DIRT CHEAP, $100 4.8L LS BOOST! JUNKYARD V6 M90 BLOWER TO THE RESCUE! IT FINALLY WORKS ON THE 4.8L! 

2 blowers would be absolute madness on this setup

I'd love to see how much more power it would make with an intercooler. I'd also like to see intake temps as well.

Maybe intake valves floating due to using stock springs, aftermarket cam and adding boost. At 6 psi, the intake valve springs are losing somewhere between 15-20 lbs of seating pressure.

How do you guys find these cheap engines?! Everyone around here wants $1500 for any kind of LS. The best I can get for $100 is a urine stained mattress :(

With the 2.6 that little blower is working harder than a rented mule. Love to see it with some kind of heat exchanger

I have a 2006 Silverado 4.8 , 200k on it ,and that little mouse motor pulls my 6k boat all day long with no issues . But I would not want to put a blower on it ,with all the cost that go's into it .Just for more torque . If I needed more power ,i would drop in a 6.0L .with no d.o.d or cam phaser. Or install lower diff radio gears .

North Star throttle body is a great replacement for the gen5 blower just an FYI

That was surprising. Now we need to call it "the little blower that could." 😛

Guessing the "Drop-off" at 6,000 RPMs is the stock valve springs, but the 2.6 pulley disproved that. I can't wait to see the ported blower!

I really enjoy these vids because they get to the point really fast. Not these elongated explanations that go on for what seem like hours. Much appreciated.

I am surprised that it made more power with only 1.6 pounds of boost. I figured 1.6 lbs would not even cover the parasitic drag. Wow

Given that the 3v 4.6 roush ran a Gen V M90 I'm not super surprised but still pleased to see it work well.

When the gtp car were pretty common we would use the Northstar t-body and injectors it felt impressive by the butt dyno back then in the 90's

I have an m90 on my 6cyl 4.0 jeep and it rips. I've never dynoed it but I was impressed with the little thing

You need to use the setup off a Thunderbird Super Coupe. It has a jack shaft assembly that step-up the rpm even more. Couple that with an MPX supercharger housing you could get over that 500HP number.

Direct Express is a low down p o s organization. In my opinion ! I love the engine work that u do Richard !

Never would have thought, Rich. These blowers struggled on the 3.8.

I'd like to see it with an intercooler. Superchargers tend to heat the heck out of the charge air, depleting the air density.

Can’t wait for version 2 of this vid.

100 bucks for 100 horsepower is fantastic bang for the buck

Another outstanding video!

Man Richard, I really love it when you test things that don't seem to make a lot of sense like this. It's when we learn the most. Now I'm wondering what the upper limit is for doing this same thing on a larger engine. This blower might actually make some power on a 5.3 or maybe even a 6.0 or 6.2.... Who woulda thunk it!

Can’t help but think two blowers would be awesome. 60’s style!!!!

It's crazy how much HP this vortec engines can hold with stock internals other than the cams. Now imagine springs, rods, better cooling etc.

Yes! Please continue to plug away at this little combo. It would be very interesting.

Man the nostalgia is so great with this M90 stuff. I was really trying to be more refined than the common practice stuff on my SSEi when I tried 9.5:1 intercooled on e85 and was playing with crankcase vacuum but I wish I had spent a LOT more time on the heads. Those 3800 heads don't flow much but it was more than enough to send the 7/8 chain through the side of my trans.

Try porting the blower and open the tb opening to 102 see how much power it can pick up

That's impressive.... Wrecker yard blower giving a nice little "BOOST"...!!!😊

Great job revisiting this one. This is some awesome very low buck power

This is cool. Makes me want to put one on my 4.8l in my silverado. Holly manifold and a plate of aluminum. Neet.

Its all good tell you put it in a Chevy. With all the electrical problems, and all the 5vt problems

This is great. I got my hands on one of these gen 5 blowers today.

Love ZZP, I wish every company would be like them.

I'm blown away!

Personally I blame squirrels

450 on pump gas. For a cheap setup, that is making some power. This is old school hot rodder,

Has anyone used one of those old mini blowers like a 142, 144 blower on an LS with a carb? See them Laying around cheap pretty frequently.

the interesting thing about lobe roots blowers, is that adiabatic efficiency isn't directly related to lobe speed but total pressure ratio. They are great at moving massive quantity's of air, efficiently at low pressure, but they SUCK at compressing air in terms of efficiency.

Wow it really is directly over 4 of the holes. Do big tb and ic 👏👏👏 excellent work

Been waiting for ages for this video, seems like years have passed since you first mentioned trying this.

