Hello everyone, I am finally in the process of starting the supercharger project. I've been collecting and installing parts for about a year with the first major project being the installation the Z1 poly bushings in the rear diff/subframe. Shortly afterwards I decided to go the collar route instead of dropping the subframe to install bushings and installed the poly version of GK Techs subframe collars.

Next big thing was the clutch. I installed a Z1 Iron Flywheel along with a McLeod Racing Stage 3 clutch kit. Clutch is broken in and ready to go. Pulling the trans on the garage floor was such a PITA and I never want to do it again lol. I accidently let the paint on the clutch sit in brake cleaner and it basically melted off :P. After the clutch was finished breaking in I installed the Torqen HELMZ test pipes. Surprisingly not too great of a fit bit that can be a different topic. I ended up convincing them to send me a second set..

Fast forward to now, I've got the intake collector and manifold off the car to do injectors, spark plugs, and valve cover gaskets. I hadn't planned on taking the lower manifold off but when I saw how nasty it was I decided to pull it off as well to clean it along with the collector. The collector isn't the dirtiest I've seen but they're certainly not the cleanest. My plan is to add some kind of a catch can setup but I haven't figured out how exactly I want to do that. The intake pipe of the supercharger has a port that (I believe) connects to the CCV port on the driver side valve cover but my ideal catch can setup would have the CCV side looped in as well. I'm not sure if a standard vacuum cap would be strong enough to withstand a supercharger. Maybe someone can chime in on that front? I would appreciate it.

Fuel pump install coming soon. I went with the Walboro 255, but I recently learned that you have to modify the fuel pump assembly a little bit by drilling out the syphon and the regulator in order to bring down the fuel pressure closer to oem pressure. Once these things are done it will be time to whip out the HKS install manual and get the kit put on. This will be a little different than Timboj's build because this is a completely bone stock 06 rev up, so the install should be fairly straightforward. I still don't have an oil cooler yet though (yes I know I'll get one). I'd like to get a 34 row, its hot af in central Texas, but I would rather get the HKS kit on and see what kind of room I'm working with.

Current kit related part list:
Walboro 255
Bosch 660cc injectors
Torqen HELMZ test pipes
3in catback exhaust - y-pipe style
NGK 7654 PLFR6A-11 spark plugs
Uprev (cable, I hadn't bought a license yet)
HKS GT v2 Supercharger kit

Pretty much based the part list off of the Z1 complete kit. Although sourcing the parts from different places has saved me over 2k

Next time I post I'll have the kit started and I'll try to take lots of photos along the way. Shoutout to Timboj, his thread and youtube videos pretty much convinced to buy the kit.

 

Awesome, man. Keep us up to date, especially with photos!

 

Great stuff. If you decide to bump your fueling up a bit, let me know. I have a used set of ID1050x injectors I'd be happy to sell you. I just jumped to 1300s since I switched to E85. I'd also consider a larger pump just to give you a bit more headroom.

 

Just be aware, like the other said, the norm per most builders are a 340 or 450, with ID 1050cc which from what I hear are what the car likes.

 

Sup peeps, small update, finished up the maintenance stuff. Intake runners are clean, valve cover gaskets replaced, spark plugs replaced, fuel injectors in, installed the fuel pump, and completed the first three chapters of the manual. For some reason I thought you had to change the connectors for the fuel pump but the walbro pump matched up exactly. Wasn't able to get the rubber bit back on the fuel pump even after thinning it out, but if the noise is super annoying I'll figure something out.


Going through the manual has been fairly straight forward so far, but I've definitely noticed the small differences between the regular DE and the Revup when trying to look at the pics and comparing them to my engine bay. I learned that after August 06, Nissan started deleting the top idler pulley from the factory. My car was manufactured in September, so since I didn't have a pulley bracket, I hit up my local junkyard and pulled one off a wrecked 350z, cost me like $20.

Next thing was that my car doesn't have the extra wiring harnesses coming out of the false firewall, where the A/C hard line is comes out, so steps 8 and 9 (ch.2) didn't apply to me. Bending the small hard line isn't too bad, but I needed a 2 ft pry bar for the big pipe coming out of the compressor. And I think the wiring harness coming in front of the radiator support is different as well? Mine didn't really look like the pic they have in step 13, unless they already have some of the sensors taken off, and I'm not sure what they are circling at the bottom of the rad support. I also did not have the proper drill bit for the bumper reinforcement, so I dremeled the holes out to fit the pop nuts. No biggie. I have been using the manual they send with the kit and all the pics are black and white and its pretty hard to look at. I believe that's how they want you to run the wiring harness in step 7? Looking at the online version with color pictures clears some things up.

