Supercharging, revisited

[Guest F14CRAZY]

hOkay...

The 3800 series 1 (the "TPI motor") isn't that much different from the '88-90 "Fuel Injection" motor, right? I might be wrong on this.

If this is true, then couldn't I rob a supercharger from like a '94 Park Avenue Ultra or SSEi and bolt it on?

I'm still in pursuit of building up cheap and easy horsepower

[luftweg]

I think I had read how the Series II was significantly different in the areas of engine castings and such -- things just won't even bolt on, nevermind the electronics or controls... but not sure how different the Series I is.

Ahh, is that girl in your pictures instigating you to seek a flexing of muscle, so to speak, hence the quest for more mechanical power??? LoL.

But I think a good deal of us wish there was more umph with the Reatta....

[luftweg]

I honestly don't see why using an external centrifugal SC is any less doable than a Series II SC.

Sure, you've got the issues with MAF, vacuum AND positive pressure, advance, injector sizes, fuel volume, and beefing the tranny/final drive... but what the hay, are these so insurmountable?

[Guest F14CRAZY]

Here's the thing...if the series 1 supercharger will work, as I see it, it can probably be installed in like a day or two. Maybe a few hours. An L67 might take weeks (and substantially more $$$)

[Guest maybe2fast]

from what I hear the series one head are bolt on, to the LN3. So if you get L67 series1 heads and a series one supercharger you should be okay. but there are other issues

Transmission...you will rip it to pieces

ECM...you will have to have it reprogrammed (gmtuners)

Series1 had two belts and you will need the harmonic balancer from te series one which I am not sure will bolt on. it probably will but that needs to researched before we can go any further.

[Guest F14CRAZY]

YES!

We have a spare series I (naturally aspirated) so that might help.

Tranny has like 153k miles. If it blows, well, it blows. Larry down the street from is a great auto tranny mechanic and could do a performance rebuild for us when the time comes.

ECM just has to dump in more fuel. I talked with GM tuners a bit about that and they're down with it

[2seater]

The stock transaxle will last for a while if you do little drag racing. So far I have 25k miles on mine turbiocharged, 121k total, and still works well. The stock injectors can take you to maybe 200 hp or so, no matter what you do with the programming. For anything more, you will need more fuel through larger injectors, although they should come with the top end of the donor engine. GMTuners can help with getting the larger injectors to run well using the stock ECM.

[Guest F14CRAZY]

Ah. Swapping injectors wouldn't be hard.

I estimate I can do this like in a long day if I keep at it, and for like $500.

[Guest F14CRAZY]

I'm going to talk to my dad about this when he gets home tonight, but for sure, I'm going to have to try this on my car. Off to check prices on '95 park avenue long blocks...

[Guest MauiWowee]

How about this one?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/96-04-Bui...1QQcmdZViewItem

or this one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/BUICK-RIV...1QQcmdZViewItem

[2seater]

Is $500 for the whole package or just the injectors? New injectors in a decent upgrade size will cost about half of that. The whole project will take a while, swapping injectors should take less than an hour.

[Guest F14CRAZY]

I was thinking $500, including used injectors. Now I'm thinking like $750. We'll see how it would go though. I could probably skip a used long block and use like ebya parts.

2seater: I fired off a quick email to you.

[luftweg]

These things ALWAYS end up costing more money and taking more time than it looks like before you undertake them...

There always seems to be stumbling blocks and complications, however small, that arise (often, the smaller issues add up to 'nickel and dime' you to death).

Only after doing several motor swaps with mods will one get 'the feel' to better assess time/money/PIA(pain in [@!#!$]) factors....

I did such mods/swaps, but only in RWD applications with no big computer issues; there were 2 SBC Chevys, a small block Olds V8, and a Buick 455 Stage 1 big block (I actually still have this motor, although the car is now gone).

All the projects were fairly costly and rather time-consuming (to get things just as I wanted)... changing/modifiying 1 thing always led to 2 or 3 other needed changes; the domino effect.

