Blower removal ends up with a surprise!

Bigggy · Jul 16, 2014

Hey folks, I'm posting here in order to have some answers to my questions and also have some comments.

Long story short, I bought the car last year at 100K miles, there was a good amount of mods done to it and the price was pretty good. Well there was some problem with a front MM race strut, the alternator died after one week and the TOB disintegrated in a month after the pruchase. At that point I've replace everything except the input shaft (10 splines is fine with my power level and driving habbits). Previous owner bought it like this 4 years ago from svt864 here. According to the seller and what I've found here, the car made 470/497 at Steeda Canada HQ on 94. I'm currently running a mail order tune cause I can only get 91 here and I've verified my AF and it's rich at WOT, so at least thats safe. I intend to do some logging and do a retune.

That being said, the blower always had a bad noise (from the snout). So this week I started removing the blower in order to rebuild the snout (easier to be done with the blower removed). Look what I've found...

So!
The blower, IC and intake is gunky as hell...to much blow by? I have a Steeda oil separator connected on the PCV on the driver side.
The blower was, I think, home ported, that I didn't know...
Do you have any Idea of the marking on the IC, was it there from the fab of the IC?
How can I clean the blower, is there any problem running some cleaner in it?

FYI, I will be using all new gaskets and will also be cleaning the lower IM, cause it's also gunky.

Feel free to pinch in!

Tractionless1 · Jul 16, 2014

Normal, probably happened before the separator was installed. You actually need a catch to collect the oil as that works best. The Steeda is too small oil goes right through it. I had it and replaced with a larger container after seeing oil in my intake again, problem solved.

A machine shop or radiator shop "sonic clean" is the best way to clean the after cooler. It also does the inside of the after cooler. The outside of the blower can be done with brake parts cleaner or another degreaser.

Who is rebuilding the snout? ZZperformance who has parts also just replaced the pulley seal in mine, Jon Bond Performance also does them and has misc. parts for them. BTW the snout could have been removed with the blower on the car.

http://www.svtperformance.com/forum...l-Replace-in-Place-RE-Bolt-Behind-IC-Manifold

Sonic Cleaned After Cooler

Intake @ reassembly

Bigggy · Jul 16, 2014

Thanks for advice! I will be rebuilding the snout myself, I've got all the parts to do it.

Good to know about the sonic cleaning, I will try to find a good shop for that, worst case it will be the degreaser and brake cleaner.

For the Oil, I might buy a JLT instead of the Steeda, worth the cost you think?

I decided to completely removing the blower after seeing your post :bowdown:. I didn't wanted to mess with the bolt and it's not very complicated to remove the entire blower.

cj428mach · Jul 16, 2014

Tractionless1 said:
Normal, probably happened before the separator was installed. You actually need a catch to collect the oil as that works best. The Steeda is too small oil goes right through it. I had it and replaced with a larger container after seeing oil in my intake again, problem solved.

Can you post a picture of your setup?

My car came with the steeda and it caught a fair amount of oil and when I pulled the stock blower to put the whipple on my intercooler looked as good as yours after cleaning (my car only had 7500 miles on it). I removed the steeda and put a JLT on because it looked better but it doesn't seem to catch the oil the steeda did.

Bdubbs · Jul 16, 2014

LOL I was looking all over the pictures to find something abnormal.

Bigggy · Jul 16, 2014

Bdubbs said:
LOL I was looking all over the pictures to find something abnormal.

Haha it's the fact that I didn't know it was ported

.

Well I think the back needle bearing are shot..will post a video tomorrow morning.

Bdubbs · Jul 17, 2014

Bigggy said:
Haha it's the fact that I didn't know it was ported .

Well I think the back needle bearing are shot..will post a video tomorrow morning.

Think it's just a home port?

Bigggy · Jul 17, 2014

I think so cause I didn't see any marking from a professional porting company and as you can see, the porting job is not that "clean".

Here is a video of me just barely "taking the slack" in the rotors, no snout attached. It seems that the rotors are hitting eachother, might be the front rotor brearing are maybe the back needle bearings. I've found some shop on internet (Jon bond) that could supply such bearings, but I don't want to wait 2-3 weeks to have the car running. I might just buy a used eaton here and rebuild this one later.

[video]http://vid558.photobucket.com/albums/ss29/Bigggy172123/Blower%20removal/VID_20140716_212535.mp4[/video]

[video]http://vid558.photobucket.com/albums/ss29/Bigggy172123/Blower%20removal/VID_20140716_212303.mp4[/video]

FiveOhJoe · Jul 17, 2014

The oil on the IC and and blower is normal with a stock PCV setup. I switched to a breather tank setup. Got the tank from allstar performance. Ran hoses from each valve cover to the tank. Then I plugged the port at the bottom of the intake manifold with a brass plug. Then you have to plug the PCV port at the back of the blower and the one on the intake tube. Boom no more oil in the thupercharger. Oil mist can also decrease your octane of your air fuel mixture.

I think some of the buildup might come from the EGR system but I have no proof of that. Mine is delete as well as the PCV.

Use less RTV than that guy did for the blower to intercooler seal. I used just the Permatex black stuff.

Get new bolts from Ace. I believe they are M6. Use a heat gun to work out the bots that are currently installed. Torch will work too

Bigggy · Jul 18, 2014

For the time being I think I will keep the Steeda and monitor it very often, but I will go with a bigger catch-can for sure. The bolts holding the IC to the blower were fairly easy so remove, the guy didn't use lock tite for sure! and yes I will be using all new hardware, some were replaced with cheap flat-head bolts...

Black RTV was my intend, and yes less then that haha!.

Thanks for the advice!

I've just bought a used Stg5 ported blower from a member here, I will be rebuilding mine later, no time to do it now.

Tractionless1 · Jul 18, 2014

cj428mach said:
Can you post a picture of your setup?

My car came with the steeda and it caught a fair amount of oil and when I pulled the stock blower to put the whipple on my intercooler looked as good as yours after cleaning (my car only had 7500 miles on it). I removed the steeda and put a JLT on because it looked better but it doesn't seem to catch the oil the steeda did.

I have the JLT unit that sticks in the passenger side valve cover and uses the OE hose to the intake. I then have UPR's unit post OE PCV and a 1 way check valve after that in the OE system on the drivers side. I currently have zero oil in the blower when looking through the throttle body.

Bigggy said:
For the time being I think I will keep the Steeda and monitor it very often, but I will go with a bigger catch-can for sure.

The bolts holding the IC to the blower were fairly easy so remove, the guy didn't use lock tite for sure! and yes I will be using all new hardware, some were replaced with cheap flat-head bolts...

no time to do it now.

You're going to have to monitor it weekly as even if it isn't full oil vapor is going to bypass right across. Even with my UPR setup they now sell an internal separator to keep this from happening. I choose not to but it as I only have about 1/4" oil in the bottom of my can @ each oil change (when its emptied).

Good idea replacing the hardware, no reason to skimp. You may want to check out Cobra Engineering's upgraded IC manifold that attaches to the lower intake while you're in there.

Tell me about it!!!

Bigggy · Jul 19, 2014

Thanks for the details! Yeah I will monitor it frequently for the time being. I should receive the Stg5 ported blower on tuesday. I've also ordered a BAP just to be safe. Will install everything this week!

I will clean a bunch of that crap today. Taking also the valve cover off for a refresh.

Bigggy · Aug 1, 2014

There it is, blower received and painted wrinkle black, same for the valve covers!

Don't worry the blue you see around the COP is old paint from the shitty job from previous owner, for the time being it will be hidden , but I will eventually clean it.

Let me know what you think!