Took a quick trip to my junkyard and lo and behold...






Does this supercharger look in good condition? If so I can get to work gutting it pretty soon, wouldn't want someone else to take it. Also, picked up a manual from my library and it shows the disassembly of the supercharger in detail, so nice.

 

No way to tell from here. Any indication of mileage?

There's 3 things to look for in supercharger condition:
-Coupler condition. Theres a piece of plastic that connects the snout to the rotors which wears over time. Its not a big deal to replace (and frankly you probably should anyways along with a fluid change since you don't know the history), but you do need to check before you install it. When you turn the pulley back and forth, you'll feel a slight delay before engaging each direction if its worn out. Even if minor, replace it or it'll be bouncing back and forth rapidly when the engine is running and sound like a rock tumbler. Every m90 needs this sooner or later.

-Snout and case bearings. Spin the pulley forward rapidly and see how smoothly it turns. If it feels gritty/ has a lot of resistance- either crap is stuck in the rotors or the bearings are dragging. Its not real common even on 200k+ cars, but it does happen if the bearings dry out. Its not awful to replace, but m90s are cheap enough that its borderline not worth the effort - especially since most are ok for this issue.

-Rotor wear. This is the big one. You'll have to pull the blower for this and look up from the outlet inside of it. None are perfect, but you shouldn't be missing big chunks of coating or have significant grooves in the rotor edge or blower case. While technically fixable if bad, no m90 is worth having that done. It will be black and sooty- thats ok (and don't clean it off either).


That is a pretty complete junkyard engine. To Maniac's point, does it make more sense to grab the whole thing rather than being charged for each nut and bolt taking 70% of it? Not sure what their pricing is like, but Ive seen junkyards where the whole engine is say $500 but ringing up each piece individually would come out to easily double that.

 

I'll ask what the mileage on the car is when I go in a few days & inspect the blower. An engine from this '01 GTP would run me $275. It's a junkyard that buys cars at cheap prices, like from owners that want to get rid of their cars right away and running a VIN check on the car I can see that it has not been involved in any accidents. Seems like taking the engine out would be the best idea, would I just remove the engine fasteners and hoist it up to get it out or something? I think I saw a video earlier this week on a dude swapping out his 3800, I'll see if I can find it.

 

That's a really good price for a complete engine. Even if you still do a top swap instead of a full engine swap, you could set the new bottom end aside in your garage in case you blow your current one up on accident. That's all assuming the condition checks out and mileage is reasonable (which is important anyways even if you're just pulling parts off of it).

As for pulling the whole engine, here's a few things off the top of my head:
-Disconnect the fuel lines. You can either use a proper disconnect tool at the rail, or just cut it off at the plastic portion.
-Drain the coolant and oil
-Disconnect PS pump lines
-Remove radiator hoses
-Disconnect the axles from the transmission.
-Unplug the wiring harness from the car body (connector up on the firewall, etc)
-Unhook other main electrical connectors - starter to battery + alternator to battery and any grounds tied between the two
-Take off the shift cable and TB cable
-Take off the exhaust manifolds + crossover pipe (they're identical to yours, so probably not worth taking with)
-Take off the inspection cover under the transmission and unbolt the converter (you'll have to turn the engine over via the crank bolt to get all of the bolts)
-Unbolt the mounts. Top ones are already off- on the bottom theres one under the engine side and one under the transmission side.

At that point you can pull the engine + transmision together. Once one the ground you can unbolt the transmission and slide it off of the engine.

 

I like where this thread is going! Keep us updated. Been a while since someone played with this stuff.

 

Ok guys, a little update. I pulled the engine out of the GP, and now it's sitting in my driveway on an engine stand. The supercharger was charged for separately, but it was only like $100ish so it's still a great deal. I haven't done the swap yet mostly cause I don't have a scanner (and i'm being lazy). What is the recommended scanner that I could use to detect knock? I have a front plog, catted dp, and 180 thermostat on the way as well as autolite 104's gapped to .55 inches. I have already installed a Cold Air Inductions intake on my Monte, so I think the knock after the top swap & supporting mods will be at a low level. Let me know which scanners I could buy, thanks!

 

3 options come to mind depending what you're looking to do:

-If you think you'll continue to mod it quite a bit, but have zero interest in tuning stuff yourself, I'd probably get an Aeroforce obd gauge. Its a standard size aftermarket gauge that can display live obd sensor data (including KR). Its really nice to have that data at your fingertips 24/7 without dragging out a bunch of other cables + crap. I just looked them up (to make sure they were still being made), and they're a good bit more pricey than I remember ($275). Id personally probably try to find someone selling a used one to save $100+ if you go this route.

-If you plan to continue to mod and have an interest in tuning, I'd go straight to HP Tuners. The hardware itself is only $75 more than the gauge above (which will let you scan and read data, but you will need $100 in credits to actually tune with it). But this would cover your initial tune to load the top swap files and would give you the ability to actually do something about it if the knock is higher than you like. Of course you also need a functional laptop for this also (the requirements aren't crazy though).

-If you think this is a one and done kind of mod (or if you do want to keep going but have a solid 3800 tuner lined up) then honestly any cheap Amazon scan tool that reads live data would be just fine. You do have to be careful not to get just a code reader, it has to show live data, but there are plenty of options for $50 or less. Personally I went with an Autel brand for my standalone scan tool and have been very happy with it - but I know its not the cheapest brand on there that functionally works, I just know a few mechanics at 3rd party shops that like them.

 

I will also say, don't let knock / lack of scanner stop you from doing the swap. The engine will run just fine with either the supercharger belt removed or with the boost bypass valve locked wide open. Then when you get a scanner, you can put the belt on / hook the bbv back up like normal.