Time for a change of pace...

I have had the Ecotec taking up space in my shop for awhile now and have decided it's time to get something done. Originally I wanted to Supercharge it (especially since I already have the kit), but have since decided to Turbocharge the Ecotec. I will use the Supercharger kit as a display in my shop or sell it. My plan is to build a 350-400hp Ecotec and install it into a 'stealth' Cavalier or Sunfire outfitted to be a Grand Touring car (ie:good suspension, seats, complete dynamat treatment head to toe, high fi sound system, etc.). This project is slated to be a streetable, 40mpg (imperial) daily driver that would be comfortable on a long trip and yet powerful enough that it can pull hard enough to remove its own paint! I am going to start with the typical internals recommended for up to 750hp Ecotecs, stock crankshaft, Eagle H-beam rods, forged 8.9:1 pistons and ARP head and main girdle studs. I will be posting more pictures and blog entries as the project continues so stay posted...

Here I will summarize my experience with Supercharging my Beretta GT:

I purchased the car new (ordered it myself) while working as an apprentice mechanic at a General Motors dealership here in Canada. Since I had never owned a new car before, I took exceptional care of it, and kept every piece of documentation including the original order form, Transport Canada window sticker, seat plastic covers, and build sheets. The car currently has approximately 70,000 original kilometers, and has had 28 oil changes, 10 coolant exchanges, 15 brake fluid exchanges, many tune-ups and fuel filters. When I started my own mechanical repair shop, I finally decided that while the car is in great shape, it never will be a collectible car and could be modified with a clear conscience. I have always been interested in Supercharging, and made that a part of my new business so Supercharging the Beretta was a natural. I am a big fan of the roots type blowers, and since there are no ready made kits for a roots Supercharger on the Beretta, I knew I would have to make my own. The car would then become a promotional item for my shop; to showcase my abilities (although I don't actually do scratch-built custom installs, but rather kit-form installations and modifications). A lot of the peripherals that I install are also showcased on the Beretta, such as gauges/telemetry, water injection, custom big-bore throttle bodies, air intake systems and custom programming/aftermarket ECU's.

As I said I like the "old-school" roots type Superchargers even though they are generally less efficient than the current crop of centrifugal units, so a Magnuson MP62 was a obvious choice since they manufacture a rock-solid long lasting blower that has been used in nearly all factory-equipped U.S. Supercharged vehicles including GM, Ford and also the Nissan 3.3L. Through contact with Magnuson I had them fabricate a 14" drive extension for me so that the Supercharger could be installed nearly behind the cylinder head. This way I could achieve one of my primary goals, which was to have the whole mess fit underneath the hood with no exterior modifications. Any of you who have worked on a stock Beretta motor will know there is not a lot of room there, so fitting the Supercharger under the hood was no easy task, and involved the re-engineering of many other items to pull the Supercharger as close as possible to the engine.

Virtually all the engineering on this project was done "in head" during late night contemplations in the tub (I do my best thinking in bubbling hot water), and jotted down later. Sometimes I would have to go out to the shop at 1am to make some measurements and ensure my ideas would work, in order that I could go to bed and sleep and not lay awake wondering. Some of the modifications that were required to fit the Supercharger close to the motor were:

-installation of a "rear bank" valve cover on the front of the motor as it has a slimmer profile

-removal of the throttle body/bypass coolant pipe that normally runs across the front of the motor (wanted to remove the throttle body heater anyway)

-modification of the upper mount for the front bank exhaust manifold and crossover pipe

-relocation/replacement of the coolant fan, requiring a slimmer Hayden unit

My original design had a throttle body mounted on the inlet of the Supercharger, and I had machined the inlet plenum to accomodate it, however during a test fit after the Supercharger mounts were made I found that the throttle body linkage would interfere with the hood, and the idle air control valve would be very close to the upper radiator hose, so I decided to leave the throttle body in the stock location and put the air filter on the intake plenum directly. I then turned down the front of the inlet plenum to fit a 3" hose instead. All of the parts were machined from block aluminum which represented a lot of work and waste aluminum, however I made the decision to approach it that way as I had a lathe/mill combo already, and had no access to a foundry. Ultimately I would have preferred to cast the inlet and outlet plenums and preserve material, however with winter setting in and not much time to set up my own foundry I elected to machine everything from solid aluminum.

As you can see from the photo album, there was much machining to do to allow the supercharger to fit the car. Fortunately, I have a complete V6 engine to mock up on, as well as spare cylinder heads and intake manifolds to further assist in design and installation. I made the original extension drive mounts from wood to mock-up and test fit the supercharger. Later these were mad out of solid aluminum and eventually I decided to omit the second drive mount due to space considerations. I had more or less decided where to mount the idler pulley that would be necessary to provide drive to all accessories when adding the S/C pulley to the mix. Further, I had chosen Innovate Motorsports gauges and telemetry partly because their XD-16 units match the Beretta's digital dash very well, and partly because they allow full telemetry chain data that can be viewed/plotted on a laptop for future monitoring and tuning. I also installed their "aux-box" to provide further instrumentation (boost/vac gauge) and telemetry (In total, planned telemetry includes: Air/Fuel ratio, Vac/Boost, Lateral Acceleration, Fuel Pressure via electric pressure transducer, RPM and Throttle Position). The Intake and Output plenums for the supercharger as well as the drive mounts were made from solid aluminum blocks, and the rear supercharger mount was made from 1/2" plate aluminum. All of the machining was done on my manual lathe/mill and countless hours were spent. For the idler pulley mount, I removed the alternator bracket from the front of the rear cylinder head, as well as the engine lift hook bracket. The idler pulley bracket replaced the lift hook bracket, and required only slight modification to the aluminum alternator bracket to fit. Once the alt bracket was trimmed, an aluminum strut was fabricated to mount the alternator and triangulate it to the idler pulley mount bolt. The output plenum required the most work, from sculpting the outside, to forming the interior designed to direct flow to the 3" output flange. Additional small parts fabricated include the throttle body bypass pipe plug, new heater hose adapter at water pump, thermostat housing riser and output pipe (to intake plenum). The crossover pipe had to be modified to fit, although custom headers are planned for the future. The installation went fairly well, with the addition of a MRZ.com big-bore throttle body and strut tower brace, as well as lowering the car and installing custom wheels. The throttle body had to be relocated after I started the car for the first time as it was just too noisy to have an open element air cleaner as the only barrier between the ears and the supercharger rotors. I quickly fabricated a mount to put the throttle body before the S/C and knocked out the throttle plate and shaft in the original throttle body to leave it in place on the plenum. A better adapter is planned. I drove the car most of the summer (2007) and enjoyed the (MUCH) increased performance. I custom-ordered an overdrive crankshaft pulley as the S/C pulley is already quite small, and boost was limited to about 5psi max. With the new pulley, I am making 10psi and the car pulls HARD! I was fortunate not to have to do much in the way of tuning; the fuel pressure modulator did a good job and in WOT my air/fuel ratio was about 10.8:1, and water injection helped quench any detonation. I mostly pieced the water injection together, using a Devil's Own controller. I just finished pulling it all apart for the winter for modifications and improvements, including plans for custom exhaust headers. Also, the adapter for the intake plenum (to delete the redundant throttle body) has been fabricated and plans for the winter include: new accelerator cable bracket, addition of the fuel pressure transducer, and new set of fuel injectors.


More to come...