My A&A V2 SQ S-trim started making a strange noise at the impeller/inlet side of the blower today. Its started very faint when I first started the car, then after fully warming it up it got pretty loud. The sound is like marbles in a plastic cup just jumbling around at idle. The blower is also making a little more whistle at idle too. It was whisper quiet a week ago when it was first installed, but now its a little louder for sure. Here are a few vids, will you listen and give me your opinions?
No opinion as I'm too new to this car, but a WAG would be some sort of bearing problem as it's consistent at idle. I'd drive another car until I got this sorted out.
Send it back to Vortech. Sounds like something going bad internally on the headunit. If the Vortech on my Mustang ever makes a noise like that it's coming right off and going back to Vortech. If it's an S-Trim, just take this opportunity to have them put a T-Trim impeller in there. The T-Trim usually fits in the S-Trim housing.
__________________ 08 Corvette Coupe
Bone Stock
---------------------------------------- 97 Cobra
Forged 4.6L DOHC
Vortech Supercharged (S-Trim - 10.5psi)
I fired it today, and let it warm up. Its seems to be getting louder to the point where my wife noticed it when it was running at idle in the garage. Its comming off next weekend and going back. It lasted 7 damn days.
Positively scarey. Especially when a vendor says there are several showing the same signs.
San
If you are referring to me, in this instance, I'm just replying as a forum member who is currently having his vortech installed. I am a powdercoater, not a performance parts seller.
crap, sorry to read it. Now I'm getting scared, seems there have been a few vortechs with this issue lately.
Are you replacing it, or just returning it and being done with it?
Im sending it back to Andy, and he is going to send me a new one the day he gets mine. Hes going to deal with vortech getting it rebuilt. He says it would take vortech 3-4 weeks for them to get to it if I sent it directly to vortech. So, no I have to figure out how to pull the head unit. Im also going to replace the belt because the one he sent me was too long because I got the 3.8" pulley not the 4". Im also going to get a gates belt not a stock style belt.
We had to send ours back in, Andy sent a new one to our tuner before we got there so the time to get the old unit off and a new one off was a handful of hours.
It really sucks to have such an expensive part go bad after only a short time. I'd be really ticked if we had to send it in again though.
If you are referring to me, in this instance, I'm just replying as a forum member who is currently having his vortech installed. I am a powdercoater, not a performance parts seller.
No way man, I have heard way more horror stories about the procharger headunits then vortech by a long shot. Not only that, but the regular procharger kit from procharger is supposed to have major belt slip issues. No thanks, my first choice would have been a kenne bell kit but they never made one.
No way man, I have heard way more horror stories about the procharger headunits then vortech by a long shot. Not only that, but the regular procharger kit from procharger is supposed to have major belt slip issues. No thanks, my first choice would have been a kenne bell kit but they never made one.
Well I've had both, Vortech and ProCharger. My Vortech SQ was a POS and hated it. Got rid of the car. My ProCharger is superior to Vortech but you will have good and bad with anything. As far as "MAJOR BELT SLIP ISSUES" , that is way overblown and can happen to any centrifugal blower. Put on a good belt and tension properly.
After 2 weeks, my SQ started getting noisy. It sounded like a bearing going bad. Within a few more hours, the noise worsened and there was very little boost. Upon examination, we found a broken impeller blade. My guess is that the bearing noise was do to a bearing going bad which allowed the impeller shaft to wobble and hit the case. The second one is still fine after 3 months.
I was told that this was a rare failure, but from the forum readers, this does not appear to be true. Maybe Vortech got a bad batch of bearings or had some other problem in manufacturing. If this happened often, they would have trouble affording the warranty replacement costs. I could not get any meaningful information from them other than to say, "impellers don't just fail." They said the belt may have been too tight or there was a restriction in the oil supply. Not knowing the root cause of the failure makes me concerned about the long term reliability of the head unit.
After 2 weeks, my SQ started getting noisy. It sounded like a bearing going bad. Within a few more hours, the noise worsened and there was very little boost. Upon examination, we found a broken impeller blade. My guess is that the bearing noise was do to a bearing going bad which allowed the impeller shaft to wobble and hit the case. The second one is still fine after 3 months.
I was told that this was a rare failure, but from the forum readers, this does not appear to be true. Maybe Vortech got a bad batch of bearings or had some other problem in manufacturing. If this happened often, they would have trouble affording the warranty replacement costs. I could not get any meaningful information from them other than to say, "impellers don't just fail." They said the belt may have been too tight or there was a restriction in the oil supply. Not knowing the root cause of the failure makes me concerned about the long term reliability of the head unit.
Yep, thats how I feel right now. Mine lasted 7 damn days. I paid quite a lot for this kit and the install, and I'm hoping I just got a bad one. If I get another bad one, I may consider another blower. On the other hand, Andy is being VERY helpful on this and he says it is very rare that they go bad like this. A few of my mechanicly inclined friends and I are going to take it off this sunday and examine it. Then its going back to Andy at which point he is going to send me a brand new one. I hope the new one lasts. If the second one goes bad, then I am taking the car back to the installer and have him check the oil supply and make sure its getting oil.
I guess on the bright side, they are very easy to disassemble and inspect/reassemble, although if mine goes bad, I'll just send it back to Andy. My friend has the same blower on his G35 coupe and diassembled it to ceramic coat it, and then reassemled himself with no problems, and I installed it on his car 2 years ago.
Corvette Store
Ok Vortech guys, I need your help please....
The T-Trim usually fits in the S-Trim housing.
.JPG)
