I've had this idea brewing in my head since Saturday. I enjoy my Saturday morning TV on the car channels. Last week they installed a powercooler on the dudes Mustang. To do the install they had to reclock the compressor side of the blower for alignment. They had a brief clip of them actually doing it. Looks to me like the outlet can be in any direction.

So here is my idea(All this is only possible if there is hood clearance). First make an aluminum log design manifold that has the TB on the pass side. The TB will sit above the timing chain cover. Clock the blower so the outlet points toward the rear. Then run the super short boost pipe the ~six inches from the TB to the blower outlet. That six inches will be chalked full of the mandatory things like MAF and BOV. Space would be limited for extras like boost gauge probe and such. I don't know if the MAF would be messed up by the turbulence from the BOV or IM. The MAF could always be placed before the blower. I'm thinking this could be a way to increase boost without changing pulley sizes. Or it could be used as a setup to go with extremely high boost. Best part is that the only expensive custom part would be the UIM because you could chop the fittings off the kit's boost pipes and weld 'em up. This setup would reduce the volume that the blower would have to compress(Reverse of intercooler) and it would do away with the flow restrictions ascociated with a runner type manifold. I know it would be difficult for those of you with EGR, IACV, PCV still connected and working. For me however I'd only need one nipple on the IM for Brake booster. Does this sound like a reasonable idea? Seems like the volume of boost pipe would be more than halved. Obviously the main concern is hood clearance. The wires running accross the top of the timing chain could easily be rerouted. How much room is there between top of timing chain cover and hood? I think 4.5" should be sufficient. TB is what, 3.5" tall?

 

I know this might not work, but....why not cut where shown, flip it over, and stick back together? I think throttle body is symmetrical, and can be unscrewed to flip right side up. Other stuff might need more work, but probably more realistic than a custom intake.

Anyway, I like the way you think.

 

I'm not quite following what you are saying. Your saying cut and make the upper half of the UIM fit onto the LIM? Its hard to work with that material. Welding certainly is out of the question. Or you are saying use the top half of the DE manifold? Good thought. Still, the angle of the TB would be all messed up I think. I don't think a custom manifold would be more than $600. I mean it'd be a better alternative to the EH route for sure. The custom route would probably be on the same price level of a new MEVI but a bit higher than the DE-K VI route. I don't think it would be that hard. The shape at the joint is a simple oval. Links:
http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....ustom+Manifold
http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....ustom+Manifold


Looking at pics it would be really crowded. Things like powersteering and A/C would have to go or be relocated. I don't have either so... It looks like the MAF before the blower would be imperative for spaces sake. My Cardomain never works so I can't draw something up.

 

The picture I drew on was of a 5th gen DE-K manifold. I thought that, with the plastic material it's made from, it might be possible to make a jig to run it through a band saw. Then flip it over and glue it back together with the throttle body inlet now on the passenger side of the car.

When I looked under the hood of my own car, I saw that the throttle body would be very close to the strut tower, and there would be a clearance issue with the wiper motor. The power steering reservoir would need to go, to make room for the piping, and the A/C pressure pipe would have to be relocated. The box o'relays would also have to go.

Without actually measuring anything, my uneducated eye said that, if two cuts were made to the DE-K manifold where shown, removing about one inch of material, at such and angle that the glued together parts would lift up the throttle body mounting point, and a portion of the hood inner skin were cut out or bashed flat, it just might work.

If you do this to your car, and it works, and you come to my house, I'll buy you a beer.

 

Okay, here's a better plan: It looks like even though the air channels in the plastic manifold and on the head are offset like :Pd:Pd:Pd: they are symmetrical so that you could unbolt the plastic manifold and bolt it back on the other way around. Now the throttle body is over the oil filler hole, but close to in line with the supercharger pressure pipe. The MAF would have to be shortened to fit because the run would be so short. You'd would have to make an oil filler hole in the rear valve cover and figure out something with the dipstick, BUT you would end up with the world's shortest run of pressure pipe!