Now we know what it’s capable of. Very cool. Thanks

Your enthusiasm is infectious Richard. Thank you for your content. 👍

That's kind of wild that basically the M90 is pretty pathetic on a V8 but I remember when Roush had a M90 on the 4.6 2 and 3 valve years ago that made decent power.

actually wild i can take a trip to the junkyard grab me one of these m90s rebuild it run a 2.8 pulley and 80 lbs injectors a truck cam and I can make almost 115 more horse power.

Interesting to see it actually made power.

Also You should check out the SC off of a 94-95 thunderbird SC in which you could make a huge bolt on inlet for

I'm curious what output air temp from the blower was like with the three different pulleys. Maybe had something to do with power curves of the middle and smallest setups.

Using a flat plate top on that high rise (not-port matched) intake is a failure looking for a place to happen. The blower outlet is located faaar too far forward, so the front 4 cylinders will be happy, but the back 4 will be starving. The only way to fix that is by adding volume to the top of the manifold - enough to allow the fast-flowing air to slow down and diffuse, so that all 8 "single-cylinder engines" get a chance to breathe. Make use of a pyrometer to check EGT balance.

They're not super cheap, but a S55/E55 blower off a Mercedes would be badass for this type of test, and should support 700hp yet be thousands cheaper than any normal blower.

It's a junkyard blower, grab a second and a wider plate!! That would look crazy too!

Richard , i Like the way you display all of the engine changes on your graphs , each change has like a 20 to 25 h/p difference , so cool , would you consider on your last test by using Nitro Methane ? it should jump about DOUBBLE The H/P ? that would be fun to see those Tests !

Been waiting foreverrr for this vid. Awesome stuff man 🫡🫡

Thanks for running this test. Now I can show folks this video so they can stop asking me about it. Folks know I had a GTP that moved out back in the day. Now... Can you run an LSA test? Did that deal with the LSA blower fall thru?

Ok. So I did a little digging. Apparently the only gen v(5) m90 3800 application is the 2004-07 Grand Prix gt/gtp. There is one currently in Dayton Ohio LKQ but it's been there 2 months so it's a crap shoot. The 5 lkq near me don't have any. Gen 3 are fairly common. I'd still really love to see this test with a gen 3 with a pulley swap. I know it's not as easy to do but it's possible.

Id assume the power leveling off on the 3.0 pulley is because of the heat from the m90. They build more heat than boost and IAT is ahead of the boost

Im betting the loss in power up top was from IATs. That blower has zero cooling on this setup. Needs meth or an IC. Impressive numbers for an M90. But also inline with GTP numbers, which cap out around 350-400whp iirc.

i could be wrong but my guess. crank pulley and injectors and better fuel. just sayin. that crank pulley is most likely larger than the stock 3.8l v6 the rpm range is much diff. your changing the end result but remember this. a blower is an air pump it blows air. blowerr. if the gearing on the crank is too high or low it can become out of sync with the motor per say. think about a 2 stroke engine since its the most simple form of an engine. if the exhaust and cylinder are not paired right it wont run well or at all. your blower feeds your motor. i has a compressor map and shows its flow rates just like turbo selection. get the right crank pulley for the response range then select the right blower pulley for the boost and compressor range and problem solved. sometimes aftermarket superchargers pick other pulleys to pull from. like the alternator or water pump or power steering. it helps get the compressor in the fat part of the map and gets better results. im also willing to bet that intake adapter fuel injectors and throttle body were causing some other oddities in the testing. throttle body for good throttle response on 1l larger engine. knowing a 4mm increase on throttle body can make large power gains...

Would like to see the charge IATs. And just a small spray of water/washer fluid/meth into the TB. Don’t need much. Valve float. Stock VS are good NA to 6k, with 6 and 8 psi boost you lose some VS pressure. Doesn’t take much more VS pressure just +10-20 psi will stop the valve float.

High five Richard, another great test!

Put 2 of those blowers on next. That would be sweet. Just weld up a triangle.

The peak power leveling off in the boosted application... maybe valve float? Maybe airflow restriction? Maybe a combination of both? I just found one of these blowers locally for $100. Richard, would you be willing to share a parts list and possibly the dimensions for the adapter plate? I have a good running 4.8L that I got for free, and really have no idea what to do with it. A $100 blower seems like the move here.

This might be on a those many many Mopar 5.2L/318's out there, they only put out about 240hp stock.

