On May,’04 I was driving around town on a 90-degree day when I decided to take the freeway to a friend's house. The engine temps were hovering around the 230 degree mark…. the engine compartment was heat soaked from slow in-town driving. I entered the freeway in third gear…. started to accelerate…. and…. KABOOM!!! I heard metal pieces rattling down the headers and out the tailpipe!! The car immediately started running so bad that I shut it off and towed it home. I pulled plug 7&8 they were destroyed… a compression check showed cylinder #7 was gone. The next day I called A&A Corvette, the shop that did the F1-R design and installation and was told they were too busy to talk to me and to email them the details…which I did. About a week later, while waiting for a response from A&A, I called LAPD. They responded the next day with a complete and detailed quote on the shortblock rebuild. Over the following weeks I sent additional emails to A&A Corvette…. they never responded…. and many months later offered the excuse “we were too busy moving the shop” for not responding. To date, A&A Corvette has not offered anything or any compensation…. even though their product overheated, detonated and destroyed my motor. After waiting many weeks for a reply, I realized they were not going to stand behind their product or help me in any way. I had my car transported to LAPD on July 29th. Several days later LAPD had the motor apart…. due to extreme overheating and detonation the heads had lifted and number 7 piston ring/land was broken. My C5R block sustained damage (the extreme detonation melted away some of the block!) that required a little tig welding and an .005” over-bore.
About 7 weeks (Ross never delivered pistons as promised….I had to switch to CPs) later LAPD had my shortblock rebuilt… anew CP pistons, rings, bearings etc. The next week the motor was back in the car and I drove it around the streets of Chatsworth. It was another hot 90+ degree-day and coolant temps again went to 240 degrees…. even easy driving on the freeway wouldn’t bring the temps under 240 degrees. The longer I drove the car, the higher the temps got….. over 245 degrees. I removed the intercooler and pipes and ran the motor N/A…. it ran close to normal temps. At this point I took a long hard look at the heat exchange processes going on under my hood. My conclusion was that with the intercooler laying directly on top of the layed down radiator, the reduced air flow and hot air expelled by the intercooler would not let the radiator properly cool the motor. Under boost, this intercooler exit air could be MUCH higher than ambient outside air. This created the very high IATs and detonation that destroyed my motor. On a 427 motor making around 760 rwhp, the A&A design couldn’t efficiently cool the intercooler or radiator on hot days.
I decided that the A&A design was fatally flawed for big cube, high HP S/C motors. Though popular, it had to be scraped and redesigned for greater thermal efficiency and reduce the risk of another catastrophic engine failure. The cooling of the intake charge, water and oil had to be separated and insolated from each other. I left my car at LAPD, went home and spent several months on the options that were available. I read Corky Bell's book "Supercharged!" and determined that the A&A intercooler was way under capacity for the power levels I had. I decided on a Tiger Shark nose clip and after calculations a larger intercooler mounted perpendicular to the incoming airflow and as forward as possible in the nose clip. LAPD took careful measurements and ordered a new 60% larger intercooler. I ordered the louvered ACP heat extractor hood. Next, I designed a sheet metal shroud to seal the compartment from under the intercooler to the top of the radiator. The Tiger Shark nose clip would let cool outside air flow perpendicularly through the larger intercooler and the heated exit air flow up the shroud and out the ACP hood louvers. Intake air is pulled from the driver and passenger side nose cavities. Step one done. Next, I designed a custom sheet metal air scoop to capture more air from under the car. This scoop assembly fills the cavity beneath the shroud with pressurized outside air and seals the fan shroud to the radiator. This design separates and insolates the air/water heat exchange processes instead of allowing one processes expelled hot air to diminish and restrict the heat removal process of the other. The quality of LAPDs sheet metal work is outstanding. This photo was taken during early development.
The S/C pipes and shroud are thermally insolated with a special ceramic coating. This will prevent most of the intercooler cavity heat from entering the intercooler exit pipe and the air cavity that cools the radiator. A Turbonetics 30psi coupler replaced the flimsy silicone tube. Hi-strength stainless steel T-Clamps replaced the old radiator style hose clamps. LAPD installed the Alkycontrol methanol kit and added features to the base system. New in-dash instrumentation includes FJO single channel wideband A/F and fast response IAT gauges.
I had LAPD install a new Dewitt radiator without an internal oil cooler. The radiator was relocated more vertically (to increase air flow) from its previously layed down position and twin 12” SPAL fans move the air. I added an external Setrab oil cooler and mounted it in the drivers side nose clip. The oil cooler mounts on a standoff enclosure about 1 1/2 inches from the well liner. The well liner has a cutout covered with screen to keep rocks away from the cooler…. again this was to improve and separate oil and water cooling processes. I replaced the electric water pump with a modified Evans high flow mechanical pump. I swapped out my LQ9 heads for a set of custom ported 72cc TEA AFR 205s. Even though the TEA heads flow about the same as the LQ9s, the deciding factor was the more massive ¾” thick deck of the AFRs. This should reduce any chance of head lifting. The fuel system has dual in-tank Walbro pumps that can support over 1000 rwhp.
I designed a PCV system for both Katech valve covers…. I machined a hole, made baffling and a fitting for the drivers side valve cover (the passenger side cover came with a 90 degree elbow installed). I routed both lines into a 2/1 manifold that mounts on the firewall, then to the catch can and into the intake.
I replaced the old 110-amp alternator with the new 145-amp GM unit. If you want to remove the 6-rib clutch pulley assembly…email me and I’ll show you a procedure that only takes 30 seconds.
I also did an alignment check of the A&A S/C idler pulleys to the main Reichard pulley. The A&A bracket and pulleys were misaligned by one full rib. That’s between the Reichard drive pulley and the 8-rib idler…. a distance of only 6 inches. This is why I shredded a belt in less than 600 miles. Using the Gates Laser Alignment Tool, I determined the proper alignment, machined all new shoulder bushings (all the idlers were out of alignment) and put double bearings in the 8-rib idler… for added reliability. Anyone still shredding/jumping belts…it’s probably a misalignment of your pulleys.
I swapped out my old brakes for a set of Brembo 14” rotors/calipers at all four corners. A set of ACP in-body brake ducts help with the cooling.
I also added the DTE transmission strut brace.
The car will be repainted a custom pearl indigo/royal blue … a complete Vette Essentials leather interior will go in after paint.
LAPD’s great tuner, Doug, did a 2-bar, speed density tune. Using Hp tuner v2.0, Doug fine-tuned my car to produce 812 rwhp/730 rwtq with just over 13lbs. boost. This is a conservative tune on 91-octane pump gas, and the dyno runs were limited to 6350 rpm for safety.
The A&A system would have made about 760rwhp (the 773 rwhp used an electric water pump). By adding Torco (100+ octane level) and more boost, I’m sure my design could easily make over 900rwhp. Just adding Torco and more timing would get me beyond 850 rwhp. I designed this system for reliability and the potential to make maximum power if I ever decide to push it that hard. The goal of cool, efficient operation has been achieved. On the dyno, at full load, the IATs stay within a few degrees of ambient. Even hard driving on the streets (on very hot 100+* days) the IATs never reach 120 degrees. On a recent 104 degree day radiator coolant temperatures stayed between 178-182 during freeway driving. This is 60+ degrees cooler than the A&A system. Last Friday I made the 370 mile drive home. I averaged 20mpg and almost forgot I was driving a car that had near 1000fwhp. This design is so efficient that when the outside air reached 68 degrees....my coolant temps were 140-142 degrees! This design is a dramatic improvement over the A&A system that never ran under 230 degrees on 90+ degree-days. The car has extremely good street manners …very responsive and idles at 900rpm.
This project with LAPD required over 1 3/4 years of R&D, fabrication and testing time. I made 10 multiple day visits to LAPD to make design changes and improvements. As with any one-of-a-kind project, everything had to be designed and fabricated from scratch. LAPD never complained about the many changes and updates to the design and in some cases had to remake the same part several times.
King Kong’s new S/C system has radically reduced IATs, radiator coolant and oil temps. This greatly improved design has taken supercharger efficiency to the next level. I’m confident I can drive my car on hot days without fear of detonation and another destroyed motor. Thanks again to LAPD’s fabulous tuner, Doug, for getting all my tuning issues resolved…. my car never ran properly with the A&A tune. My car finally drives and performs the way I envisioned 3 ½ years ago. I want to give special thanks to Shawn and Al of LAPD for the personal attention they gave my project. Al spent countless hours on the phone discussing every aspect of my project. Thanks to Dan, LAPD’s top notch mechanic for his great quality of work and the many hours he put into my car. The great success of this project car is an example of the high quality work and innovation that is LAPD’s standard….. great job guys!!
One more important point….. the new APS twin turbo kit from LAPD is really something you should look at if you want to go with twin turbos. A totally stock C6 made 563rwhp…. With a forged motor, cam, headers, etc…this is easily 700-750 rwhp and for a very reasonable price. If this TT product were available 2 years ago, I would have gone that route. The kit for the C5 will be out shortly. I talked with the APS developer for some time and these guys really know the turbos.
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