old motorhead

108 TB and inlet available for the LS3 Vette Heartbeat?

CI GS

So can I buy the full kit with the 108 TB and inlet? And can I order it with the 81mm 6-rib or, better yet, the 80mm 8-rib pulley (if that works on the HB, as I asked earlier?).
Also, is the problem with running the taller CTS-V / Camaro manifold/lid hood interference, or would it hit the cowl as well?? I ask because I would actually like to change the hood on my car at some point, and if it's only a hood interference problem, then I would like to run the bigger unit with the taller intercooler bricks. If that is the case, then maybe you should think about offering that as an option for people with aftermarket hoods on their C6s.
I think it's safe to say that a lot of Heartbeat owners would be more than happy to upgrade their entire fuel system, if necessary, if they could get 12+ psi of boost out of this unit.

Streetk14

I don't have all the answers, but you should be able to buy a tuner kit with your choice of pulley. Knowing how my HB fit when I installed it, I don't think the cowl would be an issue with the taller intercoolers. It's fairly tight back there as it is, but simply making the lid taller should work with a taller hood.

That said, the 81mm blower pulley works just fine in a 6-rib and the intercoolers do a damn good job on the standard HB. I wouldn't waste the money on an 8-rib setup unless you were looking to spin the blower harder. An 81mm with an 8" crank pulley might push the limits of a 6-rib belt, but I think that's what Monsta is running without issue.

I chose to run a Kenne Bell BAP with a Racetronix harness on mine. I would probably buy and run one with even the base pulley. They're solid reliability wise if installed properly, and really aren't doing anything when not in boost. The only other upgrade I decided to do to the kit was swap out the Bosch CTS-V style intercooler pump for a ZR1 pump. Worthwhile upgrade if you can find a used one for the right price.

Oh, and mine makes a little over 11 psi peak at sea level with the 81mm pulley and headers. I really don't want to run much more than that on the stock bottom end, so all is well. Did a pretty good job fending off a ~13:1 compression C6Z on E85 last month at Willow Springs, so it's making some decent power. Haven't had it back on the dyno to confirm, but it runs strong with my street tune.

CI GS

Thanks man. All good advice. Sounds like a nice setup you have there. Must be a lot of fun on the street.
I'll look into the KB BAP and the Racetronix harness.
I still would like if Magnuson could confirm whether the 80mm 8-rib pulley that was mentioned earlier in this thread can work on the HB though.
I'm thinking of going with a IW damper and figured that I may as well go with an 8", 8-rib one, so that I wouldn't have to upgrade it again. If the 80mm 8 rib pulley isn't available for the HB, I'm not sure if I can run a 6 rib belt on the 8" balancer, but would think that should be possible?
Thanks again.

Streetk14

I'm not sure if you can run a 6-rib belt on an 8-rib pulley, though I get where you're coming from.

If you're looking to make more boost than I have (or are going to be doing more engine work), then you might want to keep an eye on the supercharger gears that I've heard are in the works. I don't know all the details on it, but it's the same idea as changing the rear pulleys on the older jackshaft style Magnuson blowers. It'll spin the blower faster with a given drive pulley. Might be a better solution than a larger crank pulley.

I'll also mention that it seems like a large amount of guys who upgrade to an 8-rib setup on these cars end up with weird belt issues. I like to keep things simple, and it's served me well with my blowers.

monsta01

Rear gears are coming for the Heartbeat you say? More boost? I need more details!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

old motorhead

Overdrive balancer question??? If the stock balancer is 7.5" in diameter, how is a 10% overdriven balancer only 8"? Shouldn't a 10% overdriven balancer be 8.25" in diameter?

Enterprisehunter

CI GS, StreetK14, Monsta01, and old motorhead have GREAT questions! I also need the answers. I am seriously leaning towards the HB and need all the upgrade, pulley, gear, fuel pump info I can get my hands on. I do not want any problems with my install or running my car. Magnuson please chime in and provide some answers for your current and future customers. Gear changes, how did you find out about that? I cannot find that on Magnuson website (where it should be) .

As there are competitors for our supercharge dollars out there I would hope this information would be easy to come across. It is not! Almost like pulling teeth.

CI GS

That's very interesting. I know there are at least a couple of diehard HB guys on here, who will be glad to hear that!
I have been scouring the Internet, looking at images of the Camaro version of the HB and comparing them to the C6 version. It appears that the only difference other than the pulley and the TB snout is that the lid is taller on the camaro version, thereby increasing the height of the plenum and the intercooler bricks.(See cutaway picture below)
It would seem that must be worth some horsepower at higher boost levels, so I would really like to know if a camaro lid can fit under something like the ACS monster hood on a C6.
Does anyone know that? I asked Magnuson that question from over a year ago and was told they didn't know for sure, but thought that the taller lid would hit the cowl on the C6, but I can't see that from all of the pictures I've studied.
What I find frustrating is that Magnuson doesn't seem overly troubled with promoting the upgrading of these blowers here on CF. If it wasn't for guys like you and old motorhead and monsta01 on here sharing your experiences with modding these blowers, I would've had a clue that these things are capable of.

CI GS

Amen, brother, amen!

CI GS

I knew that would get your attention!!

CI GS

We call that "Corvette math", old friend!

Streetk14

The gear thing is just something I heard through the grapevine. I'm not sure who is "working on it" or if/when it will be a reality. I'm guessing it probably isn't Magnuson themselves that are planning to do it though. Maybe we shouldn't hold our breath on it. Nothing solid at this point.

The main reason the Heartbeat was originally developed was to fit under a stock Corvette hood. I wouldn't expect them to be too interested in fitting a taller lid with an aftermarket hood, especially with how efficient the intercoolers seem to be from my logging and monitoring of my IATs. I just don't think it's worth the effort on a C6.

Honestly, Magnuson doesn't have a big presence on the forum, and their main customer is the guy who just bolts on a blower and enjoys it for what it is -- 50 state emissions legal with an available powertrain warranty. Their specialty really has never been support with high HP builds. Building OEM quality parts is what Magnuson has always done. When I got a tour of their facility back in maybe '06 or '07, I saw a Lotus that was having R&D done for a factory supercharger project (likely the Elise S that came out in 2008), and a "top secret" Toyota V8 supercharger project I wasn't allowed to look at. I'm 99.9% sure it was the Tundra TRD supercharger that was available on the trucks from the factory a few years later. Pretty impressive stuff these guys do, but they're more of an OEM than a hotrod shop.

The good news is that this blower works and is really reliable. The 81mm pulley is more than I'm comfortable running on straight 91 octane (all we have here). I run meth for that reason. If you want more boost, an overdrive crank pulley is a proven option. I have zero signs of slip with my 6-rib/81mm combo, and I don't think Monsta has any with his overdrive pulley. No need to fix something that isn't broken.

I bought my blower knowing the pulley limitations and have no regrets. If I ever put a cam in this motor, it'll probably get an overdrive balancer at the same time. That's plenty for my stock bottom end to handle. If you're looking for big power with a built motor, this probably isn't the right blower to be looking at.

Streetk14

Magnuson sells a conservative base kit, and that is really it. They also offer a "tuner" kit that doesn't include injectors or a programmer (or a CARB approval). You're pretty much on your own if you want to push it harder.

The real question for you is this: what are your goals?

scottg

Said the same thing (info) in 2013 when I put my HB on. In 2014 I put headers and dropped two pulley sizes to 84mm made 9lbs of boost from 6lbs. Had to add a Kennel Bell BAP, went from 514whp to 559whp.If memory severs me I think the warranty I bought was no good from them when I dropped to smaller pulley size. Could be wrong and hope I don"t find out. But it does run fine. Put ATI on at the same time. All else is stock on car.

old motorhead

Bop over to Magnuson's website and you'll notice why they're not on this one too often. They make blower kits for just about anything you can imagine. They'd have to hire full time website watchers for all of the different interests that they serve. While A&A and ECS concentrate their efforts and massage/refine their products to the Nth degree, Magnuson puts out an OEM quality product and kinda leaves it up to the enthusiast to push it to the next level. Just a little different product for a little different slice of the market.

CI GS

Thanks Streetk14 and scottg. I get that Magnuson's business model is to sell a simple bolt on blower kit and that they warranty, so, like OEM, they don't want to facilitate people blowing up their kits under warranty.
My thinking is though, that they could and should offer two stages of kit like Edelbrock dies and, if they don't want to, don't offer a warranty with the higher output kit. This blower really seems to have potential and I would prefer to buy something that isn't limited in the future when I change the bottom end.
Maybe I really need to think more carefully about exactly what I need to do, but for now, my goal would be a build that makes around 650-675HP on the stock bottom-end (like old motorhead and mobsta01), but could be upgraded to produce at least another 100-200 HP in the future. That's easily attainable with an ECS kit and I think I could be possible with this blower too, if you could spin it harder to make ~15+ psi of boost without that adversely affecting IAT's. I think that should be possible with the taller lid/ intercooler bricks. I've seen somewhere that Magnuson has stated that the Holden/Camaro type blower is more efficient, even at lower boost levels, which makes sense.
So I thought that since I want to change my hood, it makes sense that I look at that as an option.
I guess in short what I want to achieve - since we are talking about a ~$8,500 kit that I have to ship overseas and pay tax on - is that I buy the best combination of parts that won't require me to buy a number of other upgrade parts in the future. I already have a stockpile of take off parts for my boat, truck, race car, and now the vette, that I could probably start a parts store!
Thanks again for all the advice guys. It is greatly appreciated.

CI GS

True that.
And conversely, the reason that ECS and A&A are very successful with their kits is that they specialize and they spend (especially Doug) a lot of time on here educating dummies like me. I really like that Heartbeat blower but I'm starting to think (again) that it would be smarter if I simply bought an ECS kit and be done with it!

old motorhead

Yep, if you know you're going to want well in excess of 700 wheel, a YSI or equivalent makes a whole lotta sense. I knew I wouldn't. HB fits me to a "T".

Streetk14

Exactly. If you think you're going to want more than 700 whp sometime in the future, this probably isn't the blower for you. These things have made ~900 rwhp in cars like the 5th gen Camaro, but they have a much larger crank pulley that fits and can run a much smaller blower pulley due to the shaft design (i.e. belt spacing). You need to spin the blower harder to make more power, and that's a limitation right now for the C6 HB. Really isn't an issue with the intercooler system.

Their warranty is an optional, extra cost option, and isn't something you're paying for in a standard or tuner kit. The Edelbrock "stage 2" kit includes nothing more than a smaller pulley and a C6 Z06 fuel pump. No tuning changes to their canned tune from my understanding.

I basically designed my own "stage 2" Heartbeat kit for when I first bought and installed it. Instead of a Z06 pump, I went with a KB competition BAP and a Racetronix harness + a 90mm blower pulley instead of the standard 96mm. Worked great for a car running headers and 91 octane. A little later, I pulled it down to 81mm and added the Alky Control system. Pretty simple formula, and it works.

ECS and A&A concentrate almost solely on the 'vette market, and their kits are very good if that's what you're looking for. I wasn't too happy with how much cutting, trimming, and chopping I had to do on my previous A&A car, but that doesn't bother some people. I also wasn't a huge fan of the constant blower and BOV noise, but again, that's a personal thing. I also very much enjoy the power under the curve this HB provides for a street driven car while being almost invisible during regular use. Again a personal preference, but I hope you can see where I'm going with this.