I think there is a new problem with the car now....the DIC keeps lighting up with traction control messages!

 

Sounds like you will have your hands full for as while....

 

Time for a wide booty upgrade.

 

Now that you've been driving it for a few days, can you tell us how it behaves?

I would suspect it makes a little boost with fairly light throttle. I believe you have done some centri installs, so how does the part throttle daily driving behavior compare? I'm guessing the car moves out nicely without too much pedal.

I'm hoping to sell a vehicle in the next few months and get one of these. I've been kind of obsessing over it

Thanks for all the deailed info you posted during the install. It will really save people time and hassles.

 

You are correct, I have been directly involved in the install and tune of 3.5 centrifugal blower units so I do have some basis for comparison. Here are my thoughts.

-The fit and finish of the Edelbrock E-Force is great. This is a blower unit that was purpose built for the application and it shows. All of the centri units I have worked with are an adaptation of an off-the-shelf head unit. This isn’t to say that the centri kits are not well engineered because the ones I have worked with are. The point is the Edelbrock fits with no trimming, cutting or hammering and I like that…a lot!

-The Edelbrock weighs more than a centri install. The head unit/manifold alone weighs 79lbs and I’d guess the entire install approaches 95-100lbs. I’d estimate the centri kits add about 60lbs or so. The difference being that most of the Edelbrock kit sits directly on top of the motor. Centris hang most of it forward of the motor.

-That 100lbs has to be considered when it comes to ride height. My car is lowered to the stops on the front bolts and other than the rubber air dam scraping as I enter/exit my driveway it was never a problem until yesterday when I lightly kissed the radiator cradle on the pavement for the first time. The car does sit noticeably lower so I’ll be running the front adjusters back up to regain the lost ride height. No big deal. You’ll have the same issue with the centri install. Maybe even more so because the centris I’ve worked with require you to add spacers to lower that cradle about 1”. This is done to provide clearance on the top of the radiator for the centri air bridge.

-My butt dyno tells me the power of both the Edelbrock and centri units feel the same…very linear and progressive. Either application brings a smile to your face and when you are off boost they both feel virtually stock.

-The power produced with my Edelbrock exceeds my stock tires traction capabilities. I can easily blow the tires off in at least 1st and 2nd gear and probably further but I haven’t gone there yet. Traction control will stay on.

-I was very surprised with the Edelbrock stock tune that comes with the kit. My car has an LG G6XE cam, Kooks Headers and a ported throttle body. The car maintains virtually 100% of the same driveability I had before the supercharger install. It’s conservative but it works. I’ll try and get it dyno’d before I start screwing with the tune.

-The centrifugal head unit produces a distinct sound at idle. I can’t hear the Edelbrock at all at idle. With NPP closed and the windows down I can hear a light blower whine as I accelerate modestly. Once the NPPs open up though I can not hear the blower at all…just the sound of the exhaust wailing and the wife screaming “slow down dammit”!

-I have the 599hp/1591 kit. I am pretty sure that both this kit and the 554hp/1590 kit share the same tune. The only differences being the smaller 3.5” pulley and Z06 pump vs the 3.875” pulley and no pump for the lesser kit. This is something to consider if you want to go a different route with your fuel upgrade. You could buy the lesser kit, purchase the $30.00 smaller pulley and then pick your poison with respect to how to feed it.

-No doubt about it the fuel pump replacement is a pain and not for the faint of mechanic’s heart or for those with a lack of patience. It’s hard to get to and mistakes can be easily made by a novice. I know, been there done it and was rewarded with a 0 psi fuel problem as a result. I now have a pretty good understanding of how our fuel systems work and I also have 60psi of fuel pressure.

-IAT/Inlet Air Temps…everyone chases IAT numbers in the FI world. Heat is your enemy. The Edelbrock kit uses a pair of intercoolers in the head unit and an air-to-water heat exchanger mounted in the radiator “baffle” as GM calls it. The Edelbrock comes with a combined TMAP (Temperature and Manifold Absolute Pressure) sensor mounted in rear of the head unit. I’m pretty sure that the t-harness that comes with the kit offloads the IAT readings from the MAF in the air bridge to that TMAP in the head unit. The point being is that you can’t do a 100% apples to apples comparison between centri IATs and Edelbrock’s IATs…different sensor and different locations in the chain.

