Spud's "The Definition of Ghetto-Rigged" M90 Supercharger Build Thread (lotsa pics)

[Spudchucker]

A couple months ago I saw the reddevil and Skidd build threads (congrats on the recent success Skidd!) and after sleeping on it that night, I couldn't think about anything other than how I was gonna do my car next I was gonna go with a Raptor system, but after learning they weren't ready for my model year, I decided to just make one myself.
So I went on ebay and got this:





And this:





Everybody said the SC (came from a Thunderbird 3.8) was way too big, but heh, I figured I'd just deal with that when I started taking measurements As for the welder, I had never welded before, but I figured that I could teach myself easily enough, and that Flux Core was the easiest way to start

*Skip a month or two as I learn my way through ROMRaider and reflashing stuff. Tuning the ECU is almost as fun as putting in a supercharger, btw*

Easter weekend was a 3 day time off from work, so I decided I would try and get the whole thing done then.
First things first, I had to see what it would look like, so I plopped it ontop of the install location and stared and daydreamed for about half an hour haha



What's that blasted thing in the way of where the supercharger belt is gonna go?



Ohhhh it's the AC.. We can fix that- Just get me a fan and some pliers lol (no I don't recomment this, it's probably illegal and cancerous and everything else bad) This thing was blasting freon for like 5 minutes, I was really surprised by how much of that crap was in there



All better!



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[Spudchucker]

My dad makes custom kitchens for the rich guys next town over so I had a nice shop on hand that I could use, but since it's for woodwork all the tools were set up differently (IE: I broke half of them cutting Aluminum, sorry Pops) and I couldn't weld in there for fear of a flash fire



I had to make some big aluminum plates to cover the various orifices in the M90, so I traced the bottom of my supercharger and started cutting the 3/8" sheet accordingly. I used my dad's band saw and it worked incredibly smoothly for most of the big bottom plate, but eventually the first blade broke (it got so heat treated that it basically shattered like glass) and I was stuck with the crappy dull ones. This guy here got stuck in place so tightly that it took me literally 15 minutes to get it out.. I ended up having to cut completely around it after some good ranting and raving



3 1/2 hours later, and I was left with a nice shiny cutout of my M90



After cutting out the exhaust and drilling the bolt holes, I was happy to find that everything lined up perfectly first shot



Skidd's build thread mentioned brazing as a good joining solution for Aluminum, so I got some Mapp gas and 1070 brazing rods and went to work. This here is my first brazing attempt (no you aren't imagining things, that center hole was completely cut out via drill press Holding jigsaw for holes was a pain in the butt after a while)



I almost immediately ran out of Oxygen after that, and since I didn't have a swirl tip torch, I was kind stuck. No problem, I just threw it on the grill to heat up, and thus, BRAZEBEQUEING was born! This worked surprisingly well, and I'll be doing a DIY thread on it when I have a chance.. Definitely a useful way of brazing when you are doing big parts that take a while to heat up




Neighbor came over to see what I was cooking, I think he was more excited about losing his first tooth than I was about my idea actually working haha, he made me take a pic.
Cool kid



Finished assembly




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[Spudchucker]

Fitting the foundation piece of the first bracket. Very surprisingly (and awesomely) the metal thing I removed from the area to put the bracket there lined up with the supercharger bolt holes flawlessly, and I ended up using it as a bracket as well



I busted out my new Flux Welder at this time, and did my first ever welds here on the bracket. They may not be pretty, but they're good and strong. Welding is fun, I gotta do it more often




After finishing the brackets, twas time to put it in! I removed the Throttle Body so it could be moved in front of the supercharger



I had extra hose material, but no way of connecting it so I could extend the coolant lines to the new TB position.. Sooo I went dumpster diving and dug up the old AC hose I ripped out a few days ago, and used the Aluminum part to connect the hoses. I figure if this thing can handle Freon, it can handle anything else my car has to offer. No it's not a hookah.



Got the Silicon elbows in place for the supercharger. I didn't think these were strong enough to handle a full vacuum load, and I was right.. Don't get the cheap elbows, kids.



I really wanted to get this thing in, and waiting for internet parts just wouldn't suffice, so I made my own solution- I chopped up a small piece of Aluminum corner pipe from my ebay general intercooler kit (which I decided against installing for now while the boost is low) and shoved the pieces into the corners, holding them in place with some hose clamps. You can definitely still see parts of the the elbow sucking in under vacuum now, but it's not nearly as bad with the Aluminum pieces holding the shape.





