Hullo all,
I have been looking at the Salon Motorsport M45 supercharger kit for about six months but was waiting for a twin throttle body kit to become available. However, after studying photographs of other builds I convinced myself that the likelihood of such a setup fitting with ABS was low so I took the plunge.
I opted to buy from Bofi Racing rather than direct because of reduced postage costs, a 5% discount from subscribing and a belt being included in the kit. This brought the total down to just under £800 delivered. The kit was ordered Friday afternoon and arrived today (Thursday) morning.
Initial impressions were good with the parts well packed.
The outlet manifold is a nice casting with no flash. The mounting face is linished rather than milled but is flat. The surface finish seems reasonable but I will clean it on a surface plate with wet and dry.
The four mounting holes are drilled but not spot faced. The finish in the bores suggest that the casting has not been heat treated because the drill has torn rather than cut the metal. I don't think this will be an issue.
Quite surprising was the unmachined mounting face for the recirculation valve. I did check that this was correct and not a missed operation but apparently this is right and the o-ring will seal directly onto the cast face. While I am sure that with a liberal amount of RTV it would work it does not sit right with me and I will have the face skimmed. The three mounting holes are drilled through and align well.
I cannot comment yet on the fit with the supercharger because the front mounting bracket needs to be removed.
The valve shown is a standard one but the fitting for the hose had broken so I cut it off and drilled and taped it to accept the pneumatic fitting shown.
The inlet manifold is again a nice casting with a milled register to locate onto the supercharger. The fit is very good and should seal perfectly with a small amount of RTV or similar.
The blanking plate fits very well and is high quality.
The mounting brackets are impressive. The welding is very neat and the overall finish is good. It fits the supercharger pretty well although a small amount of material needs to be removed around the rear mount.
The fastener supplied for the front mount is not quite long enough personally I am not a fan of the use of washers to align the supercharger, but again I cannot fault it for functionality.
The fastener pack is good quality and complete.
Finally the belt is a different length to those specified on the Bofi website (1260 for PAS and 1345 for PAS & Aircon) so I will confirm that this is correct.
In conclusion I am happy with the kit and based on what I have seen would recommend it for the price. Fundamentally the kit is an excellent starting point needing little work to make perfect. My only real gripe is the unfinished sealing face for the valve.
I struggled to find much information online before buying so hopefully this is helpful.
I am aiming to get this built up and on the car in the next few months. The base is a low mileage 1999 1.8 iS which has had a pretty serious restoration carried out. The plan is to run the kit without an intercooler with standard pulley sizes with management controlled by an ME221 and see how it goes from there.
James
I have been looking at the Salon Motorsport M45 supercharger kit for about six months but was waiting for a twin throttle body kit to become available. However, after studying photographs of other builds I convinced myself that the likelihood of such a setup fitting with ABS was low so I took the plunge.
I opted to buy from Bofi Racing rather than direct because of reduced postage costs, a 5% discount from subscribing and a belt being included in the kit. This brought the total down to just under £800 delivered. The kit was ordered Friday afternoon and arrived today (Thursday) morning.
Initial impressions were good with the parts well packed.
The outlet manifold is a nice casting with no flash. The mounting face is linished rather than milled but is flat. The surface finish seems reasonable but I will clean it on a surface plate with wet and dry.
The four mounting holes are drilled but not spot faced. The finish in the bores suggest that the casting has not been heat treated because the drill has torn rather than cut the metal. I don't think this will be an issue.
Quite surprising was the unmachined mounting face for the recirculation valve. I did check that this was correct and not a missed operation but apparently this is right and the o-ring will seal directly onto the cast face. While I am sure that with a liberal amount of RTV it would work it does not sit right with me and I will have the face skimmed. The three mounting holes are drilled through and align well.
I cannot comment yet on the fit with the supercharger because the front mounting bracket needs to be removed.
The valve shown is a standard one but the fitting for the hose had broken so I cut it off and drilled and taped it to accept the pneumatic fitting shown.
The inlet manifold is again a nice casting with a milled register to locate onto the supercharger. The fit is very good and should seal perfectly with a small amount of RTV or similar.
The blanking plate fits very well and is high quality.
The mounting brackets are impressive. The welding is very neat and the overall finish is good. It fits the supercharger pretty well although a small amount of material needs to be removed around the rear mount.
The fastener supplied for the front mount is not quite long enough personally I am not a fan of the use of washers to align the supercharger, but again I cannot fault it for functionality.
The fastener pack is good quality and complete.
Finally the belt is a different length to those specified on the Bofi website (1260 for PAS and 1345 for PAS & Aircon) so I will confirm that this is correct.
In conclusion I am happy with the kit and based on what I have seen would recommend it for the price. Fundamentally the kit is an excellent starting point needing little work to make perfect. My only real gripe is the unfinished sealing face for the valve.
I struggled to find much information online before buying so hopefully this is helpful.
I am aiming to get this built up and on the car in the next few months. The base is a low mileage 1999 1.8 iS which has had a pretty serious restoration carried out. The plan is to run the kit without an intercooler with standard pulley sizes with management controlled by an ME221 and see how it goes from there.
James