[Guest F14CRAZY]

Yeah I know what you mean. My dad had that when restoring a '57 John Deere 720 (high crop, diesel, pony motor start) and me on a smaller scale on repowering my 70's Amphicat ( 6 wheeled amphibious ATV).

I've been chatting with 2seater about electronic control. I'll rehash it here when I get home.

[Guest maybe2fast]

the engines posted above are series 2, you want a series 1 because of your CRT, you will never get it to work with OBD2. find a series 1 Buick Ultra and bolt on the upper end. remember the NA series 1 has a totally different upper end (lower and upper intakes and vacuum lines ect.) I have been pondering the upgrade and you maybe able to use your excisting harness with a series 1 SC upper end! this would be a very easy upgrade if true. GM tuners would simple tell our ECM that there is boost and our wiring sould work, remember series 1 is starting to have alot of aftermrket ( www.seriesoneperformance.com ) smaller pulley and some rockers and you will have the Reatta quit fast. (14 sec easy). if you are serious about this I say we do this together it would be awesome seeing we live so close. we just have to find two series1 upper ends.

Padgett may have some more insite, seeing he is on the bonnevilleclub forum and I see him there often. those guys know there [@!#!$].

[Guest F14CRAZY]

My thoughts exactly. It'll bolt up and have like no wiring or electronic issues. But hang on. I asked Ryan of GMtuners.com of what he thought about reprogramming my ECM/memcal to pour in more fuel. He said...

<span style="font-weight: bold">Philip, yes this should be able to be done physically, but the engine you have does not have as durable of internals as an engine that originally came with a supercharger. This means that your engine may not last very long if you put the supercharger on it. Yes, I can reprogram your computer to work with the larger injectors and dump more fuel, but your computer is still not going to be able to recognize the presence of the supercharger. While it will still work using your stock computer, it won't be perfect.</span>

I then asked him for a more in depth explaination of the fuel injection problem (I'm new to this stuff)

<span style="font-weight: bold">Philip, the main problem we run into when trying to use a turbo or supercharger with you computer is that while I can reprogram it to dump enough fuel to compensate for boost, the computer will not be able to determine how much boost you are running nor exactly when you enter boost. Basically what will happen is say at about 1psi of boost the computer will go into "power enrichment" mode which is when the computer will dump this extra fuel. However at 1psi of boost, obviously there will be too much fuel being dumped since we will have to reprogram the computer to dump enough fuel for say 10psi of boost which is what you will probably have at WOT. As you can see, fuel delivery isn't going to be perfect, but it does work.

And about the engine/trans durability. With 153,000 miles, I would NOT put this supercharger on your engine. With this amount of miles, I seriously doubt your engine would be able to handle any amount of boost for any amount of time without failing. I don't know the condition of your trans but they weren't all that strong to begin with and I don't think it would last long either. Sorry to be pessamistic but I just want to make sure you realize the implications of trying to put boost/more power thru these older/higher mileage parts.</span>

I then emailed 2seater about it and included what Ryan of GMtuners said...

<span style="font-weight: bold">Questions are no problem at all, in fact I enjoy it. Ryan has been a good guy to deal with. I have a bunch of chips from him. I had one Memcal modified with a ZIF socket so I can easily just swap chips. We have been working on my tuning for some time now but I had to put the car away for the season this last weekend, as a matter of fact it is snowing right now :-( What Ryan mentions about boost sensing is true, but the old Grand National's didn't have boost sensing either. This is sort of a problem, but my turbo reaches full boost (8 psi) in less than two seconds, so the additional fuel at lower rpm isn't a huge problem. It does smoke black when the power is initially rolled on and gradually leans out as the rpm comes up. I also run a methanol injection system set to engage at 5 psi, which makes the problem a bit worse but I need it to keep the knock retard down a bit. Adding boost is not hard, control systems to keep the engine from melting down is a balancing act when the system wasn't designed for it. We have made progress, and knock retard is less than half of what it once was. The stock ECM can only read air flow to 170 gm/sec, and within that limit is where the programming can be modified to match the new performance. Once you push beyond that, timing and fueling is fixed and all you can do is experiment with the proper timing and fueling settings that it will default to. The stock engine will show maximum air flows (read the MAFin diagnostics), generally between 125-140 gm/sec just before a full throttle shift. Mine will reach the maximum 170 gm/sec in about two seconds or sometimes less. If driven sensibly (hard to do) my car still averages almost 26mpg (93 octane) in my daily 70 mile round trip commute. Not bad considering the power available, the 60% larger injectors, and running a cold 160 deg thermostat. Making the engine and transaxle last is really dependant on how the new power is used. The hardest thing to do is dead stop full power run. Power handling in the transaxle is based on rpm, and the capacity is higher at higher rpm. When forced induction is added, not only horsepower increases, but torque production increases even more, and it is available at a much lower speed. That's what makes them accelerate so well. I chose turbocharging vs supercharging since it seems to be more rare, and I had some of the parts already. Since you have a spare engine on a stand, the same as I do, it makes the mock up of whatever you choose to do much easier. </span>

2seater has some real world experience here, since his everyday driver is turbo-ed so he has had to deal with a lot of the same stuff.

So I still think it can be done! I just need to coax Ryan into burning mah custom memcal and trying it out. I mean hey, if it bolts up, the rest of it can't be THAT hard. And yes, if it all happens, I'll make a full writeup with PIX. Has anyone thought of this before? It just came to me the other night, but you guys know how I'm always trying to think up some way to get good, cheap horsepower. Might not get the Reatta to supercar status, but there's little that can't be solved with more horsepower. And the Reatta was supposed to be fast anyway.

My motor has a bit over 153k miles on it, probably 154 (I don't remember it day to day). No noise and very little oil consumption (I'd say less than half a quart between changes, and probably more is lost from leaking or like bad avlve guide seals than actual blowby). Transaxle probably hasn't been rebuilt but it's working perfectly fine since I installed the new vacuum modulator recently and is running synthetic blend. I need new CV joints pretty soon but I'm going to tackle that over the winter (we lay them up during the salt season). Larry down the street from us is an auto transmission mechanic and has done rebuilds for us before. According from Padgett and what I've heard from other sources, our 4T60 can be built up to take the extra steam. I don't think my motor will like self destruct, but if it eventually gets loose from boost (kinda rhymes), can;t it be rebuilt with the series 1 supercharged pistons and all? At any rate, I'm not worried about it.

I don't think I'd even have to get a used long block. I've seen rebuilt superchargers on ebay for $450 and could go cheap with a low milage used one (if I can find one like on car-part.com). Then I'd need the injectors, and a new serpentine belt. My mind isn't quite right at the moment but I think someone mentioned something about having to have a different harmonic balancer, though I can't see why. I think someone in the HS parking lot has an old SSEi, so I should go ask them to let me get some pix (I actually haven't seen one of these motors in real life).

My dad's buddy has a parting out '92 lesabre or something that runs good with the TPI motor (no super/c). Would this be of any use?

With the supercharger itself: does the unit take care of the intake manifold, or are they separate? From the pix on ebay it looks like it is.

Injectors are expensive so I'd probably settle with lower milage used ones, stock, from the donor S/C motor. Or should I get larger injectors from like series1performance? Unless I really have to I think I'll let it fly until later. Is a different fuel rail used?

Lube: from what I know, this supercharger has to be pressure lubed, right? I'm idle at school right now and I can't remember if our cars have factory oil coolers. Do they? Otherwise, an aux./oil filter relocation kit would work. Probably best to pump filtered oil into the supercharger. Is there a special place that it would have to be put to avoid lack of oil on startup?

I guess that's all I have on my mind at the moment (regarding this project). Thanks guys for putting up with this really long post and my crazy dreams

[Guest F14CRAZY]

yeah, I did catch it was a series II. A great motor but too much work/money involved.

The whole point of the series I swap is to avoid having to deal with electronic problems (ECC, instrument panel, etc), and also to gain the most power with the least amount of time/money/labor. Like a Northstar could probably be made to work but would most likely cost more than what the entire car is worth

[Guest MauiWowee]

So what is the range of the Series I? Did they also come supercharged?

