installed a Turbosmart BOV on my Vortech kit
 

I am not affiliated with turbosmart. I just want to share my experience with the kit.

I gave into my inner ricer after I found a good deal on a slightly used Turbosmart blow off valve in the classifieds. I wanted to get more blow off sounds from the car, but nothing too outrageous. After conferring with the former owner and some members here, the Turbosmart unit seemed to fit the bill nicely.

The Vortech kit comes with a blowoff valve, but leaves much to be desired in quality and sound. Performance wise, it seems to do the job, but if you want more fast and the furious bling, replacing it with a better aftermarket BOV is what you need.

Unboxing the kit, it comes with the blow off valve, some shims, two hose clamps, and the port cover or blanking plug. The blanking plug is there if you want to make it a full bypass unit, but who wants to do that anyway? It screws in where the horn is on the port, making it a single port BOV.

Looking closely at the valve, construction is top notch, it is made from billet aluminum which greatly upgrades the dinky plastic valve which came with the Vortech kit.

The cover can be rotated to adjust the spring preload on the valve. Fully tightening the cover will increase the spring and loosening it will decrease the spring load. Now this is where thing got a little iffy. If I wanted to loosen the spring load, the cover would extend and with the stock BOV clearance being so tight already, the valve would hit the engine block. So my only option was to keep it fully tightened to get the extra clearance.

Install was pretty easy, I just had to take the Vortech airbox off to give me extra room to work with. HRTROB installed his without removing the airbox, so it can be done, I just wanted to have more room to work. I had to cut the hose a bit so the turbosmart unit would clear the engine block, not a big issue. Install took me around 30mins taking pics along the way.

Overall, I like how this upgrade turned out. The car gives that noticeable whoosh sound when you release the throttle, but not obnoxious enough to scream "look at me!" Which was exactly what I was going for. So Vortech owners thinking about doing this mod, it's easy enough to do and gives more sound with better quality from the stock valve, I highly recommend this kit.

Thanks to @Amalgamo for the great deal and to @HRTROB and @DJCarbine for the info!

does yours come close to the heater hose? i run the same one and i have like 3mm clearance and i can already see rub marks

:thumbup:

Awesome dude. You put the final nail in the coffin for me to get one of these.

Ill add this to the FAQ

I like it! Nice write up :)

sounds good - now tighten up your damn airbox cover lol

@F1point4
I thought you have the Maxflow BOV? The turbosmart really comes close to the block around the same clearance you say. Mine does not come close to the heater/radiator hose though. I'll check again tom and report back.

It's as tight as it can be! It still does that! For some reason I cannot get the damn screws to stay put!

:lol: Have you tried loctite?

Not yet. The screws are kinda different though, they don't have threads.

Try some fasteners from lowes or a hardware store I'm sure you could find something that will work. This is what I did.

Thanks bro!

It should sound interesting while in gear. Would like to hear running along the road in gear. It may not be a simple purge. It could be long and drawn out.

The maxflow got obnoxious. I only truly loved it when I shift passing people on the track. LOL.

Mine pretty much sounds like yours

With the spring set properly, it'll sound just like any bypass valve on a supercharger. You can hear a faint constant whirr when you coast or just maintain speed on the road (aka stay out of boost). Exhaust usually covers it up depending on how fast you are going. Mine does except for when I actively try to listen for it. IMO when it vents it is no louder than the stock bypass that vortech supplies. If you are running a stock exhaust I imagine it would be pretty apparent.

Edit: I wanted to clarify all the above is when you are out of boost. When you vent while in boost, it does make a traditional BOV noise which is louder than teh stock Vortech