I was thinking of buying an 8# ATI intercooled procharger for a 95 LT1 Camaro , has 13,000 miles. Basically stock, except for a flow master. This kit is supposedly "designed" for a completely stock LT1 , and the company claims it will not really alter the longevity of the engine. The car would be pampered like 99% of the time , with the occasional nite "run" for a 1/4 maybe a lil further. However, how long could i realisticly expect the engine to last under these conditions? I wouldnt want to do any bottom end work if possible. Also the vehicle would be well maintained, frequent oil changes and mostlikely middle grade gas ...

 

Don't even think of buying a SC if you aren't going to use the best gas you can get.

In terms of your question "how long will it last", you really should do a search. It gets discussed a lot. Bottom line: you will drastically increase your chance of catastrophic engine failure by adding a blower. Still, many people have run low boost setups on stock bottom ends for many years without a problem. But you cannot count on it.

Rich Krause

 

Other than what Mr. Krause said, it's a great bolt on! Of course you might have cooling probs as I do, but you should enjoy.

 

Some things I'd recommend:

*Buy an MSD 6BTM. Best insurance you can have w/ a stock bottom end
*Get bigger injectors and ditch the FMU that comes w/ the kit.
*Get a good fuel pump(either a Walbro intank or Aeromotive inline) and ditch the aux. fuel pump that comes w/ the kit.
*Get a good tune. Probably the most important thing w/ a blower motor.
*Have fun and be prepared to upgrade. By upgrade I mean replace the piston when they take a dive, the tranny w/ it gets toasted or the rear end when it gets snapped on launch.

Just like Marc Rahn always said, boost is addictive.

 

The tune should not require a timing retard box BUT the added spark energy would help a lot. Tuning is the biggest thing. Like he said ditch the FMU they are crap, buy injectors and get a good dyno tune. The bottom end will servive ok IF and I say IF you NEVER run it lean and NEVER detonate it.
Go about this in a methodical well planned and TUNED maner and it will be ok.
Hope this helps you

 

The only reason I recommended the BTM was to make tuning a little easier. The BTM will take care of adding timing up to 15*

Also remember to not use platinum spark plugs. It's in ATI's manual several times, but it's very important.

 

Using a boost proportional ignition retard is unnecessary if your car is tuned properly. If you set it to pull enough timing at high boost, it will pull too much at low boost and really hurt torque and throttle response. It's a band-aid that manufacturers of SC kits use to simplify their kits. You do need the stronger spark though if you are running more than 6lbs or so.

Rich Krause

 

Thanks

Would have replied sooner but just got back from Vegas
Ooops edit....just noticed this thread started today, oh well still had fun and didn't loose too much money

As has been discussed everyone joins "the club" aka rebuild club that is.

Plan on spending at least a grand over the price of the kit to buy the necessary items people have listed below plus dyno time / tuning costs.

My Z lasted over 2 years, 16,000 miles, 20 ish dyno pulls and 60 or so trips down the track and then it met it's maker at about the 1000 ft mark (spun the second, third and fourth main bearings on the crank....pics on my website) but still managed to run a 12.5 @ 100 mph after cutting a 1.66 sixty ft.

I roasted my tranny and had it fixed and then three days later blew up the motor so be prepared before you join the few, the proud, the blown

Rich has some good wisdom, a proper tune will help and never go cheap on gas. Ever since put the blower on my Z I have run a minimum of 93 and try to run 94 Sunoco as often as possible. I ditched the FMU and never looked back.

The problem with running low boost applications is that you run into my old addage of "boost is addictive" and you get greedy. Low boost being 4.5 # powerdyne kits.

I started "safe" with a 7# pulley on my stock motor with P600B and three core intercooler and then upped it to 8#, was planning on going to 12#'s on the old P600B with my new 383 but got a deal on a D-1 and went straight to 15#'s. If I had time to get it dialed before the GMHTP LT-1 vs. LS-1 shootout I'd slap a 20# pulley on the old girl but got some other stuff to do to make it legal and pretty for the shootout

If you are interested in buying a Pro Charger kit I'd recommend dealing with Lonnie Pavtis. His "E" mail is lpavtis@westol.com www.westol.com/lpavtis/

He's great to deal with, gives excellent prices and gives first rate tech support. I would not reccomend going to someone who tries to weasel in and price match as you might get the same price but you will definatly not get the same service, assistance and tech support. Pro Charger directions are poor and if you have any issues installing it Lonnie will help you. Back when I got my first kit off of Lonnie 4 years ago I had some problems (aka didn't know what I was doing back then) with the install and took a digital picture of what was going on and sent it to him and gave him a call and he was able to help me out.

Rich,
Looking forward to meeting in Jersey

Uncle Marc

 

Here has been my experience with the 8psi Procharger kit on a stock engine:

I have a stock 1997 Lt1 with 32,000 miles, in mint condition (always used synthetics, can probably count the times it saw redline). Only mods were headers/borla exhaust. Put on the twin intercooled, 8psi kit. Did it "right" running 42# injectors, MSD ignition, wideband O2, scanmaster, datamaster, fuel press gauge, boost gauge, 1 heat range colder plugs gapped to .034. I used a conservative tune, with a max of 24 degrees advance from 5000rpm to 6000rpm, the AFR was 11.3:1 Wide open throttle from 1500rpm to 3000rpm. I could only get 91 octane gas, so I ran 15% Toluene with EVERY tank, to bring octane up to 93-94. Scanmaster and Datamaster saw no knock.

With all of this, the car lasted 1 month, 2000miles, seeing WOT runs to the top of 3rd gear probably 20 times. After that, the ring lands let go.

You may get lucky, but I really would recommend heeding everyone's warning and DO NOT GET INTO SUPERCHARGING UNLESS YOU ARE WILLING TO DO AN ENGINE REBUILD.

I really thought with all I had done I would at least get a year out of the engine. The ring lands are just too weak on the LT1 pistons. Less boost isn't really worth it. 8psi was great but is not reliable. Heck, even at 8psi on a stock Lt1, head/cam LS1's are making more HP and are way more reliable. The price of the supercharger kit and all the extras is enough to pay to upgrade to a newer LS1 car and come close to paying for the heads/cam in which the end result will be a car as quick and a lot more reliable.

Now, I get to build a 383 like most of the people on the blown list.....

Something to think about.

Brent M.

 

Lets see, I blew the tranny the first day I put the ATI on. Put a new one in and then blew it again. Put another new one in and then blew the ring lands off of two pistons. Built a whole new motor and it ran great! (for about 3 weeks when the tranny blew again.) If you don't have the money to rebuild, I would not get a supercharger. On the other hand, I had a 110,000 mile 94 Z28 with a powerdyne and it lasted for 2 years with 8# pulley on it. You just never know with blowers. Hypercraptic pistons are the weak link in any blown motor!