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DIY A&A Supercharger kit install in C6

eboch

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 10, 2007
Messages
63
Location
Canada
Corvette
2005 C6 Z51, 2003 C5 Z06, 1987 C4 conv
Thought this may be of interest to some ...

Bought this kit .... wanting to do the work myself. After some reseach on the web .... I purchased a kit, pod-gauges, and tuning software from A&A Corvette. This kit was noted by others as giving a completely driveable car with loads of HP across the whole RPM range. A&A represented that this kit could deliver 600HP at the crank on a stock C6. They also provided me with some supporting dyno curves of cars they'd done at their shop.

My car is a stock C6 Z51 with the exception of a high ratio rocker kit and Magnaflow cat-back.

Comments;

1/ installation: I have a standard garage setup ... airtools...but otherwise nothing special or crazy .... no lift, etc. This proved to be good enough to do this installation. Instructions were crisp and accurate, lots of great/helpful pictures in the manual. The few minor problems I had were dealt with through support from A&A. All good. Took me about 3 weeks, working on it a few times a week ... maybe a total of 30 or 40 hours. You do have to remove the steering rack, nose cone body panel, etc ... .so beware, it is reasonably major surgery .... but not over-the-top crazy.

One area of concern is that the kit installation does not allow the standard power steering cooler to be used .... A&A recommends that it gets removed. I didn't really like this idea ... .so I cut the stock cooler down so that it would fit and then had it welded up and pressure tested. Its now 2/3 the size of the original .... so not as "good" .... but I feel better that its there (in my mind .... smart-GM-engineers didn't put it there for nothing).

2/ fit and finish: no complaints .... everything went in properly and the supplied fittings, covers, etc result in a crisp professional look. All the fittings and fasteners are professional grade. The kit had every bolt, nut, etc that was needed.

3/ performance: using the supplied base tune the setup lit right up. A ton of power. The car could easily rubber right into 4th gear .... with 325 Nittos on it. on my first drive out, the car died completely ...had to push it home. Turned out that the fuel pump booster causes a demand for a bigger fuse on the fuel system. A&As kit has this fuse .... but the installation manual doesnt say anything about where to use it. In hind site ... it was "obvious" .... since the supplied fuse was in the part of the kit associated with the fuel pump booster. In the scheme of things .... this was pretty minor setback.

4/ Tuning: although the A&A-supplied base tune for the supercharged car was "ok" ....and completely driveable ... A&A did tell me upfront that they back a few parameters out to err on the side of caution. I was also having DTC issues (the VCM fuel-air comp was indicating that it was working too hard to lean the mixture appropriately). So i took the car to a local chassis dyno shop for final tuning. With support from A&A (Andy Green) the car ended up producing ~ 570 HP @ 6000 rpm at the crank (assuming 18% driveline loss .... and correcting for various dyno things). Theres probably a bit more in it ... the tuner suggested maybe another 20 or 30 HP if i was prepared to run 93 or 94 octane all the time .... but I want to run easy-to-find 91 gas ....and I want some decent reliability

All said and done .... I'd say you need to be reasonably competent in the garage. I'd give the kit 3/5 for design, fit and finish and the performance (versus what I was expecting) a 4/5.

eboch
 
What do your receipts total for the project?
 
Quite a project - good job.
 
costs: Supercharger kit (with fuel system upgrade ... which u do need) = $5500, gauges and gaude pod = $450, HPTuner software = $400. and then S&H. aside from fluids ... did not have to buy anything extra .... kit came with everything .... right down to the last washer.

As a side note ... I had this car on a roadrace track recently .... ran it pretty hard all day long in 30minute intervals. While on the track the car was run full out in 3rd and 4th gear ... constantly in the the 4500 - 6000 rpm range for each 30 minute race interval. it was hot out ... +33 deg C in the afternoon .. so I was racing with the AC on (...lol). I found that the engine was unable to stay cool with the added burden of the supercharger. the car would run up in the 120 - 125 C range ... approaching the red shut down region. I was advised by the track race mechanic that a high performance coolant would bring me down 10 - 15 deg. Apparently stock Dexcool fluid is not that great. does anyone have an opinion on this?

Otherwise was running Syntec in the engine and Royal Purple Synchromesh in the tranny.

No one in my race group could touch this car on the track (and its not my driving ... beacuse I am an amateur) ..... porsches, mustangs, vipers ... you name it, they were there. The C6 performance was incredible ...corners, accelerates and handles ... .completely predictable. Was routinely hitting .8 - .9 G on the hard corners ....then accelerating out onto 180 - 190kmph straights under full throttle.

btw .... during normal day to day driving ... the engine temp does not do anything odd ... sits nicely at just under at 100C.

Cheers
eboch
 
I would love to have a kit installed like that, but with taxes and installation it will be close to 8000 over here.

Good story, keep us posted.

Fred
 
My shop does the ProCharger superchargers for $7000- $7600 depending on finish. The kit comes with gauges and a gauge pod and costs them around $5600 (last year's price). They send the pcm out for programing but I think it comes with a Predator. I almost had my Z06 done but lost interest in the car and sold it. Anyone around Knoxville, TN want his information send me a PM. I've helped (watched) the owner do 3 on Vettes and he does them in about 10 hours. Of course he's done hundreds in different cars so could probably do them with his eyes shut.
 
Nice work eboch!

:thumb

Do you have pictures you could share? I'd love to see the installed set-up- especially with the shortened PS cooler.
 
....dont have any pics done ...... but I could take a few next time I pop the hood .... shortly.

eboch
 

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