Does this make sense? Is it possible?

 

Well, I'm not even boosted yet so...I might be legal when you buy me that beer. I might do this right off the bat next winter when I do my SC install. I don't want to spend 3.5K for a measly 6PSI!

I was thinking of coming more along the lines of coming straight up off the LIM and then having the TB directly above the engine mount. Basically a log style manifold with totally straight runners. Similar to this. Made of aluminum of course.

One of the main objectives of this manifold would be to get rid of the bends that the air has to make. As said in one of the links. On the OEM manifold it has to do a 90+ degree turn to go into the runner and then another nearly 90 turn to get into the LIM.

The 90 degree clamp that comes with the kit would work fine on the outlet side of the blower. Boost #'s would be throw completely out of whack though. I betcha a 3.3 would get at least 10PSI.

 

I get ya on that. Its cool that we're just throwing ideas out. But using the same manifold still posses the restrictive characteristics of a runner type manifold. In a boosted car its much more important to get the air in and out. Resonance doesn't really matter.

 

I understand what you're saying about the log style manifold, but then you have a really tough hood clearance issue if the log is right on top. To keep the hood stock looking, you'd need to either mount it the log towards the back or front, with longer runners. There's much more room in front.

So why not try just flipping the stock manifold? It might not work, but it's cheap! And the airflow is significantly straightened and shortened compared to the normal installation of the stillen kit.

An if you're 18, you're legal to drink in Alberta.

 

In my drawing above, the black pipe with the throttle body drawn on it is the intake (non pressurized) pipe. So the blower would still need to be 'clocked', to put the pressure pipe on top. Being the do-it-yourself type, you would probably make a CAI in the passenger side fenderwell like I saw on Latinmax's site (I think it was Latinmax).

 

With the 3.5K Stillen charges, about half is markup, presumably for their engineering and machining efforts. If you are going to re-work everything, why pay all that cabbage to Stillen?

If you want really big boost and you want to be a pioneer, maybe you should go turbo? It seems like, when intercooling to reduce charge temp and increase density, the combination of the intercooler pressure loss and blower overspin sets a top end on boost. It seems like 11-12 PSI is the top end for SC'd? With turbo, the sky's the limit! Pistons to the moon!

 

I thought a lot about this a while back. Eventually it is the height of the timing case that makes things a bit too difficult unless you do something like mhadford suggests, but then you have to remove your IM every time you need to add oil or change plugs.

Eventually I did this: http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=328904

This resulted in a longer intake path, but 30 deg cooler intake air. Boost loss was only about .2 psi.

 

I guess this idea has gotten away from me a bit. I'm sitting here recalling what my goal is for the car. I don't want to be a pioneer into the extreme power arena. My goal is to build a complete car. In the next two years I'd like to be mildly S/C'ed, get a BBK, CF parts and lots of other misc crap. I was just toying with the idea. More possing this idea for others as a way to get nearly zero boost loss. I certainly do not want to pay Stillen the arm and a leg they ask for. It also seems they raise their price by $100 or so every two months. In the fall I'm going to start to look to buy a used kit. I'm not the turbo type. I've driven turbo cars and I really don't like it. I like the N/A sort of instant power that is delivered w/ a mild SC. I don't like the idea of loosing traction at the top of gears. Just seems backwards to me. I'm the type that romps on it at the exit and with a turbo that is much less fun or much harder to nail down. Correlating gas and exit is hard enough. Having to think about getting on the gas to build boost before the exit is too much work.

I guess at this point I need to get stuff straight. If boosting on the 3.3 or 3.125 does the car become less instant/potent down low due to the tunning needs to run properly up top? My impression is not. Just want to make sure.

Thanks for the link Stephen. I guess I have to except that there isn't clearance.

mhadford, I do like the idea of the reversed IM. Pulling it out would take less than 10 minutes. I'm only going to be driving 3K a year so the oil change would be part of the winterization process. Removing the IM would only add 20 minutes to the ordeal. Actually now that I wrote that it seems like a great idea. It would just look really weird when you pop the hood.