By far the biggest PITA for me was getting the power steering hoses off... What the actual hell. I was tearing up those hoses trying to get them off, I almost gave up. I was so close to just cutting them off and ordering some silicon replacements, but I was eventually able to get them off. Oh BTW, pro tip. Either get some plugs, or drain your power steering fluid first, don't try to be lazy like me and think "oh, I cut and prepped the traction hoses already, I'll just be quick about it." Lol Nah son. I got fluid all over the place and spent most of my time today just cleaning up the mess I made. Anyway, thats kinda how the hoses look when you prep and attach them to the existing power steering hoses, you feed them through the hole and then plug them into your cooler. Thats all I got for ch. 2

Last thing is ch. 3. Short and sweet, very simple. You really don't need a press for the spacers so don't let that scare you. I left the spacers in the freezer for a while and then tapped them in with a plastic headed hammer. Easy peezy. Just want to be quick about it though, the aluminum spacers heat back up really fast and will get more difficult to tap in. When mounting the supercharger bracket, I had run into a problem (my own doing of course) where the bracket didn't seem to want to sit flush and was rocking back and forth. Since I have exhaust valve timing, the covers are slightly different and I had accidentally removed the bolt for the valve timing control cover instead of the one next to it that sits further back (see ch. 3 step 4 for the diagram. The bolt I'm talking about is the bottom/middle one.) I was freaking out a little bit ngl. Anyways, the bracket looks awesome, and seeing it on the car makes me feel like I'm making progress. Till next time.

 

YO, this past Sunday I took care of the next four chapters.

Ch. 4 is installing the main idler pulley. It wasn't too too bad to install but there's also almost no wiggle room. You can squeeze the fan shroud and it'll move like 1/2", and you need all that space to install this thing. I almost cut some of it off to make it easier but its unnecessary. The trick I think is to have the pulley over the the bearing but not all the way on so the pulley is able to tilt. Tilt the pulley and pull back on it in order to move the fan shroud slightly will give you just enough room to get your fingers in there to thread the bolts. They supply a torque spec but you're not getting a torque wrench in there, even a small 1/4 in wrench is too big. I took a standard box end just made them German. The bottom bolt is the biggest pain, but you can get to it by tilting up and pulling back on the pulley, and running your hand behind the water hose and reaching back up with a wrench. I chose to use the box end because the 12 points made it easier to grab the bolt.

Ch. 5 is installing the intercooler. Mostly straight forward, but this is where I started to realize the differences between a LHD and a RHD car. Maybe there is a difference here regarding DE vs Revup but I'm not too sure. The pop nut they have you install on the bottom of the crash is useless for a LHD car. The wiring harness comes from the right side (passenger) of the car as opposed to the left side for RHD cars. Further more, the length of wire on the ambient air temp sensor must be long AF on an 03-05 car. Mine is super short, even if you did decide to install the pop nut on the other side of the crash bar, its not long enough to mount on the bottom and also be able to plug the horns back in. And idk if the 03-05 cars have this on this harness, but I need to figure out what to do with the front crash sensor. Can it be mounted any which way and still function as intended? If so I'll probably install another pop nut near the horns and install it there. The temp sensor can just hang out, I'm honestly not too worried about my ambient temp sensor being super accurate, we have smart phones that show us the weather ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ So other than figuring out what to do with the wiring harness, this chapter was pretty easy. Also note that you do not need four M6 spring washers, only need two. You use them when reinstalling the horns but you use two self lock nuts which negate the need for the extra spring washers, its honestly probably a typo.

Ch. 6 is installing the traction oil reservoir and hoses. I definitely felt the differences between RHD and LHD here. The wiring harness coming out of the battery compartment is in the way of where the traction oil reservoir is supposed to sit. I thought bending the bracket down there would be enough but it wasn't, so I removed the harness from the bracket. The pic I have of me moving the harness out of the way also has a pic of the small provided bracket that you use to ziptie the traction oil filter. I just reused the factory bolt here. I didn't bother trying to ziptie or otherwise mount the wiring harness because once you have the traction oil reservoir installed its really tight, the harness isn't going anywhere. I did ziptie the filter on there though, that was a pain by itself. Pro tip, after getting your hoses cut how HKS wants them, go ahead and wrap them in the corrugated tubing. I wish they told you to do that before installing and routing all the hoses but I was just goin by the book. I routed the oil lines underneath the throttle body, other than that they're just kinda hangin out. Bigger thing here is the EVAP purge solenoid. With the way HKS wants you to mount it, the ports and connector are now facing the other direction. This means that the vacuum hose coming from the throttle body is not long enough to reach, and the connector on the wiring harness is not long enough to reach it either. Mounting is the other direction doesn't work either because the intake collector is in the way. If the bracket they supply had the mounting point further towards the rear of the car it may work. I haven't done anything about this yet, but I think the plan is to just buy some longer hose and lengthen the wiring so I can route it underneath the bracket and back up to the solenoid. I'll post pics when I get to that.

Ch. 7 is the exciting part. Installing the supercharger. One of the bolts that connects the inlet pipe on to the supercharger is kind of underneath (?) the pipe and you can't really get to it with a socket. Its probably best to have a set of low-profile allen keys to make it easier to tighten that bolt. You absolutely must cut back the dipstick guide in order for the supercharger to sit flush on the bracket. I ended up just cutting the whole back side of the dipstick guide off. The supercharger inlet pipe comes in contact with it if you don't. The metal piece is still stuck on the plastic so I don't think it'll fall off, and even if it does: superglue. Thanks to Timboj and his youtube vid (part 6 I believe) that mentions this, other wise I would've been there for a long time scratching my head. After getting everything tightened down I installed the provided hose to connect the supercharger to the CCV port and called it a day, or night rather. I was in the garage for a looong time lol

Next time I'll try to have the front wiring harness figured out, the EVAP purge solenoid mods done, and complete chapters 8-12. Till next time folks, let me know if you have any questions, comments, or concerns.

 

That whole dipstick guide is a real head scratcher.. It's strange that it somehow wasn't an issue for HKS.

I had to extend the wiring for my condensor drier sensor so you could easily do the same for your ambient sensor. Or you could zip tie it anywhere in the air path. No biggie.

 

Well folks the kit is on, sensor connectors are extended, wiring harness zip tied, piping installed, pulleys and belts on and tightened. All that's really left now is to fill the traction fluid, but I'm going to wait to do that until I have a base map. I'd like to be able to bleed the coolant since I probably introduced air to the system since I had removed the throttle body. And I definitely need to bleed my power steering.. On another note, the traction hose diagram they show you in Ch. 6 is not the way they make you run the hoses. The hose on the top bung of the cooler goes to the supercharger, and the bottom bung goes to the inlet (top port) of the traction oil reservoir. I guess they just have the 8mm hoses in the diagram flipped on accident. I didn't really think about it until I was putting the hoses on the supercharger and referenced the diagram and I got confused and thought I had done something wrong.

I haven't decided if I'm going to run unrestricted or not. I do have the 110mm pulley, but I will probably grind out the restrictor plate 10 or 12mm like Timboj did and have it on hand when meeting the tuner. I'll run unrestricted first and have the plate with me, and if the tuner thinks the torque is getting dangerous maybe he'll give me some time to swap in the plate. I know I'm boosting, but I would like to keep it safe. Idk, let me know what you guys think of that idea.

So, Ch 8, 9, and 10 are all about getting the piping put on and it was a little bit of a pain because its very fiddly and you have to adjust the silicon couplers and the pipes a lot to get them to fit and line up right. I think the hardest to get on for me was the silicon coupler in between the suction pipe and the supercharger (see Ch. 9 step 6) I had a bear of a time getting that one on. In Ch. 8 step 3, I had accidentally cut a little too much metal off of whatever piece that is they want you to cut, but it worked out pretty well because I ended up making myself a neat little spot to route the wiring harness through. Fitting the intercooler outlet (Ch. 10) and the BOV was a pain to get lined up and set how I wanted it (and yes I flipped that coupler around). I ended up buying some slightly larger sized hose clamps (3/4 to 1-3/4 in) because the ones they give you are just too small to me. All of it simple enough, but you'll spend a lot of time playing around with the couplers, pipes, and hose clamps to get the best fit possible.

After the kit was put on I took the time to extend the ambient air temp sensor and the evap purge solenoid. I just used some butt connectors and extra wire I had in the tool box, crimped them up, and wrapped the wires in loom tape and called it good. I had to get some fuel hose to use from the throttle body to the purge solenoid since it was too short. I mounted the ambient air temp sensor with the supplied bracket, I basically just mirrored what they want you to do in the manual but on the other side because LHD. The crash sensor I mounted right next to the horn using a pop nut, only used one bolt but its not going anywhere. I made sure that the foam bumper piece would fit before doing that.

In other news I got a PCV side catch can from Radium Engineering. It looks nice and built solid so I'm sure it'll do the trick.

Next time I post I'll have had a tuning day and post the graphs to compare the before and after. I had did a test run last August while the car was stock and made 263 hp and 215 lb/ft. I'm excited to see what this kit will do.

 

Unless you install a check valve on that line to the plenum, you'll need to delete it. You're going to have positive pressure in the plenum under boost which will blow straight out into that can, and probably pressurise the crank case.

 

On their product description they say you don't need one because the catch can is pressure sealed and that they are designed to withstand boost pressure. Although I can contact czp and/or radium to confirm if it is okay to use with a supercharger.

 

The stock PCV valve is a check valve, however, I wouldn't trust it with boost, and I'd prefer the check valve be between the manifold and the can.

 

Radium Engineering told me that another check valve is not needed if the oem pcv valve is there ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
What would you use instead of the pcv valve? Would any kind of check valve do as long as it is between the can and manifold?

 

I'm sure they would say that. I just wouldn't want the can "filling up" and causing inconsistent AFRs.
I'm pretty sure you could use a Z32 check valve.
​​​​As for the PCV valve, they sell replacement fittings for -AN lines.

 

Yeah the problem is if the plenum is pressurising the catch can, then the catch can becomes useless because the PCV won't be able to overcome the boost pressure.

Assuming you've connected the left valve cover vent to the SC inlet, you're not in any danger because the positive pressure will be vented there, but again your catch can won't be doing much.

I've got the same catch can. I've connected both valve covers to the can and then back to the SC inlet. I've blocked the plenum port off.

 

I went back through your thread and read all the posts about your catch can set up. Since I’ve already installed the can and can’t return it, I’m just going to plan on doing the same as your set up. I didn’t realize there were caveats to running a catch can, I thought it was simple and it would just work 🙃 I appreciate everyone’s help and advice. I may take it off for now so I can get tuned and deal with it later, I want to drive my car so bad lol

 

I actually don't remember where I landed with my catch can in video. From memory I did a couple of revisions after the last install vid. Basically I changed the ORB fitting on the can to a -10 and then added a splitter that could take the -8 from the right valve cover (CJM PCV delete/adapter) and also the -10 from the left cover. And then it outputs another -10 which I've routed to the SC intake.

Don't sweat it man. Mods usually go through several revisions and a lot of it is trial and error.

 

Personally, for FI I'd run the Radium double can kit, works for DE/HR and then put the check valve in the line from the can to the manifold so it only feeds the manifold at idle like it's supposed to.

IMHO, one can with a Y is not enough, unless the proper testing is done to verify it is enough for your setup.

 

I think the only problem I would have with Radium's dual can kit is the mounting. They intend for it to be mounted on the left side and that is definitely NOT happening with the kit lol. Couple of reasons the single can kit was so appealing was its simplicity and mounting location/solution, although part of that is thrown out the window now. If push comes to shove I could probably get another universal can from Radium and figure out the mounting. I'll pretty much have all the hose and fittings needed to run it, minus a couple fittings I suppose.

 

Yeah the dual can kit would be great, but isn't a drop in for us HKS SC'er users. If you wanted to go dual (which one day I might), you'll have to get creative with mounting locations and routing.

I haven't had an issue running the can with a Y since replacing my old, hardened dipstick. Will it be enough for 550-600whp post-build? I'll find out eventually.

 

I'd get the kit for everything needed and just relocate the bracket, or make new ones.
Might have enough space at the right corner of the engine.