Edelbrock moves the point in the tune at which timing begins to be pulled for high IATs from a factory stock value of 86f (I think) up to a new 131 degrees. I’m going to assume that the engineers at Edelbrock decided this was the correct value based on where the readings are being taken. The past couple of days I’ve watched the IATs hover just below that point at around 125 in my around town driving and about 5 degrees below that in steady state driving without stopping. My car has a Z06 oil cooler which runs the full width of that baffle. Due to space constraints I had to mount the s/c heat exchanger behind the oil cooler..it just would not fit for me with the s/c heat exchanger up front. I’ll keep an eye on this area as the summer progresses and worst case I’ll swap my Z06 cooler for a Z51 cooler which is about 1/3 the size and will open up fresh air to the s/c heat exchanger. For now though, I don’t have a heat problem if you assume that 131 degrees is the point of where the Edelbrock starts to heat soak and I don’t see a need to change anything…yet.

Hope this helps….

 

I've enjoyed your write ups...Thanks and Best of Luck

 

Exactly, you can't measure the IAT's in front of the air to water IC's it has to be after in the runners. I saw the head unit a few weeks ago and it has a small screw in freeze plug on the right side (drivers side) just below the IC. What is this for? could you mount a IAT sensor at that point to get a measurement of the true IAT's after the IC.

Do you plan to do any hard track time with your setup, I want to see how the H/E will perform over extended periods of boost.

Thanks for the great write up!!

 

Motorvator, I just got my 1590 kit installed last week. Not used to blowers but at idle, I can hear what I guess are the vortices turning. Not objectionable,but definitely there and definitely consistent (not getting louder). Know what you mean about the seat of the pants dyno, and the wife screaming.

dw

 

This car is a "street *****" or "mall crawler" as my son would call it...doubtful that it will ever see any real hard use. It's just a toy....a toy with monthly payments that is.

A buddy and I kick around the idea of building a car to go play with but it won't be this one....probably a purpose built C5 to go thrash.

 

I'm starting to hear the sound you describe at idle. I think it takes a few days for things to settle in/seat themselves before the two impellers start to talk. Mine has been very quiet the first day or two but I doubt I have 100 miles on it yet.

 

Thanks for the reply. I've put a couple hundred on mine. Still cannot discern SC with hood closed. Surprised more than one on the street.
Would like to move up to the 1591 upgrade but not up to the effort you went to with that tank. Think I'll sit tight for awhile, enjoy the measly 554 hp and see what develops as more of these get installed.

 

What about the little screw in freeze plug on the side, do you know what I am refering too?

 

I don't but to be honest it came out of the box and onto the car without a whole lot of time wasted. To me that IAT is just a reference value to watch and it looks like Edelbrock is ok with anything below 131. At 131 it starts to pull timing so I'll focus on anything below 131 as being good.

 

Thanks for the great write up. Do you think a vented hood would help the heat or is it just an over kill?

 

That's disappointing... I got a ride in a Positive Displacement C5 and while it was makng about the same power as my centrifugal C6, the powerband was COMPLETELY different and it drove nothing like it... Once you have some more miles on it and feel comfortable enough to take the T/C off and drive it for all its worth (hopefully with something better than stock tires also), let us know how the two really compare?

The Edelbrock "canned" tune was meant for a stock cammed vehicle; I imagine your car will run a lot better with that cam and the supercharger once you tune it accordingly...

Doubtful. The 554hp kit is running a lot less boost, it probaby has a much more agressive timing table. Might run a tad leaner too. Tuning is THE MOST IMPORTANT part of a Forced Induction modification to an engine; you couldn't PAY me to flash a generic canned tune into my ECU in the hope that someone's best guess of what is a proper tune for my car (blindly, without even doing a single data log). Doing that with a setup that the canned tune wasn't intended to cover is just asking for trouble... If the only difference is the pulley and the pump (that sounds reasonable) then a user would be much better off doing a BAP, pullying it down himself and getting a real dyno tune...

86F is the stock number for a stock N/A Corvette. Edelbrock's table is probably more closely derived from the one for the C6 ZR1. Here it is below. You will notice timing does not get pulled until 140F...



A quick FYI... Even without a single degree of ignition timing being pulled you are losing about 50crank HP from air density loss as compared to if your IAT was 70F (air is 10% less dense at 131F than at 70F and I am assuming equal boost)


Also since this is my fist post on this thread, let me say that I am VERY EXCITED about te E-Force and can't wait to see some big power dynos from these units. If they are good for 700ish WHP with relatively little work I may very well put one in my car.

 

Very interesting stuff here.

That install tutorial was great!

I'm just wondering what happened to the **** Retentive Troll on the first few pages of this post that was saying how he was going to buy one if he could get some answers.

 

Hard to say where he went but I'm ok with him being gone.

 

 

I think I would like to try?

 

Power, if you take a look at the timing table timing is pulled a lot sooner than 140. In a sense all the "added" timing thats removed could/should have been in the base engine spark map. So, although its not a "negative" number, timing is still being removed through the temperature range.