Truck Norris is a food truck in West St Louis area within a stone throw of my house and was also voted the best name of a food truck

All the m90s just went up in price

Thanks Richard! Great content, as usual!

Great to compare the M112 and M122 as well.

That little motor rips! Too bad that Hi ram is so expensive, it would be a super budget combo. Still cheaper than any other off the shelf blower for an ls.

Man, this was the bomb!

That would be the perfect setup for a functional cowl induction hood

Build a manifold to mount 2 side by side

Just my two cents , I would start with swapping the valve springs out , with the added boost may be cracking them open slightly and leaking the boost off and not being able to keep up at the higher rpm

Nice job Richard its been fun watching the process

How were IAT?

I would think porting the blower, even one of the home dremel jobs I bet would get another couple pounds of boost and a larger throttle body. Even lsa chargers run out of steam after a bit and need to be ported.

Love to see this motor with a turbo feeding into the supercharger

I'm thinking dual blowers and throttle bodies... pin the crank and spin them babies up! It would take some special placement on the manifold as well as some drive belt engineering. Its still gotta be cheaper than buying another supercharger.

Something intercooler something something TURBOCHARGE IT AS WELL! The boost supplied by the supercharger would likely get you more boost than backpressure (as long as you use a good manifold and appropriately sized turbo), improving scavenging and detonation resistance vs a turbo alone.

Seems like it would work well on a truck engine for towing at highway rpms. The torque boost in that rpm range, would be useful to maintain speed on hills and hp during higher elevations. Dyno showed similar low rpm torque #'s to early turbo diesel truck engines, without the weight of the diesel engine. Engine might survive for a while with methanol / water injection to cool while under boost; turbo diesels squirt oil under the pistons; irregardless of intercoolers. Wonder if E85 has any similar piston cooling effect to methanol injection systems? Could add bigger rods, forged everything and piston oil squirters, if building a gas engine for long term durability towing purposes vs short burst drag racing. Make big block towing torque with a small block.

Need to port the inlet. 100 mm+ if you wamt to see bigger power numbers. Roots style blowers hate inlet restrictions. Gains to be had on thr outlet side, but way more inlet side of things. Get am intercooler as well, and then you coukd probably go down to a 2.2ish" pulley. Might be able to see 525-550 hp with that set up.

It is a slip. Thats why i flattens out at a specific rpm on everything torque and HP.. as well as the timing..it will be fine but if u tension the belt snd u add timing ull prolly get snother 15hp

Should do 500 with some porting

Richard, remember the engine is making, another 50 horsepower to drive the supercharger.

Pretty solid results

I thought the last one did poorly, this was a pretty big surprise. cool test

Unless he meant the blower is from a V6 which I'm pretty sure it's from a 3.8 Chevy blower off those GrandPris

Wow... i would NEVER have put an m90 on something that did 350+hp n/a, and im kinda shocked you got it to do 450+.. Ultimately just like a turbo, a roots blower is limited by its inlet area and i would not have expected the stock m90 inlet to flow 450+ worth of air without serious porting..

You could intercool it, that would likely help

It’s the lid. Need to switch to a pro charger. But dang I didn’t think you could pull more then 300 horse from a stock v6 blower. I’d raise the lid you need more air flow in the valley.

That’s a ideal build just for the horse power gains.

I was waiting for the video lol. Love that shirt too. I need to get me one

Would love to see this done with the 1uzfe v8

Nice, but now i would like to see what happened when you put a turbo on to to feed more air into the blower.

M90 for each bank should do it

I am with you it was timing. I say back off a couple more dsgress. Are you setting up the injector timing on these?

Plenum volume will allow for the air to move freely, because I bet with the adapter sitting on top of just two sets of runners the back runners were choked down.. Question is did you have O2 sensors on every exhaust runner coming off the heads? Are check to see what each exhaust port was running for temperature? Like I was saying a sheet metal plenum to allow for the air to equalize would probably fix the problem of falling on it's face at high RPM's, and possibly the addition of dividers to funnel the air to each intake runner

Maybe it's the the torn gasket at 3 minutes and 45 seconds into the video 🤔🤷

An 03 Cobra supercharger would be a fun one to try although I’m not sure the pulley snout is long enough to reach

Thanks Richard,you made me laugh 😅 that blower isn't much bigger than the alternator on that 4.8

12:30 it’s because the extra pressure can create valve float problems

since the pump gas setup flattened out on the dyno curve and the E85 didn't, i think it makes it pretty clear that the blower was running out of adiabatic efficiency. And hence the atomized alcohol in the intake charge increased the air density and allowed it to continue making additional power