so today at school in metals class i was looking around in the metal storage room and found a supercharger off an late 90's early 2000's grand prix my metals teacher had bought it to put on a 3.8 camaro motor that they were going to put in an old chevy vega they put a roll cage in for welding class about 8 or so years ago but they ended up dropping our auto tech program so they never got around to finishing the vega, i was thinkin about picking it up for my 01 monte carlo ss. the only thing is i have a few questions..

1.) what all would i need to install the supercharger? is there a kit from zzp that works best?

2.) what would be a good price to get it for?

3.) i know i would need to upgrade some stuff in the transmission, but would i need a whole new transmission or can i just get upgrade parts?

4.) is there any exhaust work i need to do or can i leave my stock exhuast system on it until i get enough money to get a new cat back system?

I appreciate all the help i will be getting with the questions.

 

1) Either spend somewhere between $1500-2000 for ZZP's SSM90 kit or find someone selling an entire top swap online for around $300-500. Search "top swap" and you will find that you need everything from the heads up, plus a few other things including the L67 harmonic balancer.

2) I wouldn't spend over $50 for a Gen 3 M90.

3) The tranny is something that you should at the very least look into, being that they have trouble handling stock power. Check out www.tripleedgeperformance.com

4) If you do a straight up top swap, then I would recommend getting a set of headers installed and a cai in order to run the stock 3.8" pulley. Also, if you do this, buy a scan gauge in order to make sure that you're getting no KR.

 

X2 on what he said.. I'd definitely recommend headers and an intake at the minimum if your going to do ss m90 kit or top swap. Personally, I didn't want to mess with the heads and I got a great deal on the supercharger and an awesome deal on zzp porting it for me, despite a little confusion in my order I'm satisfied with their service and work.

If you're okay with tearing into the heads and such, a top swap would probably be your best option in terms of price.

Also, your probably looking at $1500+ for any swap, assuming you do headers and some type of intake. My guess is the supercharger may need some work, if you pick up used heads, they're probably also going to need work. Just keep that in mind before you start buying stuff because at some point the list of things you need will seem endless, and you'll start to get depressed when you look at your bank account (just speaking from experience) lol.

 

lol yeah, so on yours you didnt change the heads justin?? honestly i dont want to tear into the heads on it... i was just wondering beacuse if i could get the supercharger cheap enough i would pick it up and maybe next winter start putting all the parts into it. and i know that this guy doesnt buy anything thats junk or doesnt work as if it was new.

i already have a k&n air intake on the car.

 

A lot of good info. directly from ZZP here--> ZZPerformance - L36 Supercharger Kit #ZZ-L36SCK

And no I didn't touch the heads at all. Swapped the valve covers and cleaned up what I could but other than that kit my internals are stock, also didn't have to do anything to the transmission. I have a savings dedicated to it because I"m sure it will go at some point if I ever abuse it

That kit or a turbo is probably your only option if you don't want to tear into the heads

 

only question i have with that is if i buy this supercharger because im sure i can get it pretty cheap its just been sitting there for quite awhile, will they take that price down on that kit? all i want to have down is have the supercharger ported and then install it with the kit. i believe its the same thing you did to yours if i remember right.

 

Yep, that's the same thing I had done. Sent it to them to have ported and then they shipped it back with the rest of the kit.

I'm not sure if they'll drop the price much, especially if you have them look over everything to match the specifications of the supercharger that comes with the kit. I was lucky enough to get a good amount off the price by sending them some emails. I've bought quite a bit from them so it was easy for me to say if I can get a discount, I'll be back again. But I can't say for sure if they'll offer you one. I've heard they only offer a core fee of $50-100 for Gen III so don't expect to save too much. (so if you can't get the supercharger for less than $100 you might as well just buy all of the kit from ZZP, that way you know the supercharger has been fully gone through and ready to go )

 

Here's what you need to top-swap.

M90 Supercharger
Boost bypass valve
L67 smooth idler pulley
L67 grooved idler pulley (on coil pack)
L67 belt tensioner
L67 throttle body
33# injectors
L67 crank pulley
L67 MAP sensor
L67 heads
L67 LIM
L67 Valve Covers
L67 fuel rail
Head Bolts
Rocker Bolts
S/C Bolts
LIM Bolts
L36 to L67 wiring harness adapter kit
Vac lines (I used 7/64" rubber hose)
Coil pack bracket from a 97-98 GT/GTP
S/C belt
2 changes worth of oil/oil filters
2 jugs of coolant
GM S/C Oil (need 6 oz.)
Reprogrammed PCM
Some sort of intake like a FWI or CAI
180*-thermostat
Copper-core spark plugs that are 1 range colder than stock
At least ported manifolds with a 3" downpipe with the u-bend deleted, Headers preferably

Gaskets:

Head Gaskets
S/C gasket
TB gasket
LIM gasket
LIM o-rings
Valve Cover gaskets
Fuel rail o-rings
Gray RTV gasket maker
Teflon tape
Copper gasket spray

 

i think i am just gonna save my money up after i buy an old chevy truck and buy the supercharger kit from zzp.

i emailed the guy from zzp and he said i would just be better off buying there kit from them than buying the supercharger from my teacher and sending it into them to be ported and they would have to cnc part of it to make it fit as well.

he also said my stock transmission would be fine with the supercharger and that i wouldnt have to do any work to the heads with that kit.

 

The kit is designed to be a very simple way to supercharge your non-supercharged 3800 and still maintain stock heads/internals/trans/blah blah blah lol.

Keep in mind you're very limited with upgrades for the kit. For me it didn't make that much of a difference. I already had headers/intake/exhaust/supercharger/etc. so it worked out for me that I could get the other components of the kit and be satisfied for a while. I don't really have any plans to mess with anything else, maybe intercool and do rockers or cam some day but that will be it. For now, I just like the supercharger whine