Well, the inspection has begun. I have taken the tubing apart back to the throttle body and the supercharger is out (see the last post of 'Vortech Eats Itself'). The next task is to get the charge-cooler out and the plenum apart.

But,......... we found a little something at the throttle plate (we called it the 'butterfly valve', back in the day) that I thought needed to be presented immediately. On the top of the plate, held in place by a light film of oil, was a small fragment of the blade (see pictures). There was NO sign of damage to the plate itself and looking back into the plenum I could NOT see any other fragments. The rest of the intake tubing and the MAF were clear. What we originally thought were scrapings along the discharge tube of the supercharger were actually molding lines, so all clear there. Still no sign of the rest of the missing blade.

I guess this supports Jeremy's assertion that things CAN get through the intercooler/charge-cooler and back into the engine. The next step will be to blow air back through the charge-cooler, rinse it with water and then pressure test it (or say to hell with it and just replace it.......). And then the plenum.........

We will keep you posted on developments.

 

thats horrible. i hope everything is ok with the engine.


let me know if there is anything i can help you guys with...

 

It isn't looking good

 

Hi, Jeremy. I know the charge-cooler is a Spearco unit but we don't know the part number. What would be a good replacement, Jeremy? Do you got one in stock? What's the cost? We are thinking the best thing is to minimize the risk and just replace the one that got 'fragged' (and like jksstar said, Vortech ain't interested in replacing that bit).

As to the engine.....well, we will see, but we might be thinking of some more parts there, as well.

 

You might have lucked out. You will need to use a solvent as a flush, water wont cut it. Naptha works well as does kerosene or Diesel. I would pop the plenum and clean/inspect and fish around the intake area with a magnet. A compression test can be run without the plenum in place as can of course, Leak-down. Check your plugs to see if they tell you a story...Color/Chips/bent electrode. also a flashlight will show if the piston top has fresh scars on it.

Good Luck

Hope I was up to speed, I didnt read your original Post

 

Its a bummer I was was wrong about the small bits making it through the intercooler . By your description of what happened , you ran it for a while after it happened and that may have given the metal bits time enough to make it through every thing .

I hope every thing from here on out goes your way and the motor is OK !
Good Luck!!!!!

 

just clean it and pressure test it, it will cost you $3 in parts from lowes, misc pvc fittings, etc. it should be fine.

 

Thanks, Eazzzzzzzy. Your advice is dead-on and appreciated.

 

Yeah, booger, we are kicking ourselves for not stopping after the first signs of trouble but that ol' 'invincibility fable' is a life-time habit and hard to kick. At least we have the 'spare' car and time/money to fix this one. Thanks for your help in all of this

 

it would be quite a shocker if the fragments went through the engine and into in the cats. thanks for sharing your findings

 

/\ /\ /\ It's what happened BEFORE the cats that we're worried about.

I hope that this is the only bit of metal that got this far and that by wedging the throttle plate open it is the cause of the P2101 ECU code (I just went through the 2006 service manual and this appears to be the most likely cause for this code). We will know more tomorrow when we get the plenum apart and will post the results in this thread. Until then, fingers crossed

 

that sucks, hope the motor is ok.

I took mine apart this weekend, had metal shavings in all the piping and the plenum. Looks like on mine the intercooler stopped all the big parts.

 

I find it extremely disturbing that Vortech isnt willing to replace the intercoolers for those who've had their blowers grenade due to no fault of their own. She had 600 miles on it! That is just plain crazy.

I dont think I would ever buy a Vortech product after this. They should be willing to replace every part in the kit if need be to make it right after releasing an obviously faulty product. Regardless of how quick they turnaround and replace the blowers, this does not bode well for Vortech's image.

 

Agreed!

 

why would vortech replace the intercooler? is the intercooler defective? They can't help that the owner kept driving it and let the metal shards go into the intercooler and up to the engine

 

Is this a serious reply?

The blower ate itself after 600 miles, throwing metal fragments into the intercooler and down the rest of the intake piping, and thats not Vortech's fault?

So Lady Jax should just suck it up and replace the intercooler out of pocket then? Or just trust that there isnt any further metal fragments stuck in it, that could cause FOD damage down the road?

Vortech should be willing to replace ANYTHING and EVERYTHING affected. A catastrophic failure after 600 miles = LAUGHABLE quality control. Vortech should be nothing short of ashamed.

 

like I said, if the car wasn't driven a lot after the incident, the intercooler mess probably could have been prevented


it's like expecting nissan to honor their engine warrenty if you never change the oil and the engine finally gives out. There is some amount of responsibility placed on the user to not abuse the hardware

 

wow to use your example, would you be so happy if the new engine in the Nissan failed at 600 miles???

There should be some expectation that the hardware is supposed to function properly

 

yeah that would suck if an engine failed at 600 miles...obviously that would be covered under warrenty.

that's different than the example I gave though where you go a lot of miles go without ever changing the oil and expecting warrenty to cover you

if the intercooler was ruined from the blower going bad, then vortech should cover that. But if the intercooler was possibly ok, but owner drove the car around for a long time after the incident making it worse until it's ruined, then why's that vortech's fault you ruined your parts when there was an obvious problem with debris coming off of the blower - surely that debris was going to go somewhere.

What if the engine sucked in the debris and was damaged? Should vortech fully cover that too?



we all wish all hardware functioned perfectly out of the box like it should, but it isn't always the case

 

well yes but that would imply negligence, I don;t see where that is the case here. when something goes wrong first thing you do is troubleshoot and I would have to say that the last thing you would think of is the blower being bad, so unfortunately more damage may have occurred but that is through no fault of the operator.