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I mocked up the twin TorqStorm chargers today to get some measurements to see how this was going to fit into my '86 442.
IT'S GOING TO BE A TIGHT SQUEEZE from what my tape measure is telling me.
I was mostly worried about clearing the hood, as I do not want to get into a different hood or modify my existing hood.
With a big shoehorn, I do believe I will be able to actually get it to fit, though it's going to be close - real close. If I have to (and only if it comes down to it), I can raise the body in relation to frame just a bit. The G body hood lines are pretty low compared to the vintage A bodies, sloping downward considerably towards the front. I *might* have to do a little bit of surgery to the support structures affixed to the bottom of the hood - hope not. The mockup engine is my 488 stroker, with the same induction system as what is currently in the car so that I could get a back-to-back visual with the car on my right hand and the mockup on my left hand. The tape measure says MAYBE / MAYBE NOT. I suppose I won't know for sure until I start in on the installation this winter.
Here are some pics from various different angles:
Picture the low rise Offenhauser dual quad intake, with each charger plumbed to its own throttle body.
I am going to run this combo two ways to see which runs best. I don't want to cut up to car to accommodate intercoolers, so the first way I am going to try it is with two Holley Terminator throttle bodies that run high pressure injectors atomizing fuel right beneath the throttle butterflies through a whole group of laser drilled holes.
With these throttle bodies, the hope is that atomizing the fuel at their bases will provide a significant amount of air charge cooling, especially on E85. Now I am also welding in port fuel injector bungs too, which will allow me to swap from the TBI blow through into sequential MPFI to see what the difference in power and drivability may be just about back to back. My theory is that atomizing the fuel at the bases of the throttle bodies will provide the best charge air cooling as opposed to only fogging the fuel as injected directly into the ports. Again, I want to stay away from intercooling if at all possible. The car won't be able to handle more than a 1000 horse even with the traction control riding the ragged edge of wheel spin. If I put slicks on it and hit a sticky track, it's going to start twisting the car HARD, which it is just not set up for. I am prepared to have the Dominator ECU control methanol injection into the superchargers, which will also bring a considerable amount of intake charge cooling depending upon how much methanol I set it up to spray down the throats of the superchargers. Anything to keep me out of having to cut up the virgin original sheet metal!
Hopefully I can make this happen this winter, ready to hit the road late spring. Need to set up a beast fuel supply system, currently looking at this twin Hellcat fuel pump setup:
I think it will be a real tight fit, even with the tape showing there will be clearance once everything is plumbed and wired your engine compartment is going to be "stuffed to the gills". I sure wouldn't want to have to work under the hood with all that installed and plumbed. Quite an endeavor my friend, you are deternined and it shows. Good luck.
The E85 alone will take care of all the charge cooling you’ll need in order to negate the use of an intercooler.
And remember, no matter what you do to add holes for atomizing, being TBI, it’s still “pulsing” and won’t be a solid stream of fuel. That’s part of the problem with TBI systems.
Neat project though, keep us posted.
The engine is being based upon a solid foundation that can take it, a Rocket Racing block, SCAT CNC machined billet 4.5" stroke fully counterweighted crank, Big Block Chevy H beam Rods, and Wiseco pistons at 4.350", yielding 535 cubic inches / 8.8 liters, LS "C" firing order roller cam, CNC ported heads... I had thought about punching it out to a 4.375" bore to yield a nice sounding "Five Forty" but have decided I should leave some cylinder wall for any possible future needs (in case I suffer a meltdown and need to clean it back up at some point) (sure hope not) - "five thirty five" sounds rather interesting too. People always ask "whatcha got in there" and I always tell 'em "Four Fifty Five" which they can relate too (even when I had the 488 in there) - maybe I will just continue doing that
Interestingly, the entire TorqStorm package is rather light for what it is. I haven't weighed the 'chargers, but estimate they are about 22 - 25 pounds each in just handling them into place on the mockup (lighter than I expected - can easily hold one in the palm of your hand). I will weigh them next time I have them loose out of curiosity. All of the other stuff is already there on an engine anyway: Alternator, PS Pump, A/C compressor. The large bracket across the front of the engine with all of the pulleys and tensioners came fully assembled in its own separate box with the UPS label showing 20 pounds, and that's about all it felt like while mocking it up. Adding 65 - 70 cumulative pounds onto the front of the car with the 'charger package doesn't bother me, as I will be moving the battery to the trunk offsetting some of that weight - certainly nowhere near the realm of changing out the front springs, especially since the entire top end of the engine is aluminum (heads, intake...). I know the Rocket block and the Scat crank are pretty heavy, as I can feel the heft in them just moving them around. I might install some slightly stiffer coil springs in the front at some point as a handling improvement. Hmmm - come to think of it, a friend of mine has some scales, so I may hit him up to weigh the car at the four corners as it sits right now with the 455 in it to baseline it.
