I was on Facebook when there was a post about there being a recall on the solid couplers for super chargers. Does anyone have any more info on this? Apparently is causes some kind of issue in the long run but I haven’t been able to find any information.

 

I believe this was my post on Facebook. Later someone said it was Powerhouse couplers specifically. Also interested in more detail here.

 

I asked about the same thing on Facebook, some guy that is a mechanic said he had 3 cars in his shop, with problems cause of the solid coupler he said they end up destroying the supercharger bearings.

 

Yet another failure to look forward to! I wonder though how this mechanic established that the coupler was the cause of bearing failure. Easy enough to establish that (a) the blower has a solid coupler and (b) the bearings have failed; possibly pure speculation that (b) has been caused by (a). 'post hoc ergo proctor hoc'?

 

Alex, it was your post I was referring to indeed.

 

What is the purpose of the OEM part, and what could the consequences be from eliminating its function? Isn't it a torsional damper?

 

I found this and several other debates from GM guys (lots of modded CTS-V's, etc with our blower). Many people reference the older designs or the Ford GT500 application. I'm leaning on installing the solid coupler still. I am notably changing the oil in the SC however.

https://www.ctsvowners.com/threads/i...r.13749/page-2

 

i was thinking the same thing.. changing the fluid, maybe more often would help. And whatever the issue was with the other manufacturer hopefully isn’t an issue since you and I both have zzp.

 

At what mileage does it fail? My car has very low mileage i can hear it just a bit when turning off, i rather be preventive, this can cause some more serious damage check this video.


This guy i spoke to said he had seen many, bearings getting crushed from the solid one, he said he had 3 cars in his shop as we spoke, with crushed bearings. He recommended to stick to the OEM one.

Coincidentally I saw a tv program yesterday where they were doing a CTS SC, same Eaton SC as ours, they said the spring coupler was just to damp and make it more quiet.
But by watching the video i posted i guess the spring is to damp back force when turning off, there's actually a lot of stress and from the belt pulling on the snout pulley when you turn off the car.

​​​​​​My car is going to the shop next week to have this sorted.

 

What shop did you talk to?

 

Yep, Facebook is the place to get correct technical info for Jags.

 

I sense some sarcasm here. In defense of OP the forums here are not very active.

 

yeah, just have to use whatever you can to get info you need.

 

I think there could be a difference in the coupler material that might make a difference in performance. I know oil filled nylon has more cushion and stress strength than pure nylon. I have one from zzperformance and they advertise oil filled and give reasons

 

A friend recently changed the isolator to a solid one on his XFR 5.0 SC. After 2 months, the supercharger had to be disassembled again, and the backlash of the shafts was already noticeable. The local service said that they have a lot of blowers with broken bearings due to the solid isolator. They strongly advised not to change the isolator. Moreover, in these compressors (3.0 5.0), needle bearings are usually worn out. However, when a solid coupler is used, the rotor bearings wear out. A friend told me this, and the news got me thinking...

Now my tubes are leaking and I had to remove the supercharger. I bought the isolator from my local store, however I doubt that the hard isolator can damage the bearings and gears of the supercharger over time. My isolator is slightly different and is made of graphite-filled nylon.



If anyone has used a solid isolator, please write your opinion about it. How long did you drive after the renovation? Are there any problems?

 

Good thread.

Yes, I'm running a solid isolator, and yes, I can hear backlash in the SC under part-throttle acceleration. I'm a few months in but honestly it was noticeable from the get-go, and this is with new needle bearings in the rotor casing and new snout bearings too. It's possible the rotor bearings were shot on this supercharger, which was a spare that I ported & rebuild on the bench, but this wasn't obvious when I rebuilt it.

My plan is to port my old SC, rebuild with new bearings, and then swap the superchargers back over, however, I'll be fitting an OEM sprung isolator rather than a solid one.

My suspicion is that the isolator does a lot more work than people give it credit for in smoothing out the crank vibrations/rotations of the inherently imbalanced V8,(take a look at how much movement is in the belt tensioners on idle, if it's anything like my engine it's pretty obvious) and with a solid coupler fitted, all these vibrations and changes in rotational speed are transmitted straight to the gears at the back of the supercharger, hence the backlash.

On top of this, I don't feel the solid coupler was really giving me that much advantage over OEM - it's not like it picks up really any quicker when I get on it vs the sprung isolator. If it just solved the original issue of the OEM isolator breaking down over time, and was simply a sturdier replacement, I'd definitely go with it. But since it appears to add its own additional problems with backlash etc, I won't be reusing it.

 

what a great thread to find after just installing a solid ZZP coupler into my S/C this weekend.

 

lmao. So far I have had my zzp one in for almost a year and I haven’t had any issues yet with my supercharger. Still very interesting to hear everyone’s experience.

 

I had one of the green ones in for a month. Hated the rattle and went back with a new oem spring one on the charger i rebuilt. The gears are straight cut type so solid coupler really magnifies the chatter. When i took it off for replacement i was curious so i looked at the gears again and did notice some wear marks that were not there before where the tooth tip meets the pocket. Maybe nothing but that is what i found. It had no marks before the solid coupler install. As fast as these chrgers spin and create pressure i am not sure why they did not use spiral bevel gears other than cost

 

Did the chatter disappear when you swapped the solid coupler back to OEM?