Coolant leak under supercharger

[Daygo1904]

Sup guys,

Noticed coolant level that keeps dropping. Found a puddle of coolant in the “valley” underneath the supercharger. I’m thinking it’s either the PVC, Thermostat housing or the associated plastic pipes. I’m mechanically inclined, but tools and time is limited to me. The only way to find out for sure is to remove the supercharger. I’m planing to replace the PCV, thermostat, and water pump. How long would it take to remove and replace these components? Rough estimate. I call a local shop in San Diego called Pure Motorsports and they just quoted me like $3k

[q5 dave]

Not that challenging. Just takes a few hours. Watch the FCP 3.0T guide videos on thermostat/waterpump/pcv replacement and block a saturday to get it done. Also a good time for carbon cleaning.

Biggest DIY undertaken and so far so good

Waterpump+ thermostat + pcv+ carbon clean+ supercharger oil+ merc racing hx.

I thought the crossover coolant pipe by the thermostat was a pain, until I got to the coolant pipe under the s/c. What a b

Good amount of carbon buildup after 113k

[Discipulus]

If you haven't already sent it to a shop for repair, I would consider taking some extra time and effort to do a bunch of common issue fixes while you're in there. As @q5 dave said it's a good time to do intake valve carbon cleaning. If I was in your shoes I'd do this, in order of importance:

1. PCV and associated breather tube (06E103207AP)
2. Water pump and Thermostat, which are prone to leaking
3. Intake valve carbon cleaning
4. Supercharger oil change (supposed to be lifetime but that's BS and the old oil will be black as heck. Nothing is lifetime).

Another thing to note is the leak could be from the intercooler cores inside the supercharger, which is another failure point. Though typically when those fail it just blows coolant into your engine. However, it's possible for those to leak a bit down into the PCV valley if it's bad enough.

Doing all of the above by yourself would be a solid 2 full 8+hr days of labor, or more. At least, that's how long it took me because I had never done any of it before and was reading and learning along the way. If you're already familiar with removing and installing the supercharger and doing other stuff it could be done faster though.

Final tips:
- don't ignore the breather tube. It's a common failure point and it sucks to remove the supercharger a second time because of this.
- don't forget to put the insulation back under the supercharger when you reassemble
- get some BG Induction System Cleaner to dissolve the carbon on your intake valves. It's a highly powerful solvent that is not legal to sell on store shelves so you'll have to get it on ebay or something. It's by far the most effective solvent I've found so far. Just melts away the carbon. Be careful, wear goggles and rubber gloves. The product looks like this: