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© 2001 Brian F. Schreurs
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Fortunately, Vortech includes all of the parts necessary for the modifications covered by these steps, except for the belt; they provided one but it was too short. It took us eight tries to find a belt that fit without rubbing, so we'll save you the trouble: if the one Vortech provides won't fit, go find a Goodyear #4061037.

This is the alternator installed; it also shows how we ended up routing the oil and heater lines.

Put the alternator onto its bracket using the big 4"-long bolt. Then (and we once again differ with Vortech's order of assembly) intall the L-shaped piece that they call the "alternator stay." The stay needs spacers to fit right, and they go between the stay and the alternator. The bolt hole at the stay's elbow takes a 5/8" spacer; the one at the short end of the stay takes a 5/16" spacer. Attach the alternator to the stay and connect the alternator's wires.

Next is to install the oil feed line. Check the fitting on the supercharger; we found ours was loose. Then install the 45-degree angle fitting, and finally attach the oil feed line.

Try to install the engine serpentine belt in the stock configuration. We say "try" because the belt included in our kit was too short. It took us a while to find a replacement that allowed the tensioner to engage without rubbing against the water pump pulley, so if yours has issues too, then you might want to leave some time to sort it out. A rubbing belt is a Bad Thing.

Place the supercharger belt over the supercharger pulley and crank pulley, and under the supercharger tensioner. To put tension on the belt, place a 1/2"-drive breaker bar into the square keyway on the tensioner bracket, and pull. Then tighten down the three bolts holding the bracket in place. Tension is a delicate thing here; too much will make the supercharger bearings whine from stress, and too little will cause the belt to slip. We had to make repeated adjustments after road testing the car.

Vortech's steps 15 and 16 would have done well to be one step, so we're going to treat them that way here.

The bypass valve and discharge duct assembly are installed. Oh sure, it looks easy from here, but just wait until YOU try it!

Start by rerouting the PCV hose. Vortech provides a hose splicer and a length of hose. Stick the splicer into the stock PCV hose, then jam the Vortech hose onto the other end of the splicer. Route the hose to the PCV fitting on the supercharger and stick it on there.

The bypass valve and discharge duct (the tube going from the supercharger to the throttle body) need to be done as a unit if you want any color other than grey in your hair. Take the bypass valve and install the vacuum line in the bottom -- it'll be impossible to reach later. Then stick the 2.5"-long hose onto the front of the valve, the 3.5"-long hose to the top of the valve, and install the assembly, with the front hose connecting to the inlet duct. Make sure that the hose clamps are where you can reach them.

Now this is the tricky part: getting the discharge duct in there. It has to fit in three different places, and two of 'em are really, really tight. Prepare for this feat of magic by installing the 3"-long blue sleeve on the throttle body and the 2-3/4"-long blue sleeve on the discharge duct. Don't forget the clamps.

Start by jamming the duct onto the hose sticking up from the bypass valve; this one's not too bad. Then all you have to do is fit the duct between the throttle body and the supercharger. Not too bad, except that the sleeves are just barely bigger than the surfaces they must mount to! This causes tons of friction and little room to wiggle, plus it's hard to get good leverage on the assembly, so all in all it's a pretty frustrating job. We had to trim a little bit off the blue sleeve joining the supercharger before it would go on.

Give yourself some time to deal with this.

The good news is, when you've got that done, and tightened all the hose clamps, your car is mostly reassembled! All that's left is to add a couple of components to support the supercharger, and tie up a couple of loose ends. The end is near! Now, on to the ignition/boost controller, covered in Vortech's step 17.