I have a '91 L98 and am trying to get the twin intercoolers plumbed. Has anyone here done the same hookup that can help me? Any pics would help. The assembly manual doen not give a lot of help in this area. The intercoolers do not seen to fit therefore the plumbing is very tight.

Any help or words of advice would be appreciated.

 

O.K. no comments. Well last night I had to cut apart and splice the "hard" tubing ATI supplied with the kit. The steel tube that came from the passenger intercooler to the TPI unit wanted to go right through the frame rail, I just shortened it by cutting 6" off the hard tube and used flex hose to mate the intercooler to the throttle body. It seems like I will have to do the same to the intercooler on the driver side.

Any comments?

 

I did not realize that ATI made a twin intercooler setup for the L98, oh well.

But i will say this much, i truly hope that the man they hired as a technical writer for there installation manuals found gainfully employment in a field he was qualified for, because this was not his calling.

I have the single on mine and had to do some mods, to get it to fit, I wish i could help you.

Greg N

 

They do (or did) indeed make a twin intercooler kit. They sit in front of the front tires. There is a lot of plumbing needed and as you know things are very tight. I do agree with you about the technical writing......very poor....

 

I have given up on trying to install the ATI SC system in my '91, I have gotten no help from ATI. So if anyone is interested I have a complete system for sale.

 

Come on man, do not give up.

Yes it is a bitch, but i am sure that it can be done.

What have you gotten stonewalled on?

There cust tech service is at best VERY poor.

If there is anything i can do to help you with your problem just pm me.

Maybe if you post some pictures of what you are having problems with, we can give you some help.

 

Also, where are you located?

There may be some one close by that can give you a hand.

Greg N

 

Greg,

Thanks for the comments.

Last night I go so torqued off that I tore the whole system out and started to put it back stock. I am fed up and get no support from ATI and their instructions are poor, and that is to say it mildly. I am a mechanical engineer with lots of fab work so I really thought I could do this.

I have been trying for some time to install the twin intercoolers. The hard piping sent with the kit is very poorly manufactured (bent) and I simply can not get all the piping installed. I can get one intercooler almost installed and something else will not fit. IF I had a pipe bender I might be able to get things bent right BUT I have no pipe bender or axcess to one. I have heard of flexable steel piping but can not find anything that I think would work for a blower system.

What about a single intercooler? I heard that ATI quit this for the L98 because it caused the car to over heat.

What about using the head unit with out the intercooler? What problems would this give me with higher air temperature to the engine.

Comments? Thanks.

 

I really do understand the frustration with this.

I bought my kit for a 87 from superchargers for less and was told by them that there was no other intercooler option for mine at least.

I did put a "Griffin" radiator in mine, i knew i was going to have to do this regardless, but there was still more than a fair amount of fabrication work that i had to do to get it to fit, trimming hoses and pipes, moving things, notching things, etc.

I would not even consider the flexible pipe route, it will be very restrictive.

There are several people here who have went with aftermarket intercoolers because of there expected horse power exceeded the flow capacity of the stock intercooler.

Basically, on mine at least i found that the metal pipes had to be almost touching each other and some of the rubber hoses had to be trimmed a lot.

I think what you need to do is go ahead and mount, at least for now your major components, IE blower and both intercoolers.
These should be fixed locations, then work your way out from there.

I am assuming that this setup runs two intercoolers in parallel? if so where does the splits happen at?

If you decide to go with a different intercooler i would be interested in looking at your setup for another project i am thinking about. (might just put a blower on my old Chevelle)

As far as doing away with your intercooler, from what i understand Greg Caroll at blowerworks is THE MAN to talk to about water injection.

But i really think it will fit as long as you got the right kit for your car, it is just going to be a pain to get installed right, but it should go on there.

I know Arron, aka AKS racing, among others has a wealth of knowledge about supercharger installations.

If you go to the http://www.superchargers4less.com/su...installers.htm web sit they have a list of installers there, you might just call some of them, my guess is that you can find some one who has been there and done that. I bet there are other web sites out there that have installer list also.

Like i said do not give up, there are some very knowledgeable people here that i am sure that will go out of there way to help you with this.

If you will let us know where you are located it will help, some one MAY just be right around the corner from you and not know it.

 

Ps, about the car overheating, mine never did unless i was sitting in traffic with the a/c on for a while with the stock radatior, but it did cause the oil temps to run higher, a oil cooler will fix that.

Mine now runs cool with no problems as far as cooling is concerned.

 

Greg, thanks for your reply and encourgement. I updated my profile to include where I live...which is in Houston, TX.

After reading your post yesterday I decided to try again with the install. I remounted the head unit and the passanger side intercooler and I am quite sure I can get that side mounted. Tonight I will look into the driver side intercooler AGAIN. The driver side is the one that has been giving me the most problems, for some strange reason . I have never hard mounted the intercoolers so I will try that approach and see what happens.

Yes, the intercoolers are run in parallel. The boosted pressure comes out of the head unit and moves forward then drops down between the block and radiator fans, between the PS pump and the water pump. At this point the flow splits with a downward facing "Y", one going left and one going right. The left (driver side) tube runs to the area in front of the tire , where the head light relay and vaccuun canaster reside, hooks a 90 and runs to the intercooler then out the intercooler hooks another 90 and comes snaking back up between the radiator and block and into another "Y" which brings the flow into the TPI unit. The right (passanger side) tube runs to the area in front of the tire, where the radiator overflow canaster resides, hooks a 90 and goes into the intercooler and then back out the intercooler hooking another 90 and comes snaking up beside the frame rail and moves into the "Y" going into the TPI unit.

This all sounds simple untill you see all the plumbing that is between the block and radiator and the 90 degree turns the plumbing has to make in a very restricted area.

Like I said above I will give this another try. If I can get it plumbed up I will let you know. Then I will ask some more questions about dialing the beast in.

Thanks again for the encourgement.

 

I would like to see some pictures of that setup.

 

If I can get it installed I will try and post some pictures. Thanks.

 

The area between the engine driven accessories and the cooling fan is where i had problems also. i had to notch out the fan housing to get what i thought was adequate clearance. On mine the two tubes cross over each other, so you have at some point about six inches of pipe to fit into a five inch space.

Then they run under the car giving about zero ground clearance.

You may think i am nuts, but i wish i had a twin intercooled system.

For a big grin, go to this link at Procharger and look at the 85-91 tpi Corvette, http://www.procharger.com/GM/gm_auto.shtml it says intercooler 2 core, not twin, but if you enlarge the picture it is very plain to see that this is a non intercooled setup.

looks like there technical writer has been at work again.

another thing, do not hook up the crank vent system the way that they want you too, it may be different with your instructions, but on mine when i did it the way they said when it went into boost the first time, it pressurized the crank case and blew some seals in the motor out, front seal, intake, oil pan.

I had just done a cylinder head job and a timing chain on the car just a few weeks prior to the blower installation and had finally got all of the oil leaks stopped.

At least it did not get the rear main.

Keep us posted and we want pictures.

Greg N

 

Thanks for the reply and continued encourgement. I will keep you posted as plumbing continues on the beast.

Yes indeed, I did see the non intercooled L98 on ATI's web site. Last week when I got so bumbed out over the install I called them to purchase the 90 degree adapter shown on that picture and they could not even find reference to it in their database.....I thought that was somewhat funny.

Thanks for the heads up on the crank vent, I will look at that carefully.

I do not know if I have rights to post pictures on this forum, if not I will email some to you when avaliable.

 

This is another example of why it is so critical to have your personal info completed. I looked at this post last Saturday, and figured it was someone way in the North. It turns out that this poster is in my neck of the woods. I live on the N side in The Woodlands, but have been known to go out of my way to assist other forum members.

I have done several of the 90-91 vettes with the twin intercoolers (i hope that is what year your car is), so I might be able to assist. I have also done many other cars with either SC or TC applications. Where are you located? Maybe you can send me a PM with a contact number or some pics to my email, and I might be able to help you. If you are close enough, I might be able to get your car to my place and get you back up and running in no time.

Aaron

 

Aaron,

I do have a '91 and would like some advice. I live in Kingwood so we are close. I am going out of town this weekend but will most certainly contact you next week.

Regards,
John