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Centrifugal SC vs. Turbo?


PanzerAce

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...Hell, make your own out of a Magnesium Toro Leaf Blower Impeller, it's two-sided, has tons of flow, and when you decrease the tip clearance from the handheld blower tolerance to something more akin to a turbo (in the range of 0.050-0.100") you can boost that baby over 15psi easily...

Seriously?

Details?!

I'm quite interested :D

 

This looks pretty cool!

 

gator_supercharger_5-07.jpg

here

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The Centrifugal Supercharger has been successfully applied to the L6 engine. There was a guy in the SF Valley that had a wicked supercharged setup. MSA looked into his setup, which was very sanitary (SC mounted where the aftermarket A/C pump would up by the fuel pump area above the alternator.)

 

Car was wicked-quick. Very nice application. I don't know that I took photos of it at the old OutcaZst meeting or not. he showed at MSA a couple of years, and then dropped off the radar. It was a mustard-brown early car, SC was a small Paxton if I recall.

 

Hell, make your own out of a Magnesium Toro Leaf Blower Impeller, it's two-sided, has tons of flow, and when you decrease the tip clearance from the handheld blower tolerance to something more akin to a turbo (in the range of 0.050-0.100") you can boost that baby over 15psi easily.

 

Fun project for son and dad...

 

I digress...

Thanks for weighing in Tony. I don't think I'll be fabbing my own SC though, just a little above and beyond what I'm able to do ;)

 

Was there a specific AC mount he was using to mount his SC? or is there only one mount that all the kits use (I haven't looked into them at all).

 

If you can find any pictures, or offer anymore details of that guy's install, that'd be appreciated.

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Thanks for weighing in Tony. I don't think I'll be fabbing my own SC though, just a little above and beyond what I'm able to do ;)

 

Was there a specific AC mount he was using to mount his SC? or is there only one mount that all the kits use (I haven't looked into them at all).

 

If you can find any pictures, or offer anymore details of that guy's install, that'd be appreciated.

 

Three threads that I Found.

http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=129378

http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=136423

http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=130372&highlight=supercharged

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I've seen those, that's why I'm interested in a centrifugal SC instead of a more traditional looking one. JCR doesn't seem to exist/sell those setups anymore, so that route is gone, and anything else is going to require a lot of custom fabrication, while a centrifugal would require less, and probably fit into the engine bay far better.

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Yep, the Gator Supercharger is the alternative I was referring to in the Toