6 -shooter - angelfire

6-ShooterThe Vector

Performance VP-6supercharger kit can

make any 3800 V6think it’s an LT1 forabout $3,200. OK,

maybe not quite an LT1, but at least an L98.

By Richard HoldenerPhotography by the author

When it comes to coaxing seriousamounts of horsepower out ofan otherwise stock motor, it’shard to beat supercharging. And

though superchargers abound for V8ponycars, there are precious few offer-ings for the V6 F-body.

Vector Performance, in HuntingtonBeach, Calif., has come to the rescue of all3800-series V6 Camaro and Firebirdowners (’951/2-98) who have been look-ing for a little more oomph for theirtrusty steeds. Knowing full well that air-flow is horsepower, Vector found a wayto force-feed the little V6 enough air tomake it think it’s a V8.

The recipe was simple: If the 3800could inhale as much air as a 5.7L V8,then it would put out a similar amountof power. The folks at Vector could havetaken the ported head, cam and header

SEPTEMBER1998 COURTESY OFGMHIGH-TECHPERFORMANCE 1

Vector Performance offers 3800-series engines the power of a V8 without acostly engine swap.

The Camaro was tested in stock configuration prior to installing the supercharger kit. The test proce-dure for the dyno runs was to mash the throttle down in low gear and have the motor run up to the shiftpoints in First, Second and Third. Running it through three gears gave us a more accurate picture ofthe real power output. In stock form, the 200-hp V6 put down 158 hp to the wheels, about right for anautomatic-equipped motor.


route to better performance, but theyknew those simple bolt-ons wouldn’tgive the little engine big-engine perfor-mance. These mods would help the air-flow into and out of the motor, and indoing so add horsepower, but JamesBawkey of Vector Performance wasn’tlooking for just a good-running V6; hewanted the 3800 to run like a good V8.After watching the supercharged V6 roaron the Dynojet, we can safely say that hehas met his goal.

Getting V8 power from the 3800 V6took nothing short of a completely newsupercharger system. Since the V6 wasnever going to ingest enough air on itsown to make something on the order of300 (flywheel) horsepower, it had to beforced to do so. Naturally a superchargerwas the way to go, but which one?

After looking at all the options,James chose a Powerdyne superchargerfor his kit. The key reason for the choicewas the relatively silent operation com-pared to the competitors. In addition tothe noise quality, the belt-drivenPowerdyne blower required no exter-nal oil source or drainback. ThePowerdyne eliminated cutting a hole inthe oil pan, something required withother centrifugal superchargers.

With the blower choice taken care of,the next problem was where to fit it.Though only a V6, the full complementof accessories on the 3800 took up near-ly all of the available mounting space.On most aftermarket superchargerapplications, the blower is basicallymounted as one of the accessories. Onmost Vortech, Paxton, Powerdyne andATI kits for other applications, thesupercharger sits next to one of theaccessories and is either run off thestock serpentine system or drivendirectly off a dedicated crank pulley.Unfortunately for Vector Performance,there simply wasn’t sufficient room forthe blower to be mounted in this fash-ion. The A/C, smog pump, alternatorand power steering took up all theavailable space next to the block. Somemight have thrown their hands up atthis point, but James took the lack ofspace in the engine compartment as apersonal challenge.

Though there wasn’t a great deal ofroom on either side of the engine, therewas plenty of it in front of the motor.Having a V6 in an engine compartmentdesigned for a longer V8 left roombetween the front of the motor and theradiator. As it turned out, this gave Jamesall the room he needed for his kit.

The trick to using the space between

After removing thefactory air cleanerassembly andreplacing it with theK&N cold air sys-tem, we unboltedthe A/C canister andleft it resting on thestrut tower.

This shot shows theplastic cover behind

the crankshaft pulley. It was

necessary to remove1 inch from the coverto allow clearance for

the supercharger pulley. Some minor

clearancing of theretaining cover also

was necessary.

.

6 The oil-sending unitwas removed andreplaced with anangled brass fitting toreposition the sendingunit out of harm’s way.The wires also weretie-wrapped to thesending unit to keepthem from rubbing onthe serpentine beltand/or pulley.

The stock idler pulley wasremoved by unbolting thecenter retaining bolt. Ours

came off without muchfuss, but James assured

us that some of them canbe very tough to get,

requiring a pulley-removaltool available from most

auto parts stores.

The factory ser-pentine tension-er was removedby backing outthe lefthandthreaded retain-ing bolt.

The 6-rib tensioner

supplied with thekit was installed

with themachined (flat)face toward the

motor (arrow).

This 7 1/2-inchstud wasinstalled inplace of the topA/C retainingbolt.

the motor and the radiator was turningthe supercharger around to face themotor. This presented somewhat of aproblem, as the Powerdyne wasn’t avail-able in a reverse-rotation model, like theVortech. The problem was spinning theblower in the proper direction in itsreverse-mounted position. Vector solvedthis dilemma by spinning the super-charger pulley with the back side (flat) ofthe 6-rib serpentine belt. Using thereverse mounting position, a uniquebelt-tensioning system and a longer belt,Vector was able to drive the supercharg-er pulley with the same belt used for therest of the accessories. About the onlyproblem with using the flat-sided drivepulley was that the belt had to be prettysnug to keep tension on blower pulley.With the low-boost level kits (less than 10psi) offered by Vector, this didn’t proveto be much of a problem.

The remainder of the VP-6 kitincludes chrome air tubing, a customintake system, a K&N cold air system, afuel management unit (FMU) to increasethe fuel pressure to the injectors underboost, and a larger fuel pump (for the 9-psi kit). A Crane adjustable ignitionretard is also supplied with either the 6-or 9-psi kit, allowing the user to dial inthe necessary amount of ignition retardto suppress detonation. If good fuel isused, less retard may be used to bring upthe power. This is a nice touch, as itallows many customers to increase thepower output by dialing in more ignitiontiming when running octane booster orunleaded race fuel. At the track, full igni-tion advance can be safely dialed in withthe larger fuel pump, FMU and good gas.

As we mentioned, the VectorPerformance supercharger kit is avail-able in two different boost levels, 6-psi(VP-6, $3,200) and 9-psi (VP-9, $3,650).The additional 3 psi in the VP-9 kitcomes courtesy of a smaller supercharg-er pulley, which spins the impeller fasterto produce more boost. The added boostis compensated by additional fuel pres-sure from the rising-rate fuel regulatorand a larger fuel pump. Some addition-al timing retard may be necessary whenrunning the higher boost level, especial-ly if regular unleaded fuel is used.Vector Performance recommendsalways running premium unleaded fuelwith any supercharged motor, regard-less of the boost level. We made sure tofill our test car with premium unleadedbefore subjecting it to the full-boost



Bolts were removed(see arrows) from thealternator and waterpump to make roomfor the tensionerbracket.

The new belt ten-sioner was

installed using a 4-inch bolt and an

81/2-inch threadedstud. After thebracket was in

place, the stocktensioner pulley

was reinstalled.

Spacers wereinstalled over the twothreaded studs.

The superchargerassembly was installed

by lifting the A/C can-ister out of the way.

Before sliding the supercharger mount-

ing base plate over thetwo threaded studs,James threaded the

serpentine beltbetween the

pulleys.

The chrome discharge and inlettubes to thePowerdyne super-charger were con-nected using thesupplied hoses andclamps. It was nec-essary to lengthenthe charge air sen-sor wires due to itsrevised mountingposition.

dyno runs, and we even added a can of104-plus octane booster to make sure nodetonation was present. It is always bet-ter to be safe than sorry when it comes toa supercharged motor. A little octanebooster is cheap insurance against deto-nation ruining the whole adventure.Besides, we almost always run a mixtureof some sort at the track.

Before installing the supercharger kit,we took the Camaro over to Fedor AutoSport Tuning in Huntington Beach,Calif., to get a few baseline runs on theDynojet. Its Dynojet facility is availableto the general public for an affordablerate and includes a MOTEC air/fuelmeter to measure the air/fuel mixture atwide open throttle. Care should be takento optimize the air/fuel mixture on anysupercharged motor. Trying to run toolean a mixture on a supercharged motorwill only result in a quick lesson in thefine art of motor rebuilding. Too lean, toolong—too bad!

One of the problems with testing anauto-trans car on the Dynojet is that it isdifficult to get rear wheel horsepowerdata at low rpm. The reason is that thepower numbers are much more accurate(and usually higher numerically) in thehigher gears. Unfortunately, most auto-matic transmissions cannot be lockedinto a particular gear to run from 2000rpm to 6000 rpm. All we could do wasmash the pedal to the floor and see whathappened in each gear. Because of theshift points in the transmission, we wereable to gather power numbers only from3900 rpm to 5700 rpm, but we could lookat the dyno chart for all three gears todetermine the power differences beforeand after the supercharger installation.The stock 3800, which is rated at 200 hpat the flywheel, made 158 hp and 193lbs.-ft. of torque at the wheels, just aboutright for the 200 rated flywheel horse-power, given the losses through the auto-matic transmission.

