Finally had a decent weather weekend, so we got the supercharger installed:





This is the kit by candmnovelties.com, modified to accept a 94 T-bird blower. The kit is well made and went on with only a few minor issues.

Haven't done any tuning on it yet, but it is definitely stronger! There is a hill near work that the truck used to not quite be able to take at 60 mph in 4th (it would pull down a couple of miles per hour), and with the blower I was able to take it at 60 in 5th (pretty much foot to the floor). According to my dyno data from earlier, the n/a engine put 210 lb-ft to the rear wheels at 2700, so that suggests that with the blower its something over 260 lb-ft at 2250, which would be very good. I hope to get it tuned and back on the dyno in the next couple of weeks.

 

Looks clean, very nice!

 

Looks great indeed. Can't wait to hear the power results.

Always wondered this...once you install a blower, I assume it comes with a new belt. If/when that belt needs replacement, do you have to go to the blower manufacturer for a new belt?

 

Thanks, guys.

The kit comes with a belt, but since I modified it to use the 94 blower, (and since the 94 blower has a slightly larger pulley than the 89-93 blower), I needed a slightly longer belt to make it work. just went to the local auto parts store, told him I needed one 1/2" or 1" longer, and in 2 minutes he was back with the right belt.

I haven't made it to the dyno yet, but have got the closed loop part of the tuning pretty close to dialed in. After a couple of more tweaks, you won't be able to tell it from a stock truck in how it drives (until you get into the boost!) Hopefully, we'll get to the dyno this weekend or next week.

It sure is easy to get in a hurry now...

 

Went to the dyno today. Max torque over 250 lb-ft compared to a measured 209 stock (+20%), max power over 217 compared to 183 stock (+18%). (This is at 3-4 psi with stock blower pulley.) We would have gotten better numbers, but we were struggling with random knock sensing - must have something loose on the engine that will trip the knock sensor. If not for that, I expect we would have seen 260+ lb-ft. Now to search for that random problem...

 

Found 2 loose things this weekend - the coil bracket would rattle against the top of the valve cover and there was a spare nut laying on top of the engine !?! Now that we've fixed those, the random knock appears to be gone and we can get back to actually tuning...

 

Awesome, looking forward to hearing even more. Does it sound absolutely awesome? Can't beat that whine.

 

Actually, the whine is much less than I expected - you can hear it under boost, but not excessive. Outside the truck, you can't tell at all. The rubber intake tubing does a good job of absorbing all that I guess - just a little sleeper... the better to suprise you with!

 

Had any trouble finding races? That was the biggest issue I had with the Sierra and Silverado...both looked bone stock so even the ricers didn't think anything was up, had a hard time getting them to actually take off and race me. Exhaust was the last thing to be done to both, and afterwords it got much much better, lots more challenges by late 80s peice of crap Hondas with coffee cans for mufflers. It's amazing what those kids think their cars will do. It's got to be seriously embaressing to be out with your girlfriend and get flat out spanked by an early '90s full sized GMC in your super cool pimp car.

 

I'm not into street racing, so none of that. Plus, its still not fast, just fast for a Ranger.

 

how about a little cold air intake??

 

Its pretty well documented that cold air intakes don't really provide any power, they just lighten your wallet, so no thanks. I did the airbox mod, which opened up the front of the airbox and lets in a lot more air. The entire filter now gets dirty, whereas before only about half of it would get dirty, so that tells you a little about the restriction of the stock intake silencer. The stock filter actually has more filtering area than the filter I had on a 351C back in the day, so there's plenty of filter there.

 

Looks good rubydist! Are you sticking with a 2-4lb pulley for a specific reason?

I looked at this project for my old 98 Ranger, but since I have the 07 Ranger now, I'll wait for the warranty to run down a little bit more. I'm still thinking about taking the M90 off the Explorer and putting a M112 on in its place.

 

David, I get 3-4 psi with the stock pulley because we have less air up here at 5700' elevation. (The guys at sea level are getting ~5.5 psi.) I have a 2.9" pulley waiting to be installed, which should get me around 7 psi, but I want to add the water/meth injection at the same time. I am currently collecting parts for the water injection system...

The blower project on the newer Rangers is a little more involved, because they went to 'throttle by wire' in 05 or 06, iirc. You will have more of a challenge tuning it, I think. The 03s are really the easiest, since they didn't use an EGR in the 03s, and the throttle was still a normal cable.

 

actually cold air intake just delivers more air to the engine, other than the basic box.

proven to allow the engine to breath better.