In taking some more measurements today, studying the layout further, everything is actually rather neatly packaged at the front of the engine starting at the front of the cylinder heads then not protruding past the forward most tip of the water pump. It looks like the 'chargers are going to sit just ahead of the wheel well protrusions - just high enough and just forward enough. Yes, it is a wide package at about 36" side to side, but once the current mechanical fan and shroud are out making the switch to high output electric fans, there will actually be plenty enough room to get your arms down into the front of the engine compartment to service anything needed. What's nifty is that there is nothing bolted to the water pump. I studied what it would take to yank the top part of the Rocket Racing two piece billet timing cover off in the event I wanted to tweak the cam timing (using a top cam sprocket with multiple timing settings in it), I would only have to yank the crank pulley, drop out the water pump and timing cover top out of the bottom - WAY better than the CVF Serpentine Belt System I am currently running where the entire package is mounted to the water pump. If you yank the air filters off, you can get straight at the valve covers. Depending upon how I may end up routing the pipes to the low profile hats on the throttle bodies, I may very likely end up also moving the air filters into the driver's and passenger's side factory battery boxes to pick up considerably cooler air there (as opposed to right above the valve covers). There are rather large "windows" in the G body core support at the fronts of the factory battery locations, so there has definitely got to be some cooler air there. I can easily envision fabricating some "cold air cleaner boxes" there to force them to breath through these windows (through the core support right behind the headlights). In general, serviceability and working in and around the engine compartment aren't going to be too bad at all. I'll say this, it will be WAY more serviceable than it was back when it was dead stock - THAT was a nightmare. Getting to the valve covers, spark plugs, exhaust, pretty much everything else is going to be just fine.
I think it'll run - hopefully I won't have to shim the body higher up in relation to the frame...
Paul
Last edited by Clark455; September 2nd, 2023 at 11:57 PM.
The engine build certainly is a dandy. As I have no supercharger experience I was wondering if you think there is enough contact on the the crank pulley for your blower belts ?
Not trying to run it down, you obviously have put your homework into this.
YES - I had similar thoughts about the area of the belt that is making contact with the crank pulley and how much traction it can / will provide. When I spoke with TorqStorm about this and boost in general, they had stated that the crank pulley was enlarged from a previous first design to increase blower speeds and also provide a larger area of belt contact providing more traction. The tensioner is rather strong and is positioned in the correct placement which is after all other devices in the belt loop, exactly where it will perform its duty properly. Now having said that, my initial boost target is 15 PSI +/-, which won't stress "the twins" much, keeping the air charge temps reasonably lower, and not straining the belt overly hard. It IS a heavy duty 8 rib wider diesel spec belt, which are very tough.
Having thought this through in my mind over and over and over (you get the point), I have come to the conclusion that I may introduce two more idlers into the blower belt drive - one across the long top stretch and another to the upper right of the crank pulley. I will have to wait and see if there is any belt whip / harmonics that may occur in that longer stretch of belt at the top, and then wait and see how the belt traction behaves at higher boost levels. I suspect there will be plenty enough belt traction at the lower 15 PSI boost levels, though could indeed start posing an issue if I turn the boost up higher. I have successfully masked off and sandblasted serpentine pulleys to increase belt traction which actually worked better than expected and was nowhere near as harsh on the belt as I had initially thought the roughened surfaces would induce. If the belt starts slipping at higher boost levels as per the heavier loads placed against the 'chargers, then introducing a second idler at the top right / driver's side top will wrap the belt much further around the crank pulley, alleviating any traction issues.
As a manufacturer of aftermarket high performance hydraulic brake assist systems (Hydratech), I have learned to initially put my trust in a manufacturer (in this case (TorqStorm), but also realizing there may always be shortcomings in a design that may have to be improved upon as needed, which I can do. Of course I would prefer everything works as advertised / expected, and sometimes it does, and sometimes it falls short with certain parts that I source for my usage. Somewhat like buying a carburetor - you are not going to be able to just pull it out of the box and bolt it on expecting it to work right off. Linkage mods, float bowl levels, electric choke, idle mixture, air bleeds, jetting, accelerator pumps all need to be tuned into your particular usage. Yes, it will run out of the box, but always needs further tweaking. I strive to make our brake assist systems a true direct bolt in, as I am a customer of the automotive aftermarket and do not know how to act when something actually bolts in and works without any further muss or fuss - it happens sometimes with certain items I have obtained from other manufacturers which surprises me. That said, I still expect most all aftermarket items to be a process, with hopes that what I pull out of the box at least gets me most of the way there. That's how I am approaching this TorqStorm package. So far I have mocked it up and by golly it actually fits - step one! Everything else still remains to be seen as I progress with final installation, with a "we shall see" approach. If I need to jazz around with some aspects of it to make it happen, so be it, though it sure will be nice if I find that I do not have to!
Summary? I have put my faith in the manufacturer, and will see how this continues. So far, amazing that everything actually fits, so kudos to them so far on that point.
Do I expect this to all go easy? Not at all, prepared to throw every cuss word in my vocabulary at it all in both English and Ukrainian at various points. If I truly wanted a direct bolt in guaranteed fit package, I could've sourced a supercharged LS drivetrain package from GM. That would've plugged right in perfectly as per having GM's million dollar engineering behind it. BUT, I'm growing weary of seeing LS swaps in every direction I turn, so keeping an Olds in an Olds is daring to be different. 535 cubes of Olds power running a low profile dual quad Holley Terminator EFI system was the initial plan, but then working with my friend from RideTech down the street on his twin TorqStorm powered 427 Fox body SEMA build just pushed me over the edge into this. Now I find myself wondering how I plan on hooking this thing, as my current 455 cam thrust plate design test mule engine is already shredding my 11.6" wide rear tires to a very very short lifespan. Yes, the traction control function in the Holley Dominator system is most definitely going to be working overtime on this!
Paul...
Last edited by Clark455; September 23rd, 2023 at 06:42 PM.
Sounds like the manufacturer has this covered and your mods on the pulley certainly won't hurt. Along with a back up plan if they don't.
I imagine the tuning of this package would probably be the biggest challenge and once you get this figured out it will be power management. What an awful thing to have to cope with
The motor is mockup is definitely an impressive looking beast.
I'm sure it will make your power number plus some ! Good luck with the build.
September 1st, 2023, 11:11 PM
Mocked up the twin TorqStorms
Rocket Racing Block Build
Faith in a manufacturer