[Guest F14CRAZY]

I guess '95 was the last year of the supercharged series 1. I know the first year boat-Riviera had them. I guess it was for the Park Avenue Ultra, and made it to the Bonneville SSEi. Can't think of any others at the moment.

Rated at 225 horsepower. Not quite as good as the L67 at 240 but far better than our 165.

[Guest Greg Ross]

My Engine project is built up based on the 93-95 Series I S/C and as mentioned, came in the Park Ave Ultra and the Boneville SSEI.

As 2Seater so thoroughly covers, it's all about knock control. I've broken two pistons, fractured the ring lands and managed to not do any other damage. I'd guess they let go at full boost at about 125 mph. She never worked well after that run!!!!!

[bigsteviejoe]

I'm under the impression that a Series 2 can be made to run on the OBD Series 1 computer.

If that could be done that would be better, bonneville club shows both engines have similar #'s and that the only real difference comes at the top end.

Benefits of the Series 2 over the series 1 and its why my heart is set on the series 2 :

1) There is a whipplecharger kit out there that fits the series 2

2) Currently there are aftercoolers, to help lower knock causing air temps

[2seater]

The supercharger has a captive oil system, no external lube required. It is also a separate part that sits on top of a lower intake manifold, in other words, it is two pieces to get it to fit the engine. The first s/c engines were rated @ 205 hp, then 225 and 240 when Series II came along, as well as a larger s/c which required the injectors to be moved to the heads. The Series II engine is also slightly smaller externally. It has a lower deck height for the block which moves the heads somewhat closer together, so it is probable the upper parts of a Series II won't fit a Series I. I believe there are other differences as well. The Series I stuff "should" fit our engines. I know there has been much discussion of the engine internals and as far as I can find from other sites, the internals are the exact same, the only possible difference being some did use full floating piston pins. The materials are the same, but the part number on the rod and possibly the piston may be different due to the floating pins. The crank is definitely the same. No exotic parts were used, at least none that I can find. When I rebuit mine, I did use hypereutectic pistons, an upgrade over stock cast, but not as strong as forged. Many years ago a guy tested an LN3 engine to destruction to see what sort of power it could hold. He was looking for viable replacement blocks for the older GN style. According to his dyno data it blew the crank out the bottom @ 500 hp. It would seem some headroom is available for moderate upgrades and using the power with discretion. An oil cooler for the engine is a good idea in any case, I run a B&M stacked plate type as welll as one for the trans.

[Guest F14CRAZY]

Thanks 2seater, and everyone else.

It seems it's gonna bolt up. But what's the problem with engine control? I'm confused, with what Ryan said, but then like the Regal GN did fine without it, and we're doing a similar thing.

I'd use the larger injectors, and with the reprogram it'll put fuel to them, but what's the negative part that Ryan speaks of?

I think the motor can take it. We're not adding THAT much power to it, and 3800s are pretty well built.

[Guest Greg Ross]

The whole concept of engine management for economy and emissions is "Lean Burn" Running lean makes heat and the timing control/ knock control keeps you right on that edge. If you don't have managed control of Boost then the Engine will have knock trouble. You have to provide for it. Soon as knock is sensed the ECM will compensate and you stop making power.

As Ive mentioned, I blew a head gasket and broke two pistons. To replace bearings, pistons/ rings and a gasket set you're into $1000. without even dressing/ honing the block.

Take it from 2Seater, and Boost is Boost, the engine will self destruct. Making power takes the investment of time and money unfortunately, there's no cheap solution. Got to be straight up here, you can drop those Series I top end parts on your engine and it will run with the Boosted ECM PROM, but! Without dealing with knock control, sometime soon you're going to blow that motor.

[Guest F14CRAZY]

Knock: I need some help on this one. Is this like pre ignition, when the fuel is burned between the intake stroke and the power stroke?

And how do knock sensors and all that work?

