Well I finally have my Paxton supercharger kit installed and finished besides getting my vortech pump booster to work correctly. Here's my story:
Early June I get the go ahead from the wife. I'm currently stationed in Ft Gordon, Georgia but they have a great shop that I can do the install at so I make the call for the order to Terry from beefcake racing. Great help over the phone and helping me get everything I need. He up sales me the ID1000 injectors and the vortech programmable pump booster along with the email Jon Lund tune. About 2 weeks pass and I receive all the parts from vortech, but I am still waiting on a base tune file for the install. After contacting Terry a couple times about it I finally get the base file from Jon Lund Tuning.
Now the install. I got a buddy of mine to give me and hand and we had all weekend in the shop with all the tools needed. Started Saturday morning and went 6 hours that day. The guide supplied from paxton was in black and white. Highly recommend getting the colored PDF from them as it will make the install much easier. We ran into a couple of hitches mainly because of the guide. When I installed the new coolant res the guide said the a/c line had to be moved 2-3 inches for clearance. Of course I got to almost 2 inches and it busted the line. No big deal as I didn't have enough support on the bend of the pipe so it cracked open there. So I get a new line and was able to install it without bending it as there was plenty of clearance. So I'd recommend checking before risking it, but that was mostly my fault. Also my bracket with the pulleys was preassembled incorrectly, one of the pulleys was in the wrong position. Be sure to verify yours before mounting it. Rest of the install was pretty easy and straight forward until I got to the fan. This is where the colored manual can help as there are no measurements in the guide, just "cut to look like the picture" guide. We probably spent almost 2 hours on the fan alone cutting, installing, removing, and doing more cutting for the fitment. It gets super tight with all the I/C piping and installing the fan. I checked and rechecked all the modified coolant lines and I/C piping and refilled the coolant res. I plugged the battery back up and went to install the base tune. Fired right up and idled pretty good. Let it heat up and idle for a bit to check for leaks and everything looked good. It took about 10 hours for the total install. I installed the vortech boost a pump the next day and my problems started.
Now the tuning. I logged onto Jon Lunds site and got in contact with Ken Bjonnes and he told me everything he needed from data logs. Here's where the fun starts. Now I am getting hard starts like its not getting any fuel before cranking over. Not knowing what it is I tell Ken along with the data logs. He proceeds to dial in my tune for wot. Feels pretty good up top now but I notice random idle surging and really bad light/part throttle hesitation and bucking. Ken try's to tune out the startup issues but it doesn't work. He then tries to tune out the part throttle issues and it doesn't work. We both agree to try to get the drivability tuned and then look at the startup issues. Long story short, I spent 3 weeks data logging, over 200$ in gas, and over 15 tune revisions later I get no further than the few days after we started and he had the wot dialed in. The last morning I had contact with him I removed the BAP and the cars startup issues ended. I played with it for a bit and now know my car acts "funny" when it's installed and refuses to do an initial prime. I tell Ken this and that I just need to drivability worked out and I would diagnose the BAP issue. Then I got tired of waiting and gave up with Ken as it seemed my parts, install, or car was to blame. I spent countless hours checking and reinstalling my work as he had me thinking it was something on my end. So I contacted another tuner and had the car dialed in, in less than 2 days and only 5 tunes later. Perfect drivability. Idles, cruises, and WOTs better than my intake/ bama tune did. I am loving it now. Major props to the other tuner as he worked with me Saturday and Sunday to get my car where it should've been weeks ago. Took it to the track and ran an 11.7 120mph with my 285 Nitto Invos at 45 psi. No dyno numbers yet. WOT AFR is 11.8 max and that's with about 9 psi at 7k rpm using the JLT intake and not the vortech BAP.
Now that vortech BAP. Been almost 3 weeks trying to figure out the priming issues. Vortech had no idea what it could be so they replaced the BAP. Still didn't help. I've wired and rewired it, checked all voltage readings, tried all recommendations and still can't get it to prime while installed. Once started everything works with the BAP installed, but the car won't prime.
All said and done I would definitely do things differently next time around purchasing, installing, and tuning wise. Learned quite a bit during the install and tuning process.
