hey mark, as soon as i get the little stuff out of the way, i'll give you a call and ask yuo to help me with the really difficult stuff (like helping me put the hood back on
)...besides, f&M Deli should be open by then, but if they're not, there's ALWAYS Primo's hoagies..
Anyway, here's a brief update on the Vortech centrifugal supercharger install on the '65 sb.....
...i would first say that all i can do is recount MY experiences with MY car, even though i may sound like i'm making broad generalizations......
...so, all of the articles that i read about the vortech fitting under the hood of a midyear without much modification? ->
...obviously, those stories are misleading since i have had to modify just about EVERYTHING on the front of the engine, for example, the cast aluminum mounting bracket that attaches the blower mounting plate to the engine had to be relieved in two places, one to allow fitment next to the water pump and then lower down to clear the lower pulley (after a fair amount of hand grinding with a mill bastard, i then had to bead blast the entire thing to ensure a consistent finish)
hood clearance?
the short version of the story is that i had to drop the blower by at least 1 1/8" and i'm still not sure it will clear (hence the need for VNV)...i accomplished that by drilling new holes in the plate AND cutting off the top of the blower mounting plate - i finished the cut section off with a fine grit belt on a belt sander and it looks just like the factory finish.....THEN, i had to reclock the volute to clear the hood (which is no big deal) but 'm not certain that i now have enough exposed bolt holes to adequately clamp the two halves of the turbo casing together...PROBABLY OK, but we'll see...
...now that the blower mounting plate is lowered, it interferes with a kick out of the block mounting plate which means that I have to remove everything and grinder off a bit more aluminum....now that the blower is lower, i can't use the factory serpentine belt and will have to buy a new one
finally, the vortech instructions?
ad
none of the parts bags are identified in the instructions and the bolts supplied bear little resemblance to what's pictured in the manual and the descriptions supplied are just flat-out wrong.....this is one kit where you should not waste your time reading, just look at the picture on the front and build it to look like what you see
...the one bright spot was that punching and tapping the side of the oil pan went as advertised, they supplied a sharp pointed punch which worked well to enlarge the hole to 9/16" BUT as opposed to the instructions, you need to apply common sense....first i drilled a small pilot hole to center the pointy thingy and covered that with anti sieze grease to reduce friction...i then used a small sledge hammer to minimize the number of hits, hoping to minimize any denting and it worked fine
...the only problem i had was finding a 3/8"NPT tap for the brass fitting....EVERY hardware store that i went to stopped at 1/4"NPT....finally found one in the basement (in Hopewell, while i needed it in Ocean City, of course)..
...and i haven't even gotten close to firing it up and dialing it in
i'll post detailed pictures once we get the hood clearance under control
would i do it again? yep, but you can forget about that "weekend project bull crap