What do you guys think would happen with the blower so close to the TB? Would there be any buffeting like you experienced Stephen?

 

i was thinking about reclocking up because the cefiro lights are deeper and come very close to that 90 deg bend that is right off the compressor outlet. I would just need some more piping made and maybe a true 90 deg silicone bend to do it.

didnt craig mack have tb problems when he was doing his roots steup?

broaner, you might just want to consider that route.

 

Covering the oil fill hole is not a big deal. You cut and tap a new fill hole in the other (rear) valve cover. You would also have to figure out something with the dipstick, but that shouldn't be a show stopper.

Next time I'm screwing with my intake manifold, I'm going to see what happens if I flip it around....

You're right, it would look really weird. Or unique innovative and different.

Still not sure if it would work, but if it did, you could save about 4 feet of piping by putting the CAI in the fender, and another 4' of piping between blower outlet and throttle body. Losing 8 feet of pipe has got to be good for something!

 

I can plop my manifold on backwards tonight but my cardomain is being a b!tch so pics won't be available. I'll do that tonight and see if the TB clears the timing chain. My valve covers are out being polished so I won't be able to tell if it clears there.

The 4ft of CAI piping you speak of. I've always wondered why some people have another pipe running under the boost pipe. That is a CAI? Where does it place the filter? Now that we're on the subject, I've removed all splash gaurd and weather striping in the engine bay. This car will be a dry only car so I'm not concerned about ingesting water. With all this stuff gone the air temp at the blower inlet is going to be very low. I'm wondering if I would see any gains from a CAI. Thoughts?

Slimer, which route are you saying I should take? The reversed method? Just realized that the throttle cable would have to be extended somehow.

 

Craig had problems because his TB was right after the blower. This results in pressurized air being held back by the throttle plate, so when the throttle is opened at tip-in a large amount of pressurized air escapes past the throttle plate (kind of like when a bov opens), resulting in jerkiness and driveability problems at partial throttle.

This happens because a roots blower is a positive displacement type compressor and makes significant boost pressure at just above idle. We don't have this problem since a centrifugal blower makes negligible boost pressure at low rpm. Throttle bodies on roots blower systems need to be in front of the blower so that the blower doesn't develop pressure until the throttle opens and air flows into it.

 

you might want to look into a roots setup to see where the mounts for it would be.

broaner, when the track opens up, you will see my cai setup that goes into the fender well.

the crossover pipe comes down behind the radiator.

 

On the pic of my install you see two pipes. The upper one goes to the air intake, the lower one is the pressure pipe. The air filter is located on drivers side, way down below the battery, just above the engine bay splash guard.

From Latinmax' page you can see a cold air intake up inside the passenger side fenderwell beside the washer bottle.

If you try the IM flipping and get some good pics, email them to me. I'll host'em and post'em.

 

mhadford-it is nice to see that a relative newb has done his homework.

id just like to say that i wish more people that came into this forum did as mush research before asking questions.

 

Thanks! I am fairly new to this forum, but have been recreationally wrenching on different cars for many years. I started reading this forum before I bought my car in 2003 -which is why I chose the 2000 SE 5spd. I intended to supercharge it before I even bought it. I've owned several other imports in the past, including a couple with turbos. I thought the Max had more class and was suitable for a guy pushing 40, while not giving up anything on performance.

 

Personally, time/money would be better spent on fabricating an AWIC next to the battery.

With all the V1/V2 owners around here, I can't believe someone hasn't come up with a standard AWIC kit.

 

Well, it won't fit backward. I just tried it. I didn't remove the studs from the LIM but its clear that it won't work. Even without the TB bolted to the UIM it hits the timing chain. Nix that idea.

Mhadford, I thought the kit comes with a flatish filter that connects right to the inlet. Seems very excessive to run the piping all the way back to the other side. I mean, how hot can it be over there in the corner of the bay? The headers are far away and timing chain is always cool to the touch when I'm done driving. I knew about the fender CAI. I'm thinking I'll just go with a simple filter right on the inlet. As I mentioned I have no splash gaurd or weather seal and therefore much more circulating air in that area. After sitting still for a while I can see there being an issue but who needs more power in first anyway.

Ice, that is a good point. But I can never see myself going with an AWIC setup. I like things clean and simple.

 

That Rustang Vortech aftercooler was pretty clean/minimal IMO.

The later kits(at least the 5th gens) have the extra crossover pipe, so the MAF is on the non-charged side of the blower.

 

Hmmm.... I just looked under the hood of my car and I still think it might work - but I have a different car - 5th Gen, different manifold. I wonder if the basic shape is the same as your manifold and I'm just fooling myself. I started to remove stuff to test my theory and then I remembered I have to drive the car to work tomorrow!

Maybe on the weekend.

Here's another kooky idea: why not make your own AWIC? Stay with the 4' long pressure pipe, but wrap it with flexible copper tubing. It would be best to solder it on, to promote heat transfer. Wrap it in manifold wrap, and attach a tank, recirculating pump and a small (motorcyle?) radiator behind bumper, and you've got your own Home Depot / hardware store air-water intercooler. Of course you would put ice in the tank on race days. It might not have the best heat exchange with the charge air, but it would have no additional restriction.

I know I've got some copper tubing around from last time I made a still.....(rummage...rummage) Stay tuned.

 

Ice, I do agree that the aftercooler on the Stang was quite clean. That was a production kit though. The only aftercooler I've seen on our cars was i30krab's setup(I've never seen a pic of Steve's). That was certainly not clean. I'm of the opinion that form and function must coexist. I don't really understand the benifit of aftercooling. You get less boost, more lag, more weight, and more torque. Why is more torque desired when first is already too short for even the stock kit? Yes, I understand that on hot days it can be quite beneficial but this is Wisconsin. The number of days above 90 is always in the teens.

Also, it seems stupid that they sell the kit with that 4' intake pipe rather than just a 5' MAF harness extension and adaptor.

Mhadford, I do think the 5.0 gen IM is a slightly different shape. Still I don't think it will fit. On the USIM the TB mounting surface needs to be at least four inches further outward horizontally. The TB could always be mounted upside down so the throttle cam wasn't having hindrances but then the TPS would be there.

I think the copper surrounded boost pipe is an interesting idea if your into it. Still, keep in mind that it will need to be sufficient gains to overcome the 40lbs+ you added.

 

You can make your own, just like the Stang had. You just need to find another common application with your disired inlet and outlet angle/bends.

AWIC add only a very minimal actual pressure drop. Yes, your gauge will show a couple psi maybe, but that's due to the ageless PV=nRT, ie decrease the temperature(T) and the directly related pressure(P) will decrease. You still have a colder/denser charge that produces more power.

Too much torque on a mild SC?

 

The benefit of an aftercooler is not just a handy application of Boyles law; cooler charge=denser charge=more power. A cooler charge also reduces risks of detonation &/or pre-ignition; and pistons going to the moon.

I've got another idea - I'll let you know if it pans out.

 

Mild SCs' even pretty extreme ones aren't having detonation issues, so that's not a concern, but yes, the biggest advantage of any type of cooler is that it allows you to run more boost on pump gas.

I was just explaining, since Broaner was concerned about "more lag", when that's not really a problem with an AWIC.

 

Thanks for clarifying. It shows that I have a lot to learn in the boosted realm. I still feel that I'm not the type for an IC. I think the 3.125 would be the smallest I would consider. As I mentioned I want to build a complete car. ~300WHP is a good reliable power level and as we know, proper tunning with this boost results in no issues with detonation. I want to be able to drive the bal!s off the car just as I do now. I do not have the self control to stop from romping in it every time I drive. Its going to be hard enough breaking my clutch in.

 

I hear ya Broaner. I'm just almost at 300whp and its just about perfect balance for the car between performance and maintenance. I'm doing the 5spd conversion now so I feel your pain on breaking the clutch in.

Have any of you heard news from anyone using the DEI Cryo2 cooling system? I've been considering getting the setup with the fuel rail & intake air setup. A couple 10lbsers in the trunk of CO2 *evil grin*

 

 

You're my role model. I really want to have a similar setup to yours. Its nice to see someone running that with A32 MAF. I'd like to have your setup except with an extrude honed IM in place of the MEVI. You made 287WHP auto w/ your current setup? So w/ 5Spd you should be well past your goal. I have no power steering, A/C or cat so 300WHP might even be feasible with 3.25". You think? What clutch are you going with? I definitely plan on polishing the blower too. How long did it take?

Bejay has sent me some PM's about the work I did lightening my TB. He was interested in the coolant passages in the TB and IM through the EGR port. I think he is thinking about running CO2 through those. Again, the benifits of system must be good enough to overcome the added weight. Also, I hate the idea of having a "mod/power adder" that is only available momentarily when you flip the switch. And when you do spray CO2 on a regular basis it becomes cost prohibitive.

Nismo3112, great pics. So is that JB welded on there? Looks very nice but the whole IM is backwards. What car is that and what did the engine come out of? Why would any DE-K have the TB on that side? Or was it totally frankensteined from the other side?

 

Wow..I've never been anyone's role model before hehehehe....but thank you for your kind words. I have to admit I have followed in someone elses footsteps through most of this myself. I don't know if I could ever part with the MEVI man. It's just so "THERE" right at 5K. It's almost like having a mini S/C on the high end that kicks in. I haven't heard anything about the extrude honed. I was so happy with the MEVI I never researched more since

Twere it me...and I was right there in that same debacle (sp?). But the second I rolled it out of the garage after putting that 3.12 on it was a whole nother car. I don't know if you could do it on a 3.25. I'd rather do a 3.12 and have my power steering etc etc. One thing though...I had a Cartech FMU installed and dyno tuned on my 3.25...then swapped to the 3.12. We had the A/F tuned to about 10:1ish but level for the most part. When I went to 3.12 it was a perfect match...my last dyno was 12:1 almost straight the whole way through.

The clutch I'm going with is the Clutchnet.Com Sprung Hub 6puck #7103 rated to 450ft./lbs-TQ. I didnt stinge on the A/T and got a VBmod...I figure I might as well keep up the theory..hehehe.

The blower was polished when I bought it.

Ya...I'm tempted to get the Fidenza F/W instead of the KYB's with this mondo clutch.

I apologize for the OT. Let's continue this in PM or email

 

broaner, these are back from the install




i would have posted before, but it is a little hard to get online on the weekends.

i like the dei system and have considered putting the bell shaped intake tract after the aftercooler and close to the throttle body (pic 3)

 

Thats a sweet lookin box..... What does it do?

 

Looks very nice Steve. Just not my style.

 

That plastic manifold certainly isn't limited to what it currently does. It has plenty of upgrade potential however in it's current form it still makes great power to 7100rpm.

 

I just remembered we have a plastic welder at school. Anyone ever tried plastic welding the plastic of the IM. I don't know how to use it that is why I'm asking?

 

i basically cools the air out with liquid. especially now.

 

Update on this idea. I was down in Atlanta for the weekend. The people I was staying with have a Pathfinder. I'm not sure what year but its got the VG33. I popped the hood to have a look around. I guess I was doing some learning on the PF TB mod. While peaking around I realized that the IM was the shape we are looking for in this idea. The PF IM angles the TB in the opposite direction of the OEM IM. Its tough to explain. Anyone got a pic of a PF engine bay? Basically, It would point the TB more toward the pass side headlight. It looked like it would clear the timing chain but it looks like hood clearance would be even tighter. The runners off the PF UIM go straight upward for at least 3 inches before it makes the turn.

It doesn't look like the UIM off the VG would bolt onto the LIM from the VQ due to bolt placement. So I'm wondering if the LIM of the VG would bolt to the heads of the VQ. Anyone?