudRacing wrote:

No need to spend alot of money on an e-fan setup. My used olds aurora fan only cost me $13 and it blows my old $120 permacool fan out of the water. Thermostatic controllers range in price from about $25 to $100 depending on what kind of features you want.

They can also be pinned off the computer if you know someone with a tuner or send your computer out to one.

Joined: 05 Sep 2007 Posts: 109

I put about $150 into the e-fan total but I also sold some old parts to recoupe some cash so it worked out well. I've done the TB blade mod, descreened the MAF, and put the e-fan on all in the last week or so - it makes a pretty big difference in throttle response Smile

.

Joined: 05 Sep 2007 Posts: 109

Got a good deal on a set of ZO6 wheels today so these will be going on next summer.

One needs minor repairs and one major as you can see from the pic. They came with 265/40-17 front and 295/35-18 rear Eagle F1's so hopefully that'll resolve some of the traction issues for the next autoX Very Happy