[padgett]

Keep in mind that it is not the engine that is a problem or even using an "E" transmission, the issue is making all of the Reatta electronics (which most cars do not have) synchronize with it. For instance the digital dash is not from the engine, the engine has a number of inputs to the ECM (Powertrain module) which links through the ALDL line to the BCM which develops the displays.

Further, the data stream is different for every vehicle so if you put a 1989 PROM in a 1988 you will find yourself going 255 mph. This is not an insurmountable problem for engines before 1995 but starting that year GM went to OBD-II and an OBD-II computer talks at a different speed than a P4 (1987-1995) computer.

So while a complete SII powertrain swap is possible, so far it is necessary to use a 1993-1994 Park Avenue computer (which has a larger PROM and accomodates mass air flow rates to 255 gm/sec).

Finally the Park Avenue computer needs to have the data stream subroutine altered to match that of the original Reatta or else the instrument panel is not going to read properly.

I do not know what would happen if you used a Park avenue BCM as well.

So the problem is not the engine control but rather the instruments. To be honest, I have not looked into that very deeply since I do not have a candidate and while we got Greg's car running via remote control, that is not an easy way to develop anything.

I do know what needs to be done and it is certainly possible. Just my major problem at the moment (in the time left over from my day job which must come first) is getting my Corvair to idle in gear. No computers atoll.

[Guest F14CRAZY]

Ah yes, all the ECM and BCM problems.

My thought was to avoid having to do any major computer work, besides a chip reburn, by using the existing motor and just switching the heads/intake and added the supercharger. I guess the problem is controlling knock, and properly delivering fuel into the system.

L67 would be awesome but my budget doesn't permit

How is Greg's car done? As far as I know, his ECC is functional and he's supercharged. I want that, minus the manual tranny (I'd love to have one but that's another project for another day).

And Greg: how'd you get past the knock issues?

[Don B.]

Sereis I is very different from stock.

Crank and Flywheel for starters.

Block also has a variation.

You could do a Bolt on but a stock motor

has 9:1 compression the SC has less.

Don't forget the fuel pump and Balancer.

[2seater]

The GN's did not have boost sensing per se, but, they did have programming designed for boost from the start. Their MAF range went to 255 gm/sec, which by my calculation can measure air flow for over 300 hp. The programming can be used to modify fuel and timing over that entire range, which would be all of what a stock GN could produce. The programming also would start to pull boost at some programmed point, partially based on what gear they were in, of particular interest in a turbo application, where greater engine load actually produces more boost. When the GN pilots modified their engines for more boost, they too would push beyond the limits of the programming and they had to resort to the same sort of dead reckoning we are forced to do, ours will just occur sooner. Initially they used things like a seventh injector to add fuel at some point, alcohol injection systems, bigger injectors, MAF translators, or pushing the fuel pressure higher and of course reprogrammed chips. In this respect the supercharger offers some advantage in that the s/c is coupled directly to the engine where it will be more linear in the air flow capability relative to engine speed. If you load an engine hard at low rpm with a turbocharger, like against the brakes, the turbo will spool up independant of the engine speed. Essentially a turbo is sorta load based and a supercharger is rpm based. Internally, the GN's were somewhat different and similar at the same time. They used rolled fillet crank, similar to ours, but the rods are shorter and the pistons were a cast design with a steel insert. Very heavy by comparison to ours, which look like race pistons in comparison. The oiling system wasn't as good, and the heads are less efficient than ours too. The placement of the intake valves was also different, making the intake manifold have two side by side ports on each side, sorta like a Chebbie small block. If you look at our firing order, this isn't terrible since the two close together ports are not in sequence on each side, but I believe ours is somewhat better with even spacing.

I know I digressed but the problems are the same, we just don't have the same broad ECM hacking and experimenting that has been done for the GN's. Even though our ECM has a bigger chip and more capacity, it wasn't designed from the start with boost in mind, so we need to take a best guess and modify from there. The whole system is probably more fragile, but can produce very noticeable gains, and should be used with discretion to make it live. A steady diet of drag racing and high boost would not be a good idea. Even if the engine behavior can be brought under control, the next weak link will be the transaxle. High speeds are not a problem and power for passing and such is relatively safe, where the trans can handle it better. It doesn't take much space for passing slower traffic, and I am sure Greg can attest to that. Oop's, almost forgot Don B.