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[Spudchucker]

Since the Thunderbird M90 is so freaking huge, I couldn't make a normal intake for it, I had to flatten a piece of pipe and braze it sideways onto its base plate. Unfortunately I found out the day of the install that there was no good way of bolting the intake assembly to the supercharger, so I slapped on the gasket material, and wrapped it a million times in wet string (shrank as it dried) as a temporary solution. It held very tightly, and worked great for buying more time in that area.



INSTALLED!!! The brackets hold it nice and firmly to the engine, and while I haven't hooked up the bypass valve yet (not hugely important at 4 psi..) I do have the AutoMeter boost/vac gauge installed, which is what that white tubing curled up by the M90 is connected to



The curved greenish gray metal piece on the bottom right of the M90 is what I took off the intake manifold. I couldn't have made a better fitting piece myself, and this thing wasn't even remotely designed for this




When I first fired the car up, we found out very quickly that one of the Throttle Body coolant lines had come off lol.. Quickly fixed that and started it again. It ran for like 10 seconds, when we realized that the two silicone elbows couldn't handle the vacuum pressure at all, and had completely collapsed. This is when I put those Aluminum sleeves in them.
Annnd 3rd time's a charm






Me and my friends went for a 30 minute cruise, which I was using to log on the new base map I made as a starting point to work with. It worked pretty well, with the only real danger being knock during high load (which my ECU doesn't know exists yet). This was some of the most fun I've had in a while- It was a beautiful day, my hood was off and the supercharger on, and I almost caused like 50 accidents with all the other drivers rubbernecking in my direction as I drove by I've never seen so many shocked faces swearing to themselves before haha
Unfortunately when I went to start working on fine tuning my base map, I noticed that the USB connector on my Tactrix module had broken off..



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[Spudchucker]

While it sucked that my cable had broken, I still had some work to do, so I left the fine-tuning for later. Time to cut the hood!



My crappy WalMart angle grinder cutting wheel worked perfectly for chopping the Aluminum hood.. Like butter Oh yeah, the corner of the hood is messed up from when some dude in front of me sent himself sideways in a blizzard at a redlight, followed by insurance blaming me for an accident that he claimed responsilibily for.. meh, it bought me a supercharger (did I say that? Truth is that I'm just waiting on my new hood to arrive so my insurance- certified bodyshop can install it! )






If you read my other thread, you know that my car didn't work the next morning It would start up, idle very eratically, and not rev past 1,500 RPMs. One help thread and two days later, I found out that the big connector on my Throttle Body had a loose wire on it. Pinky here was hanging right out, completely disconnected. I pushed that back in, and it now works beautifully!




I can't drive hard at all yet since I can't tune it better with my Tactrix cable busted, but it definitely bites a lot harder now than before, and unless I relearn my footwork quickly, my clutch is gonna be toast a lot sooner than it would have been I get full boost at any RPM I've checked at as soon as I floor it, the lowest I've seen being 1,600 RPMs. Basically, when my foot goes down, I have a constant 4 psi (I'm currently using an underdrive pully to achieve 4 psi- I estimated 6-7psi with it, but 4 isn't bad. I'm gonna see how it does with my stock pulley size when my Tactrix is working.) It pulls a good deal harder than before, though I don't know exactly how much harder yet because I can't floor it for now, and it's likely missing out on a lot of power with the current MAF scaling and bad timing. Either way though, the fact that it's making my clutchwork extremely finicky is enough in itself to show me that there's a good increase in torque That, and the famed butt-dyno backs the claims up as well

As I get this thing fine-tuned and clean it up a bit, I will post updates along the way. I'll definitely be throwing a 0-60 vid and whatnot out there when I can safely do so





-END-
...or is it?

[knoonz]

Dear god that is badass!

[Spudchucker]

Oh yeah, almost forgot the final pics of the engine bay! That's the stock idler pulley system- I just drilled another hole in it and put it in upside down. Just like that I have a perfect idler/tensioner for the SC

[99STM]

Dude
Crazy

[Mikey B]

a guy on a local forum did a setup like this on his SHO. M90 sticking out the hood. totally wicked.

but doing this to an 06 makes me slightly sad that it was hacked up for fun.. but at the same time ive done stuff like this, just to cars that are worth little value.



I want to see the 0-60 video

[Skidd]

Nice work Spud! Really nice work.
I'm a big fan of sleepers and stealthy installs, but I freakin' LOVE that ignorant M90 sticking out of your hood! I can just imagine the look on some Mustang or Camaro dood sitting at a red light as you pull up beside him with that sucker lookin' back at him! Freakin' classic!! Do you have any plans to enclose that SC at all? Some sort of fake hood scoop or something? I know, were it my car, I'd leave it just like that!!

P.S. Hey... I have that very same book!!