FAQ: Ported Blower vs. Gen V?

They are the same gaskets.


As for what to buy, try to get the Aluminum rimmed gaskets. They are stronger and you won't have to worry about faliure.

Thanks; Oldsman105

Are the Alum. ones OEM only or can I get Fel-Pro.?

Rickw wrote:

Thanks; Oldsman105

Are the Alum. ones OEM only or can I get Fel-Pro.?

fel pro suck! They tear like paper. I would go with OEM.

You will have to purchase gen V LIM and Gen V supercharger gasket. You will also have to modify your vacume line routings, you can either use a breather or correctly connect the PCV. Call up Ed he is the man!! I got it the morning after it shipped. I almost made sweet love to it when i opened the package. Going gen v is the best route, A Gen V will still out-perform a stage 3 ported gen III

What all does this job entail? A gen V blower of course and a gen V LIM with gaskets? Can the gen 3 LIM be ported to fit the gen V? Any other parts needed or is that simple? What kind of HP gains can be expected between the gen 3 and gen V?

What all does this job entail? A gen V blower of course and a gen V LIM with gaskets?

Yes

Can the gen 3 LIM be ported to fit the gen V?

Yes

Any other parts needed?

Yes, you will need a different throttle body or a throttle body adapter. Likely a different than stock intake duct as well.

What kind of HP gains can be expected between the gen 3 and gen V?

The GenV flows a little bit more air than the Gen3. The big difference is when you start modding. The GenV is more efficient so it doesn't generate quite as much heat as the Gen3. This means you can run a smaller pulley without quite as many mods.

BE WARNED - you still need someplace for that extra air to go. Gen5 swapping goes nicely with other big airflow mods (cam etc).

Just swapping to a GenV will result in a small gain. Lowering pullies at the same time carries lots of risks just like any other pulley drop.

I would do a N* TB to accompany. Just found a killer deal on one of these and even though I am not to the point of preparedness or even need this, I want to pick it up and start cleaning, polishing, painting, so I will have it when I need it.
Edit: Got the Gen V. gonna make it pretty and collect more parts and then install in the spring?

What is the displacement difference between the Gen 3 and Gen 5?

No difference.
"Some of the significant changes include the rotor profile, inlet and outlet port design the bearing ports and an abradable powder coating on the rotors for improved performance."

Thank you, Andrew. I have many more questions!
What are the best supplies I can use to clean the inside and outside of my Gen V? I want to get it squeaky clean and ready for new oil come install time.

Don't use anything on the rotors themselves. Also right in the rotor bores themselves is best to leave "dirty" as it tightens up the tolerances at the rotor tips a bit. Outside, any normal engine cleaner or degreaser is fine. Inside, I usually use a carbide burr bit to gently clean the built up crap out, then follow up with 60, 80, 120 flapper wheels. You will find the GenV will take quite a bit of elbow greese to polish the inlet though, its a different metal composition than the Gen3.(its denser)

Beware of the needle bearings when cleaning/porting. When you pull out the rotor pack they are left behind in the case, and if you're not replacing them you will want to cover them with duct tape to keep the crap out. Don't let any crap or degreaser get into them.

The oil area, just drain, and seperate the snout from the rotor pack. Gently dab with paer towels. Thats all you should need to do there. Be sure to put the rotorpack itself right into a bag of some sort to keep it clean.


If you want to go a little more "all out" let me know and I'll link you to some thermal coatings and dry film lubricants that I'm currently experimenting with on blowers.

You know how some engine parts get that speckled white color and look dry? I don't know a better way to describe it.. but, will lime remover or something else restore it? Thank you!

You mean galvanic corrosion? Aluminum does that. Hit it with a soft wire brush/wheel.

The GenV is uncoated, so its bare metal, you can wirebrush it to a dull shine, and then if you want polish it chrome or just buff it.

My alternator bearings quit so I'm getting ready to install a junkyard replacement. I have a full size intercooler and gen 5 supercharger so that means I have to once-again do some clearancing on the case of the alternator to fit back on with the supercharger there. Originally, I used a 3" rotary grinding disc on it and got it done. I still ended up using washers to space the alternator away from the supercharger a tiny bit, partially because I used ARP screws on the snout of the supercharger instead of the original eaton ones.

Using my installed alternator as a model, I marked off the area on the replacement that I'm going to take to work and machine as accurately as possible. I thought this might be useful for someone to see so I'm throwing the pics I took on here.




