My C5 Cam & Supercharger Build Thread!

[RoccoC5]

WARNING: LOTS OF PICS

Hey Everyone!

The itch for more power has finally convinced me to dump some money into my trusty 2000 Pewter Coupe. This thread will document my progress start-to-finish. I'm pretty much copying it verbatim over to the "big" forum, FYI.

Toward the end of last year I started collecting parts for my build, and in preparation of the added power I had Joe @ CPR install a Mantic ER2 clutch with all the goodies. Now I'm finally ready to get started! Here's a list of everything that is either sitting in my garage or on order with Joe, in no particular order. I hope this is all I need, because I blew my budget long ago.

• A&A V3 Si Supercharger Kit (used)

• CC Performance Camshaft (Arun's Stage 3 "Jam Cam")

• Brian Tooley Dual Valve Springs, retainers, seals

• 7.4" Pushrods

• Water Pump (mine's weeping a bit)

• Powerbond PB1117-N Harmonic Damper

• New Style Power Steering Bracket (GM 12578068)

• Driver Side Fuel Sender (GM 10333749)

• Racetronix Fuel Pump Kit with Harness (Racetronix RFPK-007)

• Kenne Bell Boost a Pump (20A)

• NGK V-Power TR-6 Plugs

• 60lb Siemens Deka Fuel Injectors

• ARP Crank & Cam Bolts

• Timing Cover Gasket and Seal

• New Gates Belts

• High Volume LS6 Oil Pump (GM 17801830)

• Timing Chain Set (Cloyes 9-3658TX3)

• AEM 30-4900 Wideband Failsafe Gauge

• AEM 30-4401 Pressure Gauge

• LS2 Metal Power Steering Pulley (GM 12568997)

• DeWitt's Cutdown Radiator

• Elite Engineering Catch Can

• Brian Tooley Rocker Trunion Upgrade (installed by Joe @ CPR)

I'm working on my car in my free time and am taking things pretty slowly (e.g. remove a few bolts, drink a beer, repeat), so this thread may go on for a month or two. . Also, I'm starting this thread a bit late and am already about 4 nights of work into the project and will be playing catch-up with this post. I will try and keep it up-to-date going forward.

OK, now for the fun stuff!

DAY ONE - FUEL SYSTEM (4 hours)

I figured I'd tackle the fuel system first since I'd be able to drive the car around afterward (provided I didn't screw anything up), and it would be a good gauge of whether I wanted to continue with the bigger tasks. Along with swapping out the pump to the new Racetronix setup (Walbro GRJ420), I added their harness and a KB 20A boost a pump and replaced the fuel sender.

It turned out to be a straight-forward job. The only real hurdles were separating the old pump from the fuel hat and then re-installing the entire assembly (it's a tight fit).

The new pump:

Harness:

Boost-A-Pump:

OK, so I got wrapped up in getting the old pump out and forgot to take pictures. You'll have to use your imagination!

Here's the old pump:

The hole in the driver side tank:

[RoccoC5]

And the old sender:

The new pump comes assembled:

Comparison of the new pump's harness (gray & black) vs. the old (brown & black):

Old pump separated from the fuel lines:

New pump, ready for install:

I somehow forgot to grab some pics of the fuel sender and the installation of the new pump. Trust me, though, I got it in there!

Here's a pic of the car up in the air during the BAP and harness install. I've already mounted the BAP and started on the harness:

BAP mounted to the frame in the inner fender well:

I wrapped the harness and hobbs switch wiring in wire sleeve and fed it through the rocker, through the cowl:

Then up the firewall:

And finally to the alternator (I've since re-routed it a bit more cleanly so it's not ziptied to the fuel line):

After buttoning up the inner fender and securing the harness with zipties, I called it done for the day.

DAY TWO - REMOVE FASCIA & RADIATOR (3 hours)

OK, so I know I didn't have to remove the fascia, but it was simple enough to do and I figure it'll give me more room down the line. Plus I wanted the build sheet!

Jacked up and ready to go:

Facia removed! Sorry, I was on a roll and apparently forgot to take any pictures of this process. It was pretty easy. I followed these instructions.

As you all know, these cars are vacuums!

What is this?

[RoccoC5]

Woohoo, the build sheet! I had no idea that GM hid this here until I read about it on the forum.

Broke one of the nipples on the radiator...good excuse to upgrade to a DeWitt's!

OK, so day 2 sucked for pics...I'll work on that. :D

DAY THREE - MORE DISASSEMBLY (4 hours)

Working my way toward the timing cover. Today I removed the alternator, throttle body, water pump, PS pump and cooler, and moved the rack out of the way.

Alternator, throttle body, and water pump have been removed. These three were easy.

Removed the two lines from the steering rack. I was worried about these since so many people seem to have trouble with them, but they came off without a fuss:

Untangling the power steering hoses from the wiring harness was a bit tricky, but I was able to remove the pump and cooler as one unit.

Next, I unbolted the tie rods, ABS pump and the rack. It was a huge pain in the ass to work the rack free from where it mounts to the passenger side. I had to beat it loose with a block of wood and a rubber mallet. Finally managed to work the rack out the passenger side fenderwell:

Yay! Finally a clear shot to the balancer:

DAY FOUR - BALANCER AND VALVE COVERS (1.5 hours)

Today was a quick one...just pulled the balancer and removed the coilpacks and valve covers.

My crank bolt broke free pretty easily. I used a three foot breaker bar with the car in 4th gear while my trusty assistant stood on the brakes. Afterward, I used a three jaw puller to remove the balancer. It came loose without much cussing:

Here's the new Powerbond balancer next to the old one. These things are zero-balanced, right?

Next I removed the coil packs (one harness and five 10mm bolts each side) and unbolted the valve covers. Getting closer!

Stay tuned!

[Grape Ape]

In for progress pics...

[Ted Y]

Awesome postings!

[jmxp69]

In for pics. I'm starting an A&A install myself soon. Hopefully I can learn from your experience.

[Shifty]

[joe@cpr.com]

Looking good man, only suggestion i have is ditch the cloyes timing set and run an ls2 chain or a C5r chain.

[PhatVette]

What headers do you I see there?

[Desertdawg]

nice thread!

Can't wait to see the progress...

(e.g. remove a few bolts, drink a beer, repeat),

(you must have gone thru a few cases of beer by now)

.

[RoccoC5]

Looking good man, only suggestion i have is ditch the cloyes timing set and run an ls2 chain or a C5r chain.

Thanks! I was originally going to go with an LS2 chain, but the guys at Cloyes convinced me that this set would be a better/stronger choice for my application (I've also heard that Cloyes is the supplier for the OEM LS2 chains, any truth to that?). This set is their billet steel set that comes with an IWIS "racing" chain. You think it'll be alright, or do you think I should I just grab the Katech C5R chain and reuse my stock gears?

What headers do you I see there?

They're the XSPower 1 3/4" longtubes. I picked them up from Huron Speed a few years back and am pretty happy with the fitment and quality so far.

[joe@cpr.com]

that setup will be just fine, not needed to be honest and it's easier to just run a C5R chain but you've got the parts so go ahead and use them

[RoccoC5]

nice thread!

Can't wait to see the progress...

(e.g. remove a few bolts, drink a beer, repeat),

(you must have gone thru a few cases of beer by now)

.

Doing my best!

that setup will be just fine, not needed to be honest and it's easier to just run a C5R chain but you've got the parts so go ahead and use them

OK, cool. Thanks for the advice.

[RoccoC5]

DAY FIVE - CLEANUP (2 hours)

OK, so another quick update. Long day at work so I didn't have time to do much.

I started by removing the radiator support, not because I really needed to, but because mine is pretty beat up and I'm contemplating either replacing it or reinforcing it somehow. Plus, I may need to cut and re-weld the tabs to lower the radiator depending on how things line up with the new DeWitt's cutdown radiator. The extra space to work under the car doesn't hurt, either.

Simple job, just released the wire harness from the clips on the passenger side and removed the four bolts securing it to the frame:

And she's free!

Next, I decided to spend some time cleaning up the engine before further disassembly. 100K and 15 years makes for a dirty engine.

Before:

And after some cleaning:

My OCD took over and forced me to pull the intake to clean under it...

Fuel injector harness removed:

The brake booster hose was a bitch to get loose with the manifold in place, so I removed it from the booster to get some slack and slid the intake forward. Wow, it's dirty under there!

Intake manifold is out, nasty!

First thing I noticed was sticky oily residue inside the head intake ports. The manifold is coated with oil, too. I guess I should have been running a catch can all along. Anyone have any suggestions to clean out the intake? Should I do anything about the sticky stuff in the heads?

Cleaning is done!

Today was a slow day on the beers...only three. :

Next time I'll probably remove the rockers and swap the valve springs.

[MOTV8]

This thread is full of win. Thanks for sharing. Would seafoam help any on teh intake ports?

[Ted Y]

This thread is full of win. Thanks for sharing. Would seafoam help any on teh intake ports?

Definitely a win thread. The only thing that could possibly make it more awesome would be a bikini class assistant to point at stuff.

[RoccoC5]

This thread is full of win. Thanks for sharing. Would seafoam help any on teh intake ports?

Definitely a win thread. The only thing that could possibly make it more awesome would be a bikini class assistant to point at stuff.

I'll see what I can do about that...

[RoccoC5]

This thread is full of win. Thanks for sharing. Would seafoam help any on teh intake ports?

I wondered this myself...anyone have experience with seafoam? I've always been afraid of this stuff for some reason.

[jmxp69]

Are you going to a 160deg thermostat? I've been advised to make the switch now as changing with the blower is a PITA.

[RoccoC5]

Are you going to a 160deg thermostat? I've been advised to make the switch now as changing with the blower is a PITA.

Sorry, was out of town all week for work so no updates.

I wasn't planning on going with a 160 'stat, but I can see how it would be much more difficult to swap after the blower is in. IIRC, A&A recommends the stock temp thermostat, and last time my car was tuned, we just lowered the fan turn-on temps. Are you doing the lower temp stat?

[RoccoC5]

DAY SIX - POWER STEERING HELL (3.5 hours)

The plan for today was to swap the power steering pump and idler from the old early style bracket to the newer, stronger one (GM 12578068). Unfortunately I ran into some issues so it took longer than expected, but I was able to get it done. I also swapped to the LS2/3 steel pump pulley (GM 12568997), and replaced the idler and power steering pressure hose (GM 26046501). The idler wasn't squeaking and I don't think the hose was leaking, but I figured what the hell, since I have easy access to them, why not.

Sorry for the crappy pics today. I was used my phone and was working outside.

I borrowed this power steering pulley tool to remove the old plastic pulley:

Initially, the pulley wouldn't budge at all. I added a bit of heat from my heat gun and the pulley finally came forward about 1/4", but then my muscles got the best of the pulley hub. The damn lip on the hub sheared completely off on one side! So, I did the only thing I could think of: hit it with a hammer :D:

Here you can see the damaged pulley lip:

At this point I figured I could just move the tool down to the groove in the center of the hub:

But unfortunately the clam-shell pieces of the puller were too short. I had to grind down the hub a bit to make it fit:

Well, that didn't work. The tool just kept slipping out of the groove. Time for plan B:

I made four cuts in the hub, being careful to not cut into the shaft:

Finally!

Unfortunately I did cut a bit into the shaft...shouldn't hurt anything, I hope:

Time to install the new pulley. I used my heat gun to heat up the new pulley and lubed the shaft. It pressed on pretty easily with the installer tool. The shaft is flush with the pulley hub:

Old bracket on the left; new on the right:

To finish things up, I transferred the pump to the new bracket and installed a new idler and hose:

Hopefully I'll have some time to work on the car tomorrow, but being Mother's Day, Mom comes first! :D

[Shifty]

Good stuff!

[Bigfoot]

Nice work.

[LastC3]

Always seems to be at least one ouch or two in the process ...............

Awesome thread .......... look forward to the progress .........

[RoccoC5]

DAY SEVEN/EIGHT - CLEAN INTAKE AND REMOVE TIMING SET (4 hours)

I decided to re-install the intake before continuing with disassembly. As mentioned before, it was full of oil so it required a good cleaning. I started by flushing it with a can of brake cleaner which loosened up the sticky stuff quite well. I finished with purple power and a hose and blew it dry with compressed air.

After installing the intake I went to work on removing the timing cover, oil pump, and timing gears.

First, let me introduce my assistant, Stella. She's too afraid to come out to the garage, but she meets me at the door when I come in for refreshments.

Time to clean up this bad boy:

One can of brakleen later:

The ports are still a bit grimy:

What the hell is this? I probably should have spent some time smoothing this out...surely it didn't come from the factory like this?

I ended up using Purple Power and a hose to get the intake clean:

All clean! New foam and gaskets, too:

Intake and fuel rail installed. Torqued to 89 in/lbs in two passes.

Now onto the the [more] fun stuff. Pulled the timing cover:

Removed the oil pump, cam gear and timing chain:

Then used a small two jaw puller to remove the crank gear:

Done for tonight!

I'm soooo close to getting the cam swapped. If my day job doesn't get in the way, next time I should be able to remove the rockers and pushrods and get the new camshaft in. Exciting! :