[Guest F14CRAZY]

Sorry we haven't really met, Don B. Nice to meet you.

Thanks for the write 2seater. Am I correct that our problem, in basic terms, is not being able to program the MAF to read THAT much air flow?

[padgett]

MAF can read more problem is that the ECM program maxes out at 170 gm/sec. To read larger values, 93-94 PROM went from a one byte value to a two byte which requires considerable program tweaks. At one point I was told how to tweak the early ECM to read up to 255 gm/sec but have never tried it.

[luftweg]

I think all of those (us) who want a revamped computer in our Reattae, ought to chip in some $ and pay Padgett to work on a solution.

If we get enough people, perhaps it would be worth Padgett's time to work on it....

[Guest maybe2fast]

maybe Padgett and Gmtuners can figure it out.

if Padgett can modify the Reatta ECM to read boost, Ryan can take it from there and our knock issues will be reduced greatly. I have some people that maybe able to help, I will talk to them and get back to you guyz.

[Guest F14CRAZY]

Thanks for the clarification. Makes sense now.

Would it be more of a matter of getting like an '89 Reatta ECM to interface with the newer motor, or the ECM from the newer motor interfacing with the Reatta?

I talked with GMtuners about putting an L67 in a '90 Reatta. Said it could be done and would use a '95 Bonneville ECM/PCM but some gauges would be lost. Ryan didn't say which ones.

[manikmekanik]

Ryan didn't say which ones.

more than likely---ALL OF THEM!

[2seater]

An expanded table would be a help, but I do not know enough about the programming to say if it would be a cure. Padgett's point is exactly right, it isn't as simple as it first appears. There are a lot of interelated tables, one modifies another when a lookup point is reached. For example, there is a table for timing modification based on air temperature vs engine load (LV8) When inlet air temperature is high it will roll back timing and actually add timing when cold. The table can be tweaked, and the GN guys used the IAT sensor input with a modified MAP sensor to tell the ECM a substitute for true boost sensing. Sort of a work around to get variable timing based on boost. This sounds sort of encouraging and given the time and expertise, maybe something could be worked out, BUT, if the engine load is maxed out at even a little boost, the table becomes almost irrelevant, since there is only a small portion that can be of use. Essentially, there are a bunch of tables to modify things, but they were designed to work in the expected range. When boost is added, it goes to the top of the table, so there is only one cell that is active. Engine load or LV8 is a key element in the programming, it determines a lot of what portion of a table to read, and in my case, the LV8 goes to maximum, a reading of 255, within a second or two of heavy throttle input. It isn't hopeless, but some bandaids will probably be needed, rather than pure programming, but that is a weak area for me

[padgett]

That is why instead of updating an 88 PROM, now I would start with a 93-94 Powertrain module, use the programming for the engine and modify the data stream to something the Reatta BCM can understand.

[2seater]

I'm with you on that one. Now finding someone with the time and expertise will be the hard part

[Guest Greg Ross]

If my memory serves me, do you not have that era PROM/ ECM. That's Step 1. Would you like to have BB down there for a couple of months maybe? And I'm serious.

[luftweg]

Is that something you 'could' do?

If so, then I'm all for us 'hiring' you to do the programming/interface work.

Other things I thought of: (really stretching here, don't laugh) couldn't an old laptop be used, if the proper adapter cards or ports are available (they're probably not, right?), to interface the 'newer' engine control to the 'old' body control units?

And, as an aside (since an indirect point of this thread is to increase the Reatta's power), have we exhausted the possibility of stroking the 3800 that's already in the car? (I'm a kinda thinking that it can't really be done, can it? It isn't an SBC; probably couldn't get enough inches to make it worth it.).

Who else here is up for us to hire Padgett to work out computer roadblock?