Supercharger Woes

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

Reckless

Reckless

10 Year
Joined
May 31, 2013
Threads
111
Messages
1,543
Location
Chicago
So about 2-3 months ago I had my supercharger installed in my hundy. The vehicle had around ~88k miles at the time. I have driven the car 3k miles or so and now two injectors have failed. We replaced spark plugs, injectors and on cylinders 3 and 7. It fixed cylinder 7 but cylinder 3 is having less than 90% compression still. :mad:

I had read reviews after reviews on this website how the supercharger is a bolt on but it looks like I have to replace a piston now. Can someone shed some light on the situation?:wrench:
 
Reckless said:
So about 2-3 months ago I had my supercharger installed in my hundy. The vehicle had around ~88k miles at the time. I have driven the car 3k miles or so and now two injectors have failed. We replaced spark plugs, injectors and on cylinders 3 and 7. It fixed cylinder 7 but cylinder 3 is having less than 90% compression still. :mad:

I had read reviews after reviews on this website how the supercharger is a bolt on but it looks like I have to replace a piston now. Can someone shed some light on the situation?:wrench:
Click to expand...
It sounds like the SC could have been the straw that broke cylinder 3's back.:frown:

See if you can find someone who can do a dynamic compression (leakdown) test. That will let you know if it's a valve, piston, or head gasket.

Steve
 
Depending on how long the injectors were bad for, I would suspect you would have severe damage to both #3 and #7. I had a buddy who had one clog up on his truck and the top side of the piston completely melted...it wasn't pretty.

How did you determine the injectors were bad, do you have tuning software? Do you have a wideband sensor to motor A/F at all?
 
I do have the A/F wideband meter in my glove box but I don't know what to check for. The check engine light came on so I took it in.

I did drive on it like 100 miles with the check engine light on.

I am going to double check tomorrow but I think it was either a valve or head gasket. I am not too happy as I keep pouring money into my lexus into stupid little problems.
 
Nevermind. You answered above.

Did you put in new injectors when you put on the SC?
 
No, but new iridium spark plugs. The Supercharger had 2 new ones (I don't understand this).
 
Reckless said:
The Supercharger had 2 new ones (I don't understand this).
Click to expand...
Can you clarify what part you don't understand? 2 new plugs or 2 new injectors? The TRD SC includes and uses a 9th and maybe a 10th injector (depending on model). Did you not install these?
 
Sounds like he's unsure of the use of the extra injectors? I could be wrong but on the 3.4 supercharger the 7th injector I believe is used for cooling in a way, as TRD superchargers don't use intercoolers. I believe the 4.7 supercharger works the same way with a 9th and 10th injector.
 
So it looks like its the valves on the left bank. Mechanic thinks programming was running the engine to rich which may have caused this problem.
 
Too rich does not typically cause problems in the short term. Too lean is a killer. You need a careful analysis of the AFRs across the rev range, and if they are not comfortably over 12:1 right across the range get someone who understands this SC application to review your installation. The extra injectors are IMPORTANT to control AFRs and combustion temps. A dyno is probably the only way to do this. Chasing component problems is fixing symptoms, but not the reason they are happening.

Sounds like you haven't had this setup running for long, so there's a good chance its not properly dialed in yet. Ignore that and there's real trouble down the road. Get it right now and everything should be fine.
 
Unfortunately no one in Chicago knows how to program the MAP3 ECU device.
 
Where did you get the supercharger kit? Toyota pulled them off the market several years ago because of potential engine durability issues. It sounds like you are one of the "potential durability issues" that made them decide to pull them back.
 
I believe it was a 2nd hand kit, as they all are now, pulled from another truck. The issue that pulled them from market, as I understand it, was due to bent connecting rods on the Tundra and Sequoia (cast rods, not forged like the LC).
 
The Tundra/Sequoia and the Land Cruiser catalogs both show the same part numbers for connecting rods. I suppose it is possible that there was another rod from a different source but the catalog does not reflect it.

I have heard the rod rumor as well but I have not had anyone at TMS actually confirm it to me. All I was able to get out of them was "durability issues".
 
My info is from our mutual friend Will, who got his info from TRD. Another thread pointed out the single part number awhile back, so the purported difference is up in the air. Supposedly there was never a failure on an LC, only the Tundra/Seq.
 
Then I would say your info is solid. I never visited with him on this topic.


I just pulled out an old microfiche from 2002 on Sequoia and it shows only a Jap connecting rod.
 
According to the info I "heard", the issue ended up being two fold:

1. The connecting rod issue which appears up in the air re: the forged vs cast topic.

And

2. An issue with the tune in the TRD piggyback computers that caused a lean condition. The two together were the demise of some US built 2uz's.

This is only what I've been told so take it with a grain of salt. This is one the current arguments for using an adjustable piggyback and doing a full dyno tune.

I'm not an expert but wouldn't the complete failure of a fuel injector cause the lack of compression by putting a lot of stress on the cylinder, regardless of the blower's presence? If this is true, the blower simply speed up the process.
 
Trunk Monkey said:
I believe it was a 2nd hand kit, as they all are now, pulled from another truck. The issue that pulled them from market, as I understand it, was due to bent connecting rods on the Tundra and Sequoia (cast rods, not forged like the LC).
Click to expand...

You are correct. My mechanic tried to stop me from doing this but I assured him that the LX470 has forged rods. The vehicle totally changes character with the supercharger. I really love it, I just hope we can find a way to make it work for 300k miles. I imagine the vehicle drives similar to a 200 with the supercharger.

As silly as it sounds I preferred the hundy over the 200 because of the smaller 16" wheels and bigger tires. Plus, I would hate to offroad a $50k+ vehicle (I buy all my cars used). Plus if I had a 200 I would probably supercharge it too.
 
maybe I miss this info here but OP did you check spark plug condition when you pull 'em indicating rich or lean condition ..?
 
Were you using the full fuel system/management setup that came with the supercharger?

Also, what octane fuel were you using?

Any number of things could have gone wrong. Lean conditions in certain cylinders, potentially combined or also experiencing detonation. Since the LX was never a validated platform for this kit, it's very likely that the LX has a specific tune, of which the fueling piggyback was never designed for.

I use to tune Lexus's for custom turbo setups. My personal Lexus IS300 w/ full 2JZ-GTE supra driveline ran for over 100k miles on a custom tune. It can be done, but you absolutely need to right software. Hardware is actually the easy part. The other 50% is in the tuning.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Back
Top Bottom