So the black marker is where I'm going to be probably milling the alternator case. If you want to use a couple washers on the alternator and don't have bigger headed screws on the supercharger like me, then you can basically just knock out everything that's raised from the rear main surface of the alternator which are basically half that main screw boss at the top, the one large chunk of webbing going to the back bearing area, and that one boss coming out with the screw sticking out of it for the internal diod pack. I'm gonna go ahead and actually take a good 1/32 or so of material out from the surface of that whole area so that I can hopefully mount the alternator without any washers.

Why don't you just swap the back case from your old alternator that already fits? Do you know why your original alternator stopped working? They are pretty robust until either
the brushes wear out
the bearings go bad
the voltage regulator quits

all of those things are easily fixable, except the bearings. I had a bitch of a time with that, but mostly because I was just using a press.

deekster_caddy wrote:

Why don't you just swap the back case from your old alternator that already fits?

but..but...but... Machining! Percision Machining! Machining! Everything is better machined! Machine everything!

Karma wrote:

[Machine everything!

I just used a handheld disc grinder.

The bearings failed. It squeaks all the time now.
Anyway the only alternator I've taken apart ever was probably a junk one from the 1980's in high school auto class. Is it easy enough that I can't hurt it at all because machining it fully assembled kinda sucked!

turtleman wrote:

The bearings failed. It squeaks all the time now.
Anyway the only alternator I've taken apart ever was probably a junk one from the 1980's in high school auto class. Is it easy enough that I can't hurt it at all because machining it fully assembled kinda sucked!

Alternators really haven't changed that much. To disassemble you undo the side bolts and separate the front and back half of the case, then pick up the springs that popped out from the brushes. To reassemble you need to insert the brushes and put a paper clip through the little hole to hold the brushes back and just assemble the case. You can still rotate a case 90 (or 120 if it's a 3 bolt) as needed for different cars.

It's worth having a go at it. I got all my rebuild parts from alternatorparts.com and here is one of their awesome videos:

My luck - the alternator I got from the yard and spent 3 hours machining has a bad voltage regulator. I put it in and started the car and got 18 volts coming out of it.
Derek, do you have any idea what the riv alternator part number would be in that alternatorparts.com website? I'm having a hard time cross referencing anything.

Ours are a CS144 -

http://alternatorparts.com/cs144-series-high-output-alternator.html

although the front (mounting) of the case may be a little different than some the guts and backs are the same as any other CS144. (see fig 1 on the page I linked to)

-D

edit - are you looking for the whole alternator or just parts?
edit - technically I guess ours is the CS130 because of the case but it appears to share the same guts with the CS144.

http://www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/detail/MPI0/2VR5/02115.oap?year=1997&make=Buick&model=Riviera&vi=1022050&ck=Search_voltage+regulator_1022050_3365&keyword=voltage+regulator

Setton wrote:

http://www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/detail/MPI0/2VR5/02115.oap?year=1997&make=Buick&model=Riviera&vi=1022050&ck=Search_voltage+regulator_1022050_3365&keyword=voltage+regulator

That's a voltage regulator for old school ignition systems... but yeah Oreilly's does sell alternator parts it looks like.

Ok so I have some more information so that no one has to go through the bullshit I've been. Apparently the Rivs and Auroras have a unique voltage regulator in their otherwise common CS144 style alternators which means If you go to a junkyard or something and get one out of a lesabre or whatever that looks exactly right, it's going to be running at 18+volts all the time. What I'm likely going to end up doing is swap in my original regulator into the replacement alternator. If you're replacing because of a failed regulator, you need a replacement from a riv or aurora only!

Soo.. now that I know that, third times a charm. I have the machining process and alternator tear-down/rebuild process pretty much perfected now. I actually even made a special mounting assembly to do the machining at work.

The first time I did this was with the alternator fully assembled and in a sideways situation and that doesn't work well at all! - no way to hold it securely enough to machine it very well, no way to hold it in any exact orientation, and no affective enough way to protect the interior components from metal chips. And after getting a better idea of what areas actually need to be clearanced and how much, I know now it would be an incredible pain in the ass to get it 100% fit-worthy without it being vertical. I spent a couple hours making a special fixture now.

Here's the aluminum plates I rescued from the scrap bin and made into a precision alternator rear case machining fixture!



Simple enough to set up now

using an angle block to clock the case the way I want it. 9 degrees from the top is basically perfect.

tightening down the screws to hold the plates together after setting the angle



very secure now going to town