After some thought, I am throwing around the idea of the s/c, along with a Greddy Evo 2 and Fujita CAI. My main concern is the reliability of the car/upkeep necessary to maintain it. The limit of my car maintenance abilities is changing the oil, so obviously I would be paying to have any mods professionally installed. I remember reading a post about belts needing to be changed and that's what originally turned me off about the sc(other than the price tag). Soooo....for you people with the Comptech....how has it been maintenance/reliability wise? This is my only car and daily driver, so I need something nearly as reliable the stock car, if not the same. I think that's what Comptech was going for in designing it, as they mentioned it putting out fairly low boost, etc, but what have some real-world experiences been?

Thanks!

 

I have been running the Comptech blower for about 25k with no problems at all as my daily driver. I think relability really depends on how hard you drive the car. The TL is a lux perfromance car, add the blower and a few other parts and it bumps the car up to a m5,m3 very high performance lux car level. Because of this, if you drive the car like you stole it all the time it, things will start to break.

The belt issue only seems to happen when using the HBP(high boost pulley) so my belt is fine. I would say the question should be more about the money and how much you like the TL. I love every thing about this car so 10k worth of performance parts was worth it to me. The Comptech Supercharger is the ultimate mod for the TL, once you get it you will want/need every other part for the car. All a sudden $1000 mods are a once a month thing and you are stashing parts to hide them from your wife.

 

TL is a mid size sedan. the RL is the entry level luxury sedan.

and ive never laughed so hard in my live. bumps the car up to a m3/m5? give me whatever your smoking please. 310whp vs 350whp and 450whp. please give me a break, not to mention the RWD, and not to mention s/c m3 = 420whp. s/c m5 = 5250whp

 

What? I take it you have never taken a ride in a blown TL? The differance between a 320-330 whp car and a 350whp car is very little. I drive a 320+ whp TL and know how it stacks up to a m3 or m5, the point I was trying to make was the blower transforms the TL into a much more powerful car. Is it as fast a 84k new m3 or 100k+ m5 no, but dam close? Oh and blown m3's or m5's, where you reading the same post?

 

^good point. didnt think of it like that

and i havent...cough joe cough LOL

 

10K on my SC... Not a whimper of a problem.
Self installed, frankly, it's kinda hard to screw up installing this thing.... just follow the excellent directions provided by Comptech.

and for M3/M5 sillyness...

I'll take my $30K TL with 10K worth of mods, and spend that other $40-60K on other toys.

 

^ You installed it yourself? How long did it take you? You've mentioned the excellent instructions that Comptech provides. Are there any supplemental DIY's that you or others have written on the site? I tried searching but the can't seem to narrow my search to the correct parameters.

 

^^^^ive known one person who installed it themselves and he said it took like 12 hours or so! its a VERY long project to install!
i should be installling mine in the next few weeks!!!!

 

If you are just supercharging your car....no worries. You will be ok. Its when you go to extremes and start monkeying with the whole operation when you have issues. Put it this way....the more performance you toss at your car....the less reliable it tends to be on a daily basis. Keeping an even balance of mods to your main intended use of the car is important to keep in mind. But on this car...even when you go to the most extreme levels of performance you can currently squeeze out of this car....its still not that bad.

Yes...I have had to replace pullies and belts. But I am also running a high boost pulley (refer to monkeying with the operation advise above) which is smaller in diameter than the one that came with the supercharger...so the tensioner unit on the belt has to take up the extra slack (minimal...but nonetheless). This is where the issue arrises there....so dont let that bother you. Just dont run the HBP. Most dont. You kind of have to have the right setup to be able to run the HBP safely anyway.

 

It was about 14 hours total, but I insatlled a lot more than the SC. Over the course of a weekend (all day Saturday, and most of Sunday) I installed the following:

- Comptech supercharger. This took longer than usual as I had to reinstall the polished supercharger manifolds onto the blower (see pics).
- Outlaw thermoblock spacer and polished intake manifold
- ATLP Jpipe
- UR Stock size pulley
- Grounding kit
- Boost gauge

Supplemental DIY's? Not needed, and I only know of one other guy here to self install- most pay upwards of $400 for that... The Comptech directions are that good, and the install is really not hard at all. I'd suggest having an extra set of hands available to mount the SC, but other than that if you can read and follow directions, it's easy.

The most "stressful" part of the job was the fuel regulator. Just messy, dragging that thing in and out of the gas tank.

I actually did much of the "pre-install" work the weekend before the actual install. I installed the silicone radiator hose, alternator mount bracket, battery box and cable, sparkplugs, did all the dremel trimming, and few other details weeks BEFORE I installed the SC on the weekend. This made install go quick. I was up and running in like 6 hours, the rest of the time I wasted on the manifold, fighting the stripped bolt on the J-pipe, and the fuel regulator, and splicing in the ACM wiring.

Here's some pics, and some more comments
https://acurazine.com/forums/3g-tl-photograph-gallery-96/ctsc-picture-thread-643966/

Goodluck trojanman, PM me if you have any questions.

Whne it warms up, Cusco oil blowby catch can, Custom CAI, and Meth kit go in. Wish I could find someone to help with that...

 

^ Damn that looks nice! Gotta question now that I see the pic of the engine bay. I was planning on getting the Comptech later on this year. It seems from the picture, that you don't have room for a CAI. So is there room for a CAI? Or are CAI's just a waste of time/money in general?

 

You can make a custom CAI but there is no room for an AEM type intake. I plan on using the AEM dry flow filter with some custom piping.

 

You can see the custom CAI here:



On the SC, the CAI is purely a noise maker... It amplifies the sweet whine sound, but the Comptech provide intake is already a "CAI", as well as a noise suppressor. The custom CAI move the intake tract lower to the bumper where air shold be cooler, and resonates the sound throught he aluminum pipe.

It's a noise maker mod for me.

 

^ that's good to know. The info is appreciated. Now I can spend the 300+ dollars that I would have spent on the AEM V2 (or something like that) on something else. Thanks!

 

kennedy, your polished intake manifold looks sick x_X

 

kennedy ur polished setup looks insane bro!!!!! props

 

Wow... that looks real NICE

 

good luck to you all, dont know if my motor blew from the s/c'er???? taking it off with the new motor anyways...

 

^ HUH? Your motor blew? I was really thinking about a supercharger, and I think you were one of the Aziners that said something like "GET ONE! You won't regret it!" So you're taking it out? You mind me asking what happened? Have you changed your mind about the s/c?

 

I say being in the Supercharger group once.... Do it and have fun! As long as your not on it ever single min. you'll be fine... I had 10k on mine and it will be finding a new home soon... Also like Hi Speed said earlier the only ppl that I have noticed that have had problems are the ones with HBP installed...

 

^ Oh yeah... where's this new home going to be huuuuuuuuuh?

 

CT's supercharger kits are some of the most reliable kits on the market. I've installed plenty of them and none of the cars we have done have ever had any issues and we have sold plenty of them too without issue. In fact I have a CT S/Ced 07 Civic Si which will shortly be on 10psi (which is good for about 300whp). The kits are complete, the tune and blower are reliable, and the power is on tap.

If you end up deciding you want one, let me know.

 

I'm sure when he gets it done... there will be a thread started...

 

 

When I saw SSM's Motor.....I was the one that pointed out it blew or was on its way to complete failure.....i really dont think it blew cuz of the blower, i think it blew because of the negligence of the installer and most likely having an ego about being a mechanic and "knowing what hes doing"......theres a check list of tests u gotta run before u boost any car....if theres small deviation in these tests its ok. For example... if the compression is at 137 across the board on all pistons and only one piston has 136....its fine no problem continue with the install...but if theres some kind of major deviation then down the line you will have an issue.... I dont think the installer did any test to make sure it was ok and didnt advise against it. SSM called me and said the dude at Acura didnt find anything wrong can u look at it..... AFTER SPENDING 500 to diagnose n change coil packs n plugs!....so i went over took a look at his block pulled out my flashlight and showed him oil pissing out of his motor. pulled the dipstick and opened the oil cap..... and said.....dude why is ur car blowing smoke out of these 2 holes like a locomotive??? We all know (WE who work on motors) at that point...blowback has done the motor in....oil was pissing all over the valves as well, when you looked in the oil cap with the flashlight....it looked like oil hell on top of the valve heads...... so for the tech who worked on the car.... whos doing this all day everyday and he misses the most obvious sign of failure.....I wouldnt trust him to work on the car none the less let him install a blower before doing the tests and making sure the motor is capable of even handling boost. But its not SSMs fault... because he had it done by a tech at a dealer....so you wanna trust them.


IMHO a blower or any type of boost will not break anything if the right things are measured from the beginning and its installed by a knowledgable person, high end mechanic or not. I personally would install the blower myself and probably never run the tests because im a jerk off like that and the car would probably blow up....but thats just me....lmao.....ok im just kidding....but ive installed blowers n built motors before along side some top mechanics in my area and in FL, where a friend of mine has a shop dedicated to NHRA racing..... and I learned a few things along the way..... DO THE PRECHECK LIST FIRST! Then enjoy the whine from the blower as ur toying with cars on the highway.

 

Any issues with the radiator hose being bent in awkward position up against the S/C driveshaft?

 

the SC shaft is covered with the metal sleeve you see when you look at it. so you dont see the actual rotation and the hoses are changed. i believe CT has everything needed packed in the box

 

I would love to boost the motor but i dont think it can handle it.....id need to rebuild it first and then go for it...... i may do something else though....who knows =)

 

No...no issues so far. But IMO the one SHIT part of this design. You can have a radiator made though with will fix this. They move the neck over to the middle more which eliminates a bend in the hose at that point. It comes straight up into the radiator and 90 degrees into it by way of the upper neck - which basicly makes less stress to the hose itself.

 

I'd agree with Tripnbeats, boosting a motor without making sure its ready for it is a terrible idea. Similar to the people who give turbo's a bad name because they invest all their cash into a huge turbo then don't buy the internals to support it. If you're going to run boost, it's going to cost you. Either spend the extra money at first or spend a lot more in the long run.

 

don't mean to hijack, but reading over 5 posts(in other threads), I still did not come to the conclusion of a 3.5l s/c existing w/o tuning, is that correct?

 

yes i forgot dudes name he was at the meet on sunday.....type s blown.....sounds nasty!!!! before the underdrive pulley he was pullin 321 on the dyno and now installed he said it feels insane and is waiting to put it ont he dyno....he also said a very few mods had to be done to make it work on the 3.5 and that the acm had to be reprogrammed to make it work with the management on it to make it work as well...i think it made the injectors pulse faster

 

yea, that was sean aka s_heng and yes, his car is SICK!

so I meant to ask you was that your gf with the super cute dog? That dog rocks!

 

hahahaha yea mary n killer =) thanks

 

good luck to all, but i actually think that seafoam killed my motor. Acura is replacing the head, cylinders, injectors, gaskets, plugs and basically anything else in there that was fucked up. Basically a rebuild and I believe the car will be more reliable without the blower. Any imput??? I dont know much about motors, but does the head involve pistons and rods??? becuase if those didnt fail, then the blower is not the blame, just a faulty motor. I mentioned that i used to get a flashing cel at wot, when I was bone stock, which worsened with the extra mods...

 

Thanks George, and the tow truck cracked my oil pan, bastards.....

 

My girl, loved that dog, now we know where the sold blower money is going!!!!

 

No.

Yes, as Mike said, you can get a custom rad made. We have worked with Griffin before to have them made; like 04accordcpe you can have the radiator made with the neck further to the driver side (since 7th gens can run the TL blower with a custom radiator).

 

damn bro....that sucks what tow comapny came to take the whip??? yea dude wait a lil bit if u want i can get u a teacup no prob hit me up we'll talk

 

^ post a pic of the DOG!
hahahahaa
at least put it in your avatar