Early June I get the go ahead from the wife. I'm currently stationed in Ft Gordon, Georgia but they have a great shop that I can do the install at so I make the call for the order to Terry from beefcake racing. Great help over the phone and helping me get everything I need. He up sales me the ID1000 injectors and the vortech programmable pump booster along with the email Jon Lund tune. About 2 weeks pass and I receive all the parts from vortech, but I am still waiting on a base tune file for the install. After contacting Terry a couple times about it I finally get the base file from Jon Lund Tuning.
Now the install. I got a buddy of mine to give me and hand and we had all weekend in the shop with all the tools needed. Started Saturday morning and went 6 hours that day. The guide supplied from paxton was in black and white. Highly recommend getting the colored PDF from them as it will make the install much easier. We ran into a couple of hitches mainly because of the guide. When I installed the new coolant res the guide said the a/c line had to be moved 2-3 inches for clearance. Of course I got to almost 2 inches and it busted the line. No big deal as I didn't have enough support on the bend of the pipe so it cracked open there. So I get a new line and was able to install it without bending it as there was plenty of clearance. So I'd recommend checking before risking it, but that was mostly my fault. Also my bracket with the pulleys was preassembled incorrectly, one of the pulleys was in the wrong position. Be sure to verify yours before mounting it. Rest of the install was pretty easy and straight forward until I got to the fan. This is where the colored manual can help as there are no measurements in the guide, just "cut to look like the picture" guide. We probably spent almost 2 hours on the fan alone cutting, installing, removing, and doing more cutting for the fitment. It gets super tight with all the I/C piping and installing the fan. I checked and rechecked all the modified coolant lines and I/C piping and refilled the coolant res. I plugged the battery back up and went to install the base tune. Fired right up and idled pretty good. Let it heat up and idle for a bit to check for leaks and everything looked good. It took about 10 hours for the total install. I installed the vortech boost a pump the next day and my problems started.
Now the tuning. I logged onto Jon Lunds site and got in contact with Ken Bjonnes and he told me everything he needed from data logs. Here's where the fun starts. Now I am getting hard starts like its not getting any fuel before cranking over. Not knowing what it is I tell Ken along with the data logs. He proceeds to dial in my tune for wot. Feels pretty good up top now but I notice random idle surging and really bad light/part throttle hesitation and bucking. Ken try's to tune out the startup issues but it doesn't work. He then tries to tune out the part throttle issues and it doesn't work. We both agree to try to get the drivability tuned and then look at the startup issues. Long story short, I spent 3 weeks data logging, over 200$ in gas, and over 15 tune revisions later I get no further than the few days after we started and he had the wot dialed in. The last morning I had contact with him I removed the BAP and the cars startup issues ended. I played with it for a bit and now know my car acts "funny" when it's installed and refuses to do an initial prime. I tell Ken this and that I just need to drivability worked out and I would diagnose the BAP issue. Then I got tired of waiting and gave up with Ken as it seemed my parts, install, or car was to blame. I spent countless hours checking and reinstalling my work as he had me thinking it was something on my end. So I contacted another tuner and had the car dialed in, in less than 2 days and only 5 tunes later. Perfect drivability. Idles, cruises, and WOTs better than my intake/ bama tune did. I am loving it now. Major props to the other tuner as he worked with me Saturday and Sunday to get my car where it should've been weeks ago. Took it to the track and ran an 11.7 120mph with my 285 Nitto Invos at 45 psi. No dyno numbers yet. WOT AFR is 11.8 max and that's with about 9 psi at 7k rpm using the JLT intake and not the vortech BAP.
Now that vortech BAP. Been almost 3 weeks trying to figure out the priming issues. Vortech had no idea what it could be so they replaced the BAP. Still didn't help. I've wired and rewired it, checked all voltage readings, tried all recommendations and still can't get it to prime while installed. Once started everything works with the BAP installed, but the car won't prime.
All said and done I would definitely do things differently next time around purchasing, installing, and tuning wise. Learned quite a bit during the install and tuning process.
