LSA Supercharger problems?!?!
 

For the past three months or so I have been hearing a very strange and very concerning noise from my beloved zl1. Now it started as a small whining when I started the car but eventually progressed untill it would whine all the time. No this was no regular whine as it sounded as a bearing was worn out, I have spent a great deal of my life tinkering in the garage with my father on anything from an old Honda odessey to a P.O.S. dune buggy and I knew something was seriously wrong. After four different visists to the local Chevy dealer they consistently claimed it was just a normal noise te car makes and showed me some bulletin which explained that a marblin noise could be heard from about 500-1500 rpms a problem a lot of caddy cts-v owners have discovered. Well I got the car back yesterday after having them replace my supercharger entirely, they won't say what happened with the old one and are acting as if they hardly know what's going on themselves...I am not here to bash the zl1 I love the car and have no complaints about my local dealership but I do want to make publi my endeavors so people are aware and contentious.

As far as I know, the SC is treated by GM as an assembly from the supplier, meaning GM does not service the SC itself, the whole SC as a unit gets replaced and returned to the supplier.

The marble noise you refer to is a well-known issue and is discussed in multiple threads here.

The whinning screeching noise that keeps getting worse is different than the normal marble noise from the coupler. I have never heard exactly what causes the screech noise, but I would look at lack of lube oil on the gears, bad bearing, or too tight clearance.

Its irritating that the dealer can´t differentiate screech from marble. I have seen a few discussions about this on some of the corvette ZR1 sites.

I have never taken one appart but I think what I read was the front bearing runs dry basically. It can be replace theoretically but Eaton does not allow dealers to do this.

In there defense they don't build the supercharger Eaton does. It is not a dealer service item they pull it and put a new one on. They may not even really know. For what ever reason Eaton does not allow service at that level So a dealer Tech's experience is going to but R&R the assembly and proabably not much more.

now take what I just said with a grain of salt mine has not failed yet so that is just what I have read from posts about other people having the issue.

If you could get the right person on the phone and Eaton which may be difficult as they are a huge company they could proabably give better tech on the issue.

this is the fix LINGENFELTER SUPERCHARGER ISOLATOR COUPLING LS9 LSA ENGINE 2009-2014 gm will most likely just install a new blower with the same spring set up,and it will happen again,the funny thing is that on the ctsv they have started installing the solid isolator from the factory or at least i read that,but not the ZL1,GM does not allow their techs to install the part which is dumb since its a simple swap to do ...go find a good tuner shop and have the aftermarket fix done...as its been said this has been covered at least 50 times...good luck

The solid isolator is a 'fix' for the marble rattling noise, but has nothing to do with the SC 'whine' issue some have encountered.
two different problems.

Thanks for all the feedback
 

Well im going to watch it the new supercharger seemed to fix the problem, I have a video of the noise before the fix and was going to upload it but their is a security problem? so i will post when I can, the video is from the inside of the car and at first you can barely hear the whine but then I bring the rpms up to about 1000 then you hear it settle and kick in pretty loud, well you have to have the speakers almost all the way up I am still inside the car. I will post it when i can figure this thing out, remember I am new.:frusty:

They already replaced mine at 300 miles, screw it let gm keep replacing it under warranty.

this is really kind of a subtier vendor issue. Eaton makes the blower. wonder if they just have a quality issue right now.

or is just the fact if you make 10,000 of something there will be say ~100 parts with issue and those 100 people talk about it more than the other 9,900 poeople.

I am definatly keeping an eye on mine. I will proabably just replace the bearing on mine if it goes out. or jedi mind trick the wife into thinking TT kit is the same price as a bearing ha ha.

My car does it on start up for about 3-5 seconds and then stops. I will wait until it fails or take it to a mechanic that knows how to replace the bearing. I don't want them R/R my supercharger to have the same noise reoccur. :mad:

Just got done repacking the bearing on my superchager 2 weeks ago for the whining noise you are talking about. when gm replace my superchager at 8k for the whine and now at 23k it came back with a new supercharger I fixed this one myself. the rebuild was easy however when I removed the front snout I found a ton of metal in where the isolator was and the spring had worn into the snout side shaft I cleaned up all the metal repacked the bearing with grease resealed the snout and put it back on the car no noise and no more rattle thanks to lpe solid coupler runs great and thanks to the barons thread and for the videos on blower porting where he talks about the disassembly of the blower

Got a link to this I can't find it:twitch:

what is crazy is that wear on the shaft by the islolator is by design. I don't understand it myself but GM and Eaton did it that way on purpose. It is supposed to wear to a certain point and then not wear any farther.

you can go back and read on some the CTS-V forums where GM applications engineers even post.

It is wierd working in avaiation like a do know that would just be consider a FOD risk and would be delt with in a different way.

This is exactly how mine started I thought it might have been the starting motor all I can say is keep an eye on it if it starts doing it after start up but will go away t around 1500+ rpms it's your supercharger. My advice take it in and have them document the noise so it is on record then drive it till it becomes a problem (not till it breaks just till its so damn loud you take it in and say fix it they have to) :bonk: