just sent blower to Vortech by UPS today. They are scheduled to do a minor rebuild... new seals, bearings mainly. Just wondering if anyone else has had experience dealing with this same situation.???

 

oh yea~ I saved few thread on this topic. seems like dealing with either stillen or vortech is pain in the butt

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....hreadid=117524

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....ghlight=pulley

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....hlight=vortech

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....hlight=vortech


Deac and others have a lot of problems dealing with them. poor customer services and QA/QC are the complaints here. Deac got his rebuilt once and the noise got louder. Sent it back again, turned out that they didnt even test run the blower. they just measured everything to the spec and put everything back together.

maxxboost00 had to wait a long period of time for his blower to come back.

 

The issues are well documented, I am not going to re-type them, if you want the scoop PM me

 

Dont even get me started on Vortech man.... I had to raise hell to get them to do their f'in job man!! Finally they rebuilt it but NO ONE should have to go through what I went through w/them... SEE YOU GOT ME STARTED!!!

Deac

 

I had a good experience with Vortech, I got my blower back in 10 days. I also sent them a naked blower no pulley, no plate no oil nipples etc..

 

I sent mine in last November a few days before I flew to Toronto to spend 3 weeks there. I was hoping to get it back when I got back home. Well I didn't expect to chase after them so much! After promising me like 10 days I got it back a week after I got back home! All I had done was to redo the bearings. I've documented my frustrations in this forum back in November so take a look and be prepared!
The blower is much better now btw.

 

I had good luck with them too! I also sent a naked blower. Actually the guy I talked to made sure to tell me to take the bracket and pulley off. He went on to say that they had allot of problems from owners of the Stillen Maxima kits sending the blowers back for repair with the pulley and even the bracket attached. Wow would actually think not to strip the blower?

 

hmmm........ sent it out wednesday........i'll keep you guys updated on progress......hopefully all goes well

 

So how do you know when it's time for a rebuild? 4 days ago, mine started making some awful sounds. At first, it was kind of a rustling metal scraping on metal sound that went away. Then it came back, sometimes at idle my blower chirps off an on. And a little while ago on the highway, it started making this godawful drilling sound. Pulled over, shut the car down, checked everything out (I thought my belt was going) and when I started it back up, the drilling was gone. But it's still rustling and making kind of a scratching sound. I've confirmed it's the blower making all this noise. Plus, there seems to be a lot more oil residue around the oil line, don't know if that has anything to do with this.

 

my blower makes a lot of sound too....esp in cold morning. Blackcat and jdmmax both provide their sound clip of the blower.

here is the link to jdmmax's thread
http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?threadid=184687

if the oil is on the feed line, have you tried to take it off and re-seal it with teflon tape or paste?

usually, oil leak on the car frame means the sealer is on its way out. the cause is too much belt tension. Happened to Chebosto.

I remembered Kevin reported oil leak in one thread and turned out some hex bolts on the blower were loose. Dont have the link though. but I have the picture that he took.

http://www.boostedmaximas.com/y2kevs...harger3/17.jpg

 

Mine sounds a little bit like that. But not quite as loud except for the electric drill part on the highway. And it only started making this noise a few days ago when we hit a cold snap here, but now that the weather is warm again, the sound is still there.

I haven't resealed the oil line yet, I just noticed the residue there today. I'll try to do it tonight. There isn't any oil around the frame area, just the feed line.

Thanks for your help.

 

I believe you're not supposed to use teflon on any of the oil line fittings.

 

You know, the main cause of bearing failure is from overtightening the drive belt. When you hear that unusual metal-rattling noise while idling thats the first sign of trouble.

 

hmmm ithought you were supose to be able to turn the belt exactly 90 degrees in between the altenator and under drive pulley.

if it could go 90 degrees your fine. i read that in a thread.

 

I don't think belt tension was a problem, Jay25 and I spent like 2 hours adjusting the freaking thing.

But my belt just blew on me. I just limped my car back home. Belt didn't shred, it just snapped in half. You think a belt about to fail had any relation to the funny noises?

 

update on blower-

Jaime from vortech called me on my cell phone today, told me they recieved the blower and took it apart. Said it def. needed a minor rebuild, bears were bad, and he noticed that the blower must have sucked a peice of rubber up. He said there was a black line going all the way through the inside of the blower housing that looked like rubber residue and two fins on the impeller blade where bent. (I could have told him the impeller blades where bent, its been like that for over 10,000 miles.........really didn't make a difference, still boosted 11psi) but I told him to go ahead with the minor rebuild for 363$ and he is also installing a brand new impeller blade for 150$. I figured I better get it replaced while its all apart. Hopefully this will fix all the problems. I'll keep you guys updated.

So far customer service is great

 

This is very good to hear. Looks like I may have to send mine in soon, and I kept hearing about the customer service issues there. So this is reassuring.

BTW, did anyone ever figure out what it costs to rebuild to SQE trim?

 

Correct, don't use Teflon tape on oil line fittings because of the possibility of a piece of tape getting into the oil passages and blocking flow.

However, it is okay to use Teflon paste.

 

during ideling? you mean when you just start the car? the rattling noise occured on my car when I shift it to D or R. The noise is gone after I tapped the gas pedal. I hand something like this before...turned out to be a loose bolt.

 

Except for the V1, which sounds like that from day 1.

 

That's true! I could hear Jer's from half a block away!

Jaime at Vortech is a great guy to deal with. Too bad the other guy there is a d*rk. I hated talking to him.

 

Is there any way to check the condition of the blower without it installed? A few posts up, I mentioned the scratching/drill noises I heard with the blower. But before I could really identify anything, the belt snapped. Could those noises have been caused by a belt going bad?

Now that the belt is gone, is there a way for me to see if the blower needs to be rebuilt? I don't want to install a new belt and find the blower is messed up and have to pull and reinstall the whole thing twice. Conversely, I don't want to have to send a good blower to Vortech and deal with the downtime if I don't have to.

 

I doubt the noise has anything to do with the belt. as long as the tension is kept right and the blet is aligned, it shouldnt cause any problem. The only way to check the condition of the blower, as far as I know, is to have vortech taking it apart. (unless it is giving your other signs like leaking oil, etc.) Even the stillen instruction mentioned that it will have a scratch sound from the blower. Once vortech opens up the blower, they have to replace it with new sealers.

first, you need to find out where does the sound come from....make sure it is coming from the blower before you send it in. I had a strong rattling sound after the blower installed, I thought it is from the timing chain cover. But turned out it is a bolt that was loose. Get a hose and put one end close to your ear and scan the area with the other end. Also try to find out how to duplicate the sound...i.e. turn on AC, change gear, etc.

 

Jer's? There's more than 1 supercharged Jer here?

 

so what was the final ending to this ?

 

on my post???????

well.......vortech was supposed to send it back tuesday and it was gonna take five days.......so it should arrive monday 28th.........i'll keep you guys posted on how things go

 

yea please do so, and let us know what the final cost was, and what they replaced.

 

so any outcome on this ?

 

Dang! Me bad with names! I forgot the name of the dude who had the V1 in his 4th Gen Max!


Yep, IanSW posted for me in here a wav file that has my blower making the grinding noise a second or two when I start up the engine. That's how bad mine was.