Airbagged

I wanted the supercharger piping to look good too, so I had it powder coated candy apple red and I used high pressure stainless steel clamps on all the supercharger connections.

Airbagged

In order to let the supercharger get as much nice cool air as possible I drilled a 4" hole in the back of the air box, which luckily faces right toward the front of the car, yet is shielded by my Hella Horn, the gap behind the horn let's plenty of nice fresh cool air in. I used a drop in K&N air filter and removed the factory carbon pre filter. Basically I created a true cold air intake, while retaining a factory look to the air box. The sound is amazing, when the engine is running and you get near the front grill you can hear the supercharger spinning, and when you rev it up you can hear the tremendous amount of suction that the supercharger creates. I highly recommend this modification, the factory snorkel that comes up behind the battery is very restrictive and will kill the flow of air entering the supercharger, plus you will be sucking in warm air from under the hood, I do advice you use some kind of shield in front of the hole so if you get caught in the rain it will not go directly into your air box my horn just happen to work out perfectly as a shield by accident

Airbagged

Nothing is perfect, but with a little effort and thought I was able to find a solution to the issue I encountered. After about two weeks of running my supercharger I started hearing a hissing sound, at first I thought it was just something I had overlooked in the beginning, but it got a bit worse, and I figured out it was an idler pulley that they included in the kit. I emailed the company, and sent them a video with the noise, one week later I had a new pulley at my door step. At first the new pulley solved the problem, but the problem
Came back last week 12/27/13. I thought to myself that I needed to figure out why these pulleys where burning up so fast, that's when I figured out what was the issue, the smooth pulley they included in the kit is actually a Timing belt idler intended for some model of Nissan. The idler pulley is not a bad quality part, it's just not the right part for the job. I broke out my micrometer and took some measurements and went down to the local parts house, I needed a smooth pulley with a 60mm diameter, and a mounting hole with a 10mm bore. One other observation I noticed about the idler they included is that it is about 38mm wide and the belt for the IQ is only 18mm wide, and they have the belt riding on only about half the pulley. The problem is that the pulley has it's internal bearings mounted out toward its outer most faces, which means al the load of the belt is only riding on one of the internal bearings which is what was causing the pulleys to fail prematurely. I was able to find a new pulley which was a little more narrow, 32mm to be exact and it had internal bearings centered in its core rather than out toward the edges. The original pulley in the kit had a mounting surface flush against the inner surface, so they had to use a 15mm spacer to clear engine components. The new pulley I decided to use has an offset mounting surface that caused me to initially use only 3.5mm of spacing to clear the components, this setup placed the belt almost centered over the pulleys internal bearings, but I'm not happy with almost, so I had my local machine shop remove 4mm from the inner face of the bearing that faced the engine, this took care of two things, it cleared all the engine components, and it centered the belt perfectly over the pulleys internal bearings.
I have since sent all my diagrams, along with pictures of the finished pulley I modified, and even a video of the engine running with my new pulley setup to the company that sells the kit. I'm hoping the company decides to use my new pulley concept, but if they don't, I'd be happy to share with anyone who decides to install one of these kits on their IQ al the info you will need to get the right pulley, or I can sell you my spare one I had made and then just get another one made, I will sell it at my cost, for the part, the machine shop fee, and shipping I think that's pretty fare since I have to do all the work of sourcing the pulley and having the machine shop do the work but hopefully the company will just go with my design and avoid any extra trouble.
For anyone to understand the picture, the pulley on the right is the pulley that comes in the kit, not pictured is the 15mm spacer that they use to mount it to the engine. The pulley in the middle is the pulley I selected before having it machined. The pulley on the left is my modified pulley, it's pretty obvious that it's much more narrow than the original pulley, and that it doesn't require a spacer to mount it. In a separate post I'll show pictures of the original pulley mounted on the car, and of my modified design.

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Here is the pulley they choose for the kit. If you look closely at the pulley you will see that not only is the belt only riding on half the pulley, but that the bearing seal is out toward the outer face of the pulley.

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If you look closely at the pulley that I modified to use to replace the one I was sent on the kit, you will see that the green bearing seal sits inward toward the center of the pulley. The bearings on this pulley actually sit centered perfectly in the center of the pulley. If you look you will also see a small amount of pulley visible, it's 7mm to be exact, and on the inside it's 3mm but would have been an equal 7mm had I not machined off 4mm for clearance. The belt now rides centered over the bearing, which distributes the load placed on the bearings inside the pulleys bearings equally. The pulley is still left with a very safe amount on either side to keep the belt securely in place and enough material was machined off to allow clearance and even factor in for heat expansion.
I call this one problem solved

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I was amazed when I saw how little this supercharger actually is, here I have it sitting on top of my I Pad for size comparison, and you can see that from top to bottom, it's no bigger than my I Pad.

I hope everyone likes all the pictures and information I have shared with you, if you are still left with any questions please feel free to ask, or even privately email me at airbagged@earthlink.net

Best wishes,
Daniel

lilsatan

That's not an install, that's a work of art. I am BLOWN AWAY by the quality and care you put into it. Simply amazed. Please keep the updates coming on how it's working out. Thanks for taking the time share that.

Airbagged

Thank you, some people say I go a little overboard on my installs, but I just like to do a quality job. I'm really happy you like my work, and if your ever in the south FL area and would like to see it in person let me know, the entire car is built with the same level of detail. I also really enjoy helping other people work on their scion IQs so if anyone is in my area and would like my help, please get in contact with me

lilsatan

Airbagged, how's the new pulley working out? I was just looking through the pictures of your install again and what you've done is really a work of art.

Airbagged

Pulley is working out Great , it resolved the issue of the pulley failing. The pulley I modified, now sits directly against the engine without need for any spacers, and it perfectly distributes the load of the belt over the internal pulleys.
I relayed my findings and design over to the company that makes the kits in Japan, but they told me that in Japan they do not have the same problem, which doesn't make any sense because I saw a video on YouTube of a Toyota IQ equipped with their kit somewhere in Asia and I could pick up on the same sound mine was making in this video. My guess is that no one has had one of these kits on their vehicle long enough for a total bearing failure, and that they are passing off the sound as normal. The deviation of load on the pulley by the belt is obvious, and wether it be here in the US or in Asia, Europe or anywhere else in the world, the problem will still be there. I did have about 5 extra pulleys of my version machined, and if anyone purchases the kit, and the company does not switch over to my design I can sell you one of my pulleys at my cost ( cost includes machine shop fee & original pulley cost) plus shipping to your destination. I don't care nor want to make any profit off my re designed pulley, I simply want fellow IQ owners to not have to go through what I did, having just bought a very expensive upgrade for my car and having a terrible sound come from a pulley.
If you buy one of these kits, and you need one of my modified pulleys or simply advice on how to do any part of the install feel free to contact me at airbagged@earthlink.net

IQMY

Hi Bro AirBagged, good to know you had install the kit, as you said deeply fast .. for our compact car as long just need little more I think fun enough ..
Mind to share with me (PM) how much you buy the kit? got discount?
Im plan to buy soon, I don't think will tune, just plug can run that's all ..

Airbagged

This isn't a plug and run kit, it comes with a piggy back ECU that is pre tuned. Your looking at spending 4-5k by the time you get the kit from Japan and into the car.