Feedback on centrifugal supercharger ideas...

[one ton garage]

AGM's setup is very bad ***... but it's its bad assedness that makes it a little too much for most folks imo. The complexity in his charge air setup is more than what most people would be willing to deal with, especially in a daily driven car. There's also a point of diminishing returns... when you start stacking intercoolers in series, you do benefit from additional cooling, but you can only cool the intake air so much before the additional plumbing and added accessories and draw on your engine and/or electrical system outweigh those benefits. As his setup stands, I think he's had to do a lot of experimentation since there's not much prior work out there to draw on, so now that he's taken a lot of the first steps, it'll definitely help all of us follow in his footsteps.

e.g. I did not consider how much room was available with the removal of the plastic shrouds over the right side valve covers. I was afraid that the only way to mount a centri blower would be to offset it, and use a through-drive (or what Vortech calls a jackshaft) system to route the pulley power to the supercharger... but after seeing AGM's engine bay shot, I started to take apart some bits, and wow, those plastic shrouds-all of them-on the front of the engine-take up LOADS of engine bay room!

I believe the trick will be to fabricate a sc bracket which locates itself to: 1) the two extended plastic shround mount holes in the front of the right valve cover (that face upwards), 2) the screw-in stud mount in front which also holds down the same plastic shroud, and 3) the top-most alternator bracket bolt hole. Numbers 1 and 2 are the three locations where the plastic shroud are attached, and thus, the bolts are actually quite small, but with the inclusion of the alternator mounting point, and with a well-designed bracket, you can essentially box in all 4 mounting locations and give the blower a very stable base to attach to.

Oh yah, and I was looking over the vortech that I have here again earlier and realized that it's actually a V1 unit. It had come off of a VW, so I assumed that it was a smaller V5, but after cleaning up the gunk on the ID plate, there's a MODEL: V1 stamping on it. If I remember correctly, Vortech has a pretty good trade-in/retrofitting program, where you can send them a used blower core, and they can rebuild/refurbish it for a really good price. This particular unit I've got has a curved outlet, so since I'd have to change that anyway, it's probably a good idea to send it in for servicing, too...

[HeavyDuty]

Only one question for you what is the crank pulley diameter or if you are able to calculate it, the charger pulley diameter...Corey

I'm not sure what AGM used, but either you'll want a piggy back crank pulley mounted to the stock damper to drive the charger. (A custom pulley can be made by Lee @ ASPRacing.com) or, figure out a way to integrate the outermost accessory belt. The former is more likely than the latter.

He once made a custom wp pulley for me to allow the use of 95 5.0 accessories on a 5.8. I know, I know, apples & pears but all he needs is a diagram with *all* critical dimensions.

I'd use a good large crank pulley (some are 8-9" diameter+) and the largest s/c pulley I could to start out with. If the s/c pulley gets too small, you run into belt wrap issues, or a reduction in the contact area of the belt to the available surface area of the pulley, resulting in excess slippage, frequent belt replacement, etc.

If you were to give Vortech all your specs, displacement, max rpm, desired boost level, etc., they can calculate a good middle of the road starting point for you so that the s/c turns on quick as possible for low down power and doesn't over rev at redline.

On many apps I've worked with, from that point forward, each .2" reduction in pulley diameter at the charger will yield another 2 psi.

[MiniMan]

one ton garage... seeing as though the dimensions of the superchargers appear to be the same as are most of the specs maybe we could help each other out. I'm thinking of a V-2 (Super Quiet). It looks like straight discharge would be a better option for us though. Would Vortech be able to stick your V1 into a straight housing, or are you thinking the curved discharge outlet would be fine? Making two sets of identical piping cuts the design costs in half and should signifigantly lower the costs for both of us... possibly three ways if Ryan gets in on this too... but he's got a lot left to do with his car first.

I've pretty much read every supercharger related thread AGM's posted in now. I think I'll have to give him a shout for more details.

one ton garage, do you have any particular intercooler (model/brand) in mind?

Thanks for the pulley explanation HD. I'll wait at least a couple days before I call Vortech to make sure we know how we'll be mounting the 'charger. It'd help if I was in Vegas (less than a month to go now).