With our baseline runs out of the way,we were ready for the supercharger. Thecar was taken back to Vector Performancefor the install, which took the better partof the day. The straightforward installa-tion is detailed in the accompanying pho-tos and involves attaching the super-charger assembly to the front of themotor and installing the auxiliary fuelpump, the FMU and the ignition retard.Though the inline fuel pump is not need-ed on the 6-psi kit, the extra horsepowerfrom the additional boost seemed to taxthe stock pump. Since the FMU increasedthe fuel pressure under boost, supplyingthe needed volume of fuel at the higher


Additional fuel enrichment for the pressurized motorwas supplied by a fuel management unit (FMU) that

raised the fuel pressure when the motor is underboost. On the 9-psi kits, an

additional fuel pump was supplied to ensure the motornever starved for fuel. A fuel pressure gauge is an

excellent idea for either kit. The fuel pressure shouldgo up to a fixed point

(approximately 75 psi) and hold steady for the entiretime the motor is at full throttle. If the pressure starts to drop at the top of the rpm range, the fuel pump

is inadequate for your needs. With the extra fuel pump used on the 9-psi kits, the pressure never varied, even when making more than 250 hp at the wheels.

A quick disconnect tool was used on the factoryreturn line to install the FMU.

The supercharger kit included thisadjustable timing control, which

retards the ignition timing in proportion to boost. Dialing in the tim-

ing retard helped reduce the chanceof detonation. Obviously more timingwill make more power, but not at the

expense of damage to the motor. Ourdyno tests were run with a can of

octane booster thrown into the premi-um unleaded to further minimize the chance of

detonation at the 8.5-psi level.

After playing with the boost level, timing and fuel,the Vector Performance supercharger kit man-aged to coax an additional 100 hp out of the oth-erwise stock 3.8L V6. At only 8.6 psi, the poweroutput jumped from 158 hp at the wheels to 256hp. Torque was up by a whopping 70 lbs.-ft.,something that was really noticeable from the dri-ver’s seat.

With everything tightened downand all the running clearanceschecked, the motor was startedand allowed to idle while we double-checked everything. A quick trip around the block toldus that good things were in storefor us on the dyno.

pressures makes a fuel pump’s job muchharder. The inline pump made sure themotor had plenty of fuel flow at the high-er pressure.

The adjustable timing controlallowed us to dial back the timing tocontrol detonation. Like most boost-ref-erenced ignition retard units, the Cranesystem takes a boost reading and dialsback a certain number of degrees perpound of boost. For example, if themotor is seeing 6 psi and the timing con-trol dial was set at 1, then the timingwould be retarded a total of 6°.

Once the supercharger was installedand the belt tightened, we took the carfor a quick ride around the block. Thepower was impressive. Though the stock3.8L motors run pretty well, the Vector-charged motor felt mighty impressive,even more than the factory-super-charged 3800 motors. Power seemed tobe better everywhere, right from the bot-tom, where care now had to be taken notto light the tires, all the way to the shiftpoints. The 3.8L V6 ran like a good V8;maybe not quite as hard as an LT1, butpretty close. We were anxious to see ifthe dyno numbers confirmed our seat-of-the-pants impressions.

With a can of octane booster mixedwith the premium unleaded fuel, the carwas once again strapped down on theFAST Dynojet for testing. The MOTECwas hooked up so we could monitor theair/fuel mixture at wide open throttlewhile making the runs. With the 9-psipulley, K&N cold air system and thetiming control knob set at 0, we put thehammer down and waited for the num-bers. The motor sounded good and thetranny shifted hard between gears. Welifted off the loud pedal at around 5500rpm in third gear and waited for thehard numbers. We thought the motorreally felt and sounded good, andapparently the dyno agreed with us. Thepower graphs were better everywhere,with the peak rear wheel horsepowernow hovering a full 100 hp higher thanin stock form. The Vector Performance-supercharged motor peaked at 256 hp atthe wheels and 262 lbs.-ft.

During the runs, we monitored theboost pressure with the MOTEC andsaw a peak reading of 8.65 psi. Imagine,a full 100 hp and 70 lbs.-ft. from only8.65 psi. Who says the V8 boys get tohave all the fun? With the right super-charger, you can turn your mild-man-nered 3800 into a vicious Vector V6.Happy hunting.

SourcesFEDOR AUTO

SPORT TUNING15608 Graham St.

Huntington Beach, CA 92649714/894-8415

chassis dyno & tuning

VECTOR PERFORMANCE17092 Palmdale St.

Huntington Beach, CA 92647714/841-4812

V6 supercharger kit

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