Ford-a-tude

I am getting near the end of some pretty serious mods for this season, so my car has been in pieces for a few weeks now. If stupid was an olympic event, then last night I took home the gold. I am installing an Air/Water intercooler and I have the volute off the supercharger so I can re-clock the output down to the intercooler. While it was off I decided it would be a good time to finally polish it up nice. That turned out great, but I had temporarily moved the supercharger case onto the floor with the impeller fully exposed. Who knew that the intercooler would fall over and land right on it. Let's just say that the next few minutes were not pretty, at all. So now I am left with this:



Anyone have any opinions? I could deal with the fact that it is damaged and performance may (or may not) suffer. I am not sure if it would be safe to spin that impeller with a chipped fin. I imagine it is no longer balanced. What if this thing comes apart and sends shards into my engine?!?!

So now I am considering an impeller upgrade and I know very little on the subject. If anyone has any insight or experience with aftermarket impellers that work with a Vortech V2, I could really use some help.

Thanks,

BWfVA

I would call Vortec and see if the could send you another impeller, I dont know much about superchargers so there might be more involved, but it looks like you could just switch them out with a change of a bolt.

Ford-a-tude

I already know the answer to that. Vortech doesn't sell impellers alone. I'm sure I could send it to them for an upgrade, but I don't want to be without my car for 6 weeks in the summer! After cooling off for a few days and re-evaluating my situation, I decided I am going to file down the rough edges on the chipped blade and reinstall it like that for a week or so. I have been looking at the billet impeller from 928 Motorsports. They claim 15% more flow across the board. I don't really care about that so much, but theirs is rated up to 60,000 rpm and I can get it in a few days.

Still pissed at myself for such a stupid mistake! Pay to play, that's what I hate to say.

Ford-a-tude

Update:



I cleaned up the edge of the chipped fin and there seemed to be no problems. There was one annoying side effect though. On deceleration there was a distinct "Chuffing" sound. Hard to believe such a small chip could make such a loud sound. With that and the possibility of being out of balance I decided to go with a new impeller from 928 Motorsports. Installation pretty simple, hardest part was getting the case open without taking the whole blower bracket off the motor. Perfect fit with no spacers needed. Hard to tell a difference powerwise as I did a bunch of things all at once, but the boost does seem to come up a bit sooner. This one is good up to 60,000 rpm so if I decide to up the boost I ready!

Old Mustanger

Impellers are a pretty precise part. The only way they live at the speeds they turn is by being precise and perfectly balanced.
There is no way I would risk my engine by running an out-of-balance impeller.
When it fails you most likely will not hear or feel the vibration due to the sonic speeds it sees. It will basically explode, the whole S/C will be trashed and all the little pieces will be flying through your engine, that will cause a "boom" and your engine will go bye-bye.

The odds of the S/C not failing is very slim.

moosestang

I wouldn't risk running that.

clowe1965

Glad you fixed it and the old one didn't blow up. Bet you didn't put anything near the new one while it was out of the box.

Another unfortunate but slightly humorous incident; my friend installed a turbo kit on his celica and then left the car in the garage while he was at school for two months. Came home, charged the battery and started the car up. Sucked up a mouse that had made a nest into the turbo. Guess that's what he gets for not putting a proper filter on it.