Supercharger Development Status

Friday, January 20th, 2011

Latest update

Supercharger manifold welded and in position.  Still to do is finish

cooler plates (2 of 4 done already), SC outlet plumbing,

driveshaft machining, new SC inlet, and manifold supports.

Release Goal - Late Spring 2012.

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Friday, January 13th, 2011

Here is the upper part of the manifold.  Welding it tomorrow.  Lower part is

done and is offset to one side slightly (to fit the engine bay).

This should be fitted to the car by the end of next week.

And here is what the inside looks like.  Bellmouthed runners

will encourage laminar flow to the valve.

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Monday, November 14, 2011

We are continuing to do prototype development on the Lysholm 1600AX; however since Lysholm's bankruptcy last year and Vortech's purchase of them, it's been very hard to get the 1600AX.  Now after talking with Vortech at SEMA, it's obvious that any new production of the Lysholm 1600AX is a ways off (at least until next summer).  Apparently they haven't even moved the production tooling from Sweeden yet; so who know when it will be done.

So, we have looked into other options.  First option is the new Eaton TVS 1320, which is a higher efficiency 4-lobe version of the older Eaton blowers that have served everyone so well.  Only issue is that the TVS blowers are significantly more expensive, and in fact they are more like twin-screws in cost; so it's not as simple a decision as it used to be if you want to save money.  Still they provide great efficiencies because they still don't make any internal boost; so my sense is that they will be a good option.... but only testing will tell.

Second option is still the big power option of a twin-screw charger, and for that we plan to move to the Sprintex twin-screw superchargers.  Sprintex is an Australian company that has just as good quality and performance numbers as Lysholm, and they are available in smaller units.  The Sprintex S5-335 is a hair smaller in outer dimensions than the Lysholm 1600AX (which helps) and smaller displacement too, which will also help it's application on the RSX.  The 335 is good to 500 hp; so it's still a significant step up from any Eaton M62 or M90 found on the K-series engines.

Our manifold is moving forward.  Below is the cooler section, which sits low on the front of the engine, just in front of the starter and above the clutch slave cylinder.  And the manifold runners to the intake ports are based on the new K24 Si manifold; so they will have exceptional flow.  And lastly the driveshaft across the plenum is now shorter so vibration issues at the shaft's critical speed are not a problem as they were on earlier prototypes.

This cooler is the same dimensions as the one with the red background below, but the cost on the above cooler is significantly less and performance will be just as good (that is to say it will be remarkable with it's 4 12" coolers)!!  We will be finishing up the prototype in the next month; so stay tuned.

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Thursday September 22, 2011

Step 1 complete.  New cooler basic design done.  Note driveshaft does not got through this.  That single change has cascaded into many layout improvements that helps driveshaft durability/cost, endplate complexity (endplates not shown), SC outflow efficiency, and SC inlet location.  Understanding that we have taken a long time in development, this change is proving to be an important one.  Today this was sent out for quote; so I hope we receive the finished prototype in about 6 weeks without many changes.

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Tuesday September 13, 2011

It's been awhile since our last update.  We had delays working with the machine shop to product a good driveshaft prototype, and in the meantime, we've made some design changes.  These changes allow the driveshaft to be significantly shorter (~12" between bearings rather than ~18") and has completely fixed our shaft critical speed and vibration concerns without needing a center bearing on the shaft (which causes havoc with proper fitment of 4 cooler cores).  As a result, the supercharger will not sit as close to the driver's side of the engine bay and the inlet will be an easier fit.

Also, the supercharger outlet positioning appears to allow a downward exit rather than a sharp 90 degree flow through the supercharger support bracket; so SC outlet flow should be a bit more efficient.

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Saturday May 7, 2011

Latest update

The sc inlet is done.  Special attention was paid to laminar airflow on the short turn into the supercharger because this is critical airflow area for the inlet. Piping is thin wall tubular 3" into the throttle body and thicker wall cast 3" from the throttle body to the supercharger.  The throttle body is low enough to clear the hood without any problem and high enough to clear the trans linkage just below it.  Testing of inlet air temps will likely dictate a heat shield between the air filter and the exhaust manifold.

We are still waiting for the prototype driveshaft to be complete.  We are nearing completion of this prototype finally.

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Thursday April 7, 2011

The driveshaft is out to quote.  This design is for the prototype only because it does not meet our critical speed requirements.  We will be using composite shafts of a larger diameter in production, but we are moving ahead with the prototype parts as we have them now in steel.

3D PDF of the shaft is here.

media/Jackshaft Prototype 1 3D.PDF

Now working on the SC inlet.  Details coming soon.

Thanks for your continued interest!  We are working hard to get this done asap!

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Wednesday March 30, 2011

We are working on the driveshaft with a local machine shop that has experience with high speed generators now.  The driveshaft will take most of the Lysholm elements and adapt it to work in our longer manifold application.  We were planning to use a steel driveshaft, but the length of the shaft is such that we are investigating composites because that will allow the shaft to be narrower (important with the shaft running through the middle of the manifold).  A steel shaft would have to be 1.25" or greater diameter in order to avoid it's critical speed frequency (where the shaft naturally starts to vibrate).  We could ignore this design issue, but bearing play and production tolerances are such that we feel avoiding the critical speed altogether is important.  Our goal is a 17,000 rpm driveshaft capability at 80% of critical speed (a good safety factor).

Concurrently working on the SC inlet, and we will have more information about this asap.

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Monday, February 28, 2011

Main supercharger bracket complete.

Happy to say that we have worked through some seriously difficult design constraints on the main supercharger bracket and come out with a winner (I hope...we still need to test).

Imagine for a moment trying to design a supercharger support bracket that must position the supercharger perfectly in line with the thru-manifold jackshaft, that supports the 20+ lbs of supercharger weight and 50 hp of supercharger twist, that protects the intake manifold from weld-cracking forces, that properly collects air and flows air through the middle of the bracket, and that isn't either too heavy, too expensive, or (very importantly) too difficult for the average person to install.  Can you imagine the amount of time you could spend thinking of and trying to apply different methods to accomplish the above?  We are very happy with the design we have now.

Remaining to do: jackshaft/bearings, supercharger inlet and throttle body setup, manifold support, belt-side snout support, cooler inlet.