Here is a quick write up about my experience with ZZP's stage 3. I have an 05 Cobalt SS/SC with 38k miles. I purchased the kit with a 2.8 pulley, the smaller belt, and the S3 H/E.

Install

The install of the kit took four hours. This was the first time for me taking the bumper off. After taking it off and now knowing how to I could have cut at least a half hour off the time. Once the bumper was off the S3 H/E fit perfect into the existing holes and mounted very easily. ZZP supplies plenty of flex heater hose to connect to the existing system. If you are careful you can lose minimal coolant. Next is the injectors and spark plugs. If you do not already know the spark plugs are under the cover on top of the engine. Once you remove the cover you will find four black "boxes". You will find the plugs under these. The injectors are right above the supercharger under the coolant rail. Two screws hold down the rail. The injector harness runs to the right of the engine where it is clipped next to the engine. When putting the new injectors in make sure you install the top of the injectors into the fuel rail. (The bottom of the injectors have the o-ring on them) Next is the pulley. When you pull the supercharger out make sure you slide it to the right as you bring it out. Pull the pulley off and put the new hub on. If you do not have a press you can use a cut 2x4 and a hammer. Be careful as you do not want to bend the hub. Once you have the supercharger bolted back down then you can put the new belt on. I could not find a diagram showing the belt path but its not the hard to figure out. It can be a challenge to get the belt around the pulley on the bottom. When laying under the car there are two spots to fit a couple fingers. To get the belt around the idler hammer on a 9/16. A 15mm is the correct size but will slip off. The belt is so tight that you have to compress the idler as far as possible. This will take two people, one to put the belt on and the other to hold the idler down. Once on hand turn the pulley to make sure the belt does not slip off. The last thing is the PCM. This has three sets of wires connecting to it. The clips slide forward to release the attachments. I recommend putting the new PCM on and the injectors then starting the car before installing anything else. This is to make sure the car starts as some PCMs may need a case relearn.

Performance

I have drove with kit for two weeks. With my setup of injen intake and the kit I run around 18lbs of boost. With the tune that came on the PCM the engine will cough at high rpm and high boost in second. Just get a good tune and the problem will be cured. I also recommend a fuel delivery system but it is not required. They are easy to install and one way of solving a shaky idle. My idle after sitting for 30 or so seconds starts to shake a little. It is barely noticeable but others have had worse. The 50% boost reduction for first gear is a must. This comes standard with this kit. There is no wheel hop when taking off from an idle. Of course you can get it to spin when dropping the clutch. When driving getting into boost takes a small push on the peddle. When doing WOT pulls the boost shoots to 15lbs and climbs with the rpms. The car overall feels more free and accelerates like never before.

MPG

The big thing is MPG. When driving the highway I have gotten around 30mpg. This is with the occasional WOT pull. In the city I will get around 24mpg. I live in STL where it is HOT and HUMID. Now of course this will vary by car and driver. If you want terrible millage you can get that. If you want to get good milage be nice to your car. To give you an idea before I put the kit on my average MPG was 24.02 over 12 months.

Hope this helps

 

Hey thanks for the small write up the noobs should read this. As well the other kits out there are the same. But one thing you did not touch on how much water/coolant mix and bleeding the heat exchanger was a pain.

 

It took 30 minutes for someone to catch that. Yes bleeding the H/E was a pain because I did not go option B route. What do you recommend on the coolant/water mix?

 

distilled water all over will give you the best and lowest iat2's thats what im running now and i noticed a significant drop in iat2's, i will be changing to 50/50 dexcool when it gets really cold... and ive noticed about 20 degrees drop from straight dexcool to staright distilled water....

 

This is not why it's coughing. Every tvs car on the site is making more than 17.5psi and they aren't coughing..

Otherwise.. nice write up

 

Is every tvs car running some type of fuel system mod or are they running the stock system?

 

I know m62 guys running 21 psi and have no issue with fueling

 

If you can tell me what it is I will make the edit

 

maybe the tune. on the gms2 and 2.8 I occasionally get a bug bump at about 5500-6000. i just attribute it to me getting some knock and it going to the lower octane table

 

Most are not running anything more than large injectors

 

I would bet money it's the tune. While I love ZZP, I haven't heard much good about the tunes. You would have been better off with a custom tune.

 

Ok I edited it. Hopefully that sounds better. Thanks for the heads up

 

what d you gap your plugs at? could be spark blowout

 

.035 The NGK 4644 that came with the kit

 

Try 0.032" for your gap. I also had a hiccup at the top of second around 6750 rpm that sounded like i was hitting the limiter. This was due to spark blow out. I lowered my gap a little bit at a time until i experienced zero blowout.

 

what are they running to get 21psi out of their setup?

 

Anyone running an actual 21psi out of the M62 isn't going to be making any power and there is something wrong with their setup.

 

stock exhaust and a 2.5" pulley.

OP Change the plug gap and see what that does for you. If it isnt that it may be in the tune. It is a canned tune still, they are not the best out there.

 

Do you still get traction in 2nd

 

Traction in second yes u should lol!!! unless u don't know how to apply the right amount of gas and clutch. Took me 2 hrs to put my stage 3 kit on, good write up man 

 

Sounds like a good writeup.


you work in fenton dont you? I think I see your car almost every day.
hard to miss mine. has the css.net stickers on the 1/4 windows.

 

Does it feel like a huge difference