Corey

[one ton garage]

My current idea is to use the outermost drive belt (the one running the alternator). You will need two idler pulleys and one tensioner on the bracket to snake the belt past the battery tray area and also the upper radiator hose and valve cover. I actually drew a quick diagram of what the whole bracket assy could look like on the back of a post office receipt, and I can't seem to find it right now. But if I don't find it, I'll toss up another sketch so you guys might use it to get some ideas to test fit your own blowers also. If I can get some of my other stuff done at the machine shop tomorrow, and to the anodizers the same day, I'll probably try and mock up a bracket using foam core and take some pics. I'm getting really stoked about actually following through with this project now since I didn't anticipate this sort of positive response from this many interested Q owners.

About intercoolers, I'm actually looking at a front-mount, air-to-air unit right now. Compressor discharge can be routed through the battery tray panel, into the ic, and the ic discharge can be routed up through the stock air box tray area, and into the MAF. And then a pipe from the MAF to the tb will be a no brainer. It looks like there's two big brackets that tie to the bottom of the bumper core support that will need to be sectioned to run the in and out ic piping, and the core itself will need to be cut a bit, but that's a given with mounting a fmic on any car usually.

[MiniMan]

OTG, as soon as you start to have parts made, have them make duplicates... I can pay you in advance or afterwards if you like, just shoot me an e-mail first if you're willing. As well, if you manage to make a foam copy of what the end result bracket should look like, then measure it, I'll CAD it and get us a good price on it. The CAD work and quote shouldn't take me longer than a day or two... the more you buy the cheaper they become.

Would you be able to explain to me why you're thinking of going with an air to air over an air to water?

I've been looking up more info on peltier coolers. The biggest problem I can see with them so far is the amount of electricity they use. Otherwise they're highly adaptable. Find a resevoir of water or a flat surface, mount it and go...

Corey

[one ton garage]

The main reason for going with an air-air ic is the overall ease of plumbing. There is a little extra work with the actual intake piping to get it down to the front bumper area, and then back up, but on the whole, installation will be easier because you don't have to worry about running a reservoir, coolant lines, water pump, heat exchanger, etc etc. like with a water ic setup. And you also won't have to deal with potential leaks and eventual fill-ups; once installed, you're good to go.

The problem with pt coolers is that they also put out major heat... so as much heat as they pull from an object, you will need a way to evacuate that much heat from them (i.e. huge heat sinks in an open area with lots of air flow). And of course, the cooler you want to run, the more electricity will be required. I mean, it's worth a shot because I don't think anyone's ever really tried it, and I've been talking with an EE buddy about this for a while, but it's probably only worth experimenting on another application first imo... like maybe a thrown together DIY turbo setup on a less valuable car.

[HeavyDuty]

Two thoughts:

A single large front mount will have slightly more lag than air/water. I personally would much rather have a direct s/c outlet to tb through a air/water core.

I'd also personally rather deal with flexible plumbing (water lines, reservoir, inline pump) than sectioned hard pipes run from Hell to breakfast (one side of the car to the other.)

If you've ever done it, you know it's very time consuming. Lots of stuff to massage, relocate and remove, all while retaining stock accessories & safety items like.....bumper reinforcements.

IMHO, of course.

Two more things to consider about water/air - air/water. I hear a lot of people stating it's not suitable for a street car because of heat soak, I guess. How many WOT boost runs are you going to make on the street vs just cruising around? It may be 95 degrees outside, but drive around normally & when you stop, open the reservoir & it's cool as a cucumber, constantly pumping, constantly cooling.

Also, think of the increased (or rather lack of decreased) clearance afforded by *not* having a front mount hanging down ready to kiss the first parking stop you encounter at the 7-11. At least for 90-93 cars, there's not a lot of room up front as it is.

[one ton garage]

Just wanted to toss up some pics from the other day

Straight discharge is a definite... and as for the fusebox, I'm going to make a cardboard version to check for clearance w/o the little extension that houses the main links before messing with my oem piece. It looks like if you can reposition the links, relocate the two plastic plugs, and trim the plastic they all sit on, that the main fuse box body will actually clear the supercharger compressor housing. If doing a one-off, I would just rewire the links, but if building a "kit", I was thinking of making an extension intermediate harness that you could just bolt the spade connectors to, and will allow you to relocate the links to an out-of-the-way position. It looks like there's several more possible locations along the front cover to bolt a bracket too... so that's going to be the next step the next chance I get to play around with the car again... Hmmm, that's all I can think of off the top of my head...

[Jeff Williams]

It is good to see someone doing some mock-up work on this idea.

Is that convenience store cup you innercooler mock-up?:D

[FASTQ45]

hi i got the powerdyne from ebay samething i think i heard to get a apexi to ajust the fuel/air ratio and vacume i bout that two