Supercharger

[91xltTerd]

Has anyone tried to put a thunderbird supercharger on an explorer with the installation kit from summit? I don't know where you would get the ingnition components from though because the installation kit doesn't include them.

Thanks for input.

 

[Explorer46L]

Or you could get a supercharger from Paxton, Vortech, or Kenne Bell

 

[91xltTerd]

Yeah but if I could get a used or rebuilt eaton M90 supercharger for $600 or less and then buy a $200 installation kit from summit, I would only have somewhere between $800 and $1000 in it instead of nearly $3000 for the same supercharger from bbk.

 

[SaleenEXP]

Is the charger going on your 91' ? If it is you will have to rebuild your engine before you put on the charger. For the ohv V6 check out Vanir Products (don't remeber if I spelled it right) for unpgraded internals, otherwise your 91' engine will probably last a few days or maybe weeks before blowing up.

 

[SaleenEXP]

Originally posted by SaleenEXP
Is the charger going on your 91' ? If it is you will have to rebuild your engine before you put on the charger. For the ohv V6 check out Vanir Products (don't remeber if I spelled it right) for upgraded internals and performance, otherwise your 91' engine will probably last a few days or maybe weeks before blowing up.

EDIT- whoops, somehow I double posted, sorry bout that.

 

[91xltTerd]

bbk sells a kit made specifically for the 91 explorer but I was just trying to get around having to buy the whole kit from them and buy a used or rebuilt supercharger to save $$$$s and use just the installation kit from bbk. It must last sometime there are people here on this site running this same supercharger and nitrous at the same timewithout major internal upgrades.

 

[SaleenEXP]

Originally posted by 91xltTerd
bbk sells a kit made specifically for the 91 explorer but I was just trying to get around having to buy the whole kit from them and buy a used or rebuilt supercharger to save $$$$s and use just the installation kit from bbk. It must last sometime there are people here on this site running this same supercharger and nitrous at the same timewithout major internal upgrades.

BBK makes the kit for all years of the ohv V6 and it is bolt on. But your 91 engine will have a very very short life if you don't upgrade the internals. Almost everyone thats has a charger w/ ohv V6 used Vanir for the internals. Check with Alec, he has a 96 sport with Vanir products and the BBK charger. If you had a newer ohv V6 you could basically do a strait bolt-on with no mods, but you would be pretty dissapointed in the gains with out modding the internals, than it will make some nice gains.

 

[SaleenEXP]

or hell, if your gonna mod it anyway, drop a 5.0 and charger in it and you'll see some sick gains hehe

 

[91xltTerd]

I was just trying for some cheap gains that I can feel. The Superchip and K&N drop in with holes in the air box and less restrictive exhaust gave me zero seat of the pants feel.

 

[Alec]

I don't have Vanir parts, but will soon. I bolted on the s/c with only 40k miles on it so the motor was still good.

As for that installation kit, it only comes with the intake tubes and misc hardware. The most consuming part of an Eaton blower install are the intake plenum for the blower (and TB, EGR, IAC mounts) and the intake plenum for the motor. If you don't have those, you better have a free machine shop.

 

[91xltTerd]

Thanks, Alec, thats what I was trying to figure out, what exactly comes with the installation kit and what comes with the supercharger unit itself. For some unknown reason the tech department at bbk didn't know what came in each kit, only what comes in both combined. I was thinking that the installation kit would leave out the plenum coming off the back of the sc to the tb and the one from the sc to the lower intake and the ignition module, but the technician at bbk didn't know what came with what.

 

[91xltTerd]

I wonder if the lower intake from a 3.8 would match up to the 4.0 engine? Probably not because Ford likes to make nothing interchange off of vehicles. I don't have much experience with anything other than my explorer, 350 chevy, and 7.3 Turbo diesel.

 

[SaleenEXP]

my bad Alec, I swear I thought you had Vanir internals. But he has a 91' which most likely has high miles on it right? Thats like a no-no for adding a supercharger, but the bbk is a low boost system and probably wouldn't really stress the internals too much so maybe even with high miles the ohv V6 could take it.

Alec, you added yours on somewhere around 50,000 miles right? maybe 30,000 or 40,000 I don't remember the time you had it installed. Would you just install it on a 91' engine with not upgrades? I'm just not sure a 91' ohv would take a liking to being supercharged with out some internal work. If you go to a tuning shop (like for a Mustang or whatever) and have high miles they almost won't install the charger w/o internal work b/c they will tell you althought it'll work probably fine your engine won't last very long. A 96' like yours will most likely run perfect with a bolt-on kit, but a 91' which most likely has a lot higher miles wouldn't hold up to that kind of pressure very long. But the bbk is low-boost so it might work fine on a high mile engine.

 

[SaleenEXP]

91xltTerd - did you try looking on ebay?? You can usually find people selling the eaton units pretty cheap, like around a couple hundred bucks.

 

[91xltTerd]

On ebay most of the units go for around 300-350 used and a little more for a rebuilt one, but if you can't get the right plenums to match up to the tb and the lower intake it makes it kinda hard to use one on an explorer. My explorer has 106k a little high, but my A4LD is the worry before the engine coming apart. I really like the v8 swap idea much better, but I'm still waiting for someone to come out with exactly start to finish what has to be done to make everything work like it should.

 

[Doug904]

The 4.0 is a strong engine that will last. I've installed Vortech's on engines with as much as 110K on them. If they're not using alot of oil or running rough then go for it. As for upgraded internals, I've rebuilt my engine this past year with pretty much stock stuff, hypertech pistons and stock rods. I did have it all balanced and just used good sence when I assembled it but everythings fine so far with 11psi of boost. Upgrading the internals of a 4.0 is a very costly job. I have another 4.0 I started building this year andso far I have over $2500 in bottom end components and machine work so far. Its for the t-trim,hehehe. later Doug904.

 

[SteveVB]

4.0 internals

Is vanir even selling the parts for the 4.0s anymore?- I havent checked recently, but the rods, pistons etc were not listed last time I browsed.

Not that big of a deal you can source the parts elsewhere, they are custom , but you know where Vanir sourced them, and a phone call would be all it would take to get them I think. Like Doug said the 4.0 has a pretty stout bottom end- every rod has its own journal, the rods are semi beefy. The Vanir pistons had raised ring lands over stock which I can see would make some sense over stock pistons.

I dont have tons of experience with the engine- Ive looked into two of them, and both had more than 150k miles and the wear on the journals and mains was well within specs, the cylinders didnt need to be reamed or anything to get the pistons out, and they cleaned up with a 10 and 30 overbore.

Doug probably has more experience in this respect, but I doubt I would have any problem putting a SC on any engine as long as it was in good shape, the only weakness I could think of would be the valve springs loosing some of their closed pressure due to age.

Hey Doug do you use Gapless or Zero Gap rings? Opinion?

 

[91xltTerd]

I'm using about a quart of oil in 3k, but it seems to have good compression. I think that in an 11-12 year old vehicle that is stock that the valve seals must be the cause of the oil usage. It runs great so long as my alternator isn't changing voltage. Rebuilt alternators suck. I'm on my 5th one and everyone of them can't keep steady power and that makes my engine seem like it has a dead skip in it sometimes. I have a compression tester at home. How many psi should it be reading?

 

[Doug904]

On a engine with a good amount of miles anything above 100psi is normal, what you really wanna make sure of is that the cylinder pressures on all the cylinders are within say 10-15psi of each other and that none of them are below 100 psi.

I do have a rule of thumb I go by on installing a supercharger on higher milage vehicles. If it has atleast 125 psi on each sylinder and they are within 10% of each other then it should be fine. Anything else and your really gonna accelerate your engine wear and shorten its life.

Good thought on your vavle seals, that could be a possibilty but on the earlier style 4.0's they had a few common problems.
***The valve cover gaskets to begin with were horrible, I always upgrade to the new style metal-over-rubber gaskets.

***Then the lower intake gasket would almost always blow out in either the front or the rear causing a leak. This would sometime be mistaken for the rear seal but you can easily check this by looking at the top of the bellhousing.

*** Then finally there was the rear main seal that would leak. Ford designed the crankshaft too well and made it so slick that the seal wouldn't seal. They come out with a sleeve that fits over them if you need one.

As for the gapless rings I don't have any experiences with them so I can't give any advise toward them. The only thing that I really don't care for about them is I've always gapped my own pistons rings for my applications. I know that certain applications(Supercharged or Nitrous) require a bit more gap on the top rings because of the increased heat and stress on the piston so I don't really like the idea of having a ring that don't expand. That's just me. I prefer a Plasma-coated Moly ring set, NOT CHROME MOLY. The Chrome Moly have certain sealing issues that don't even need to be delt with in the word of 4.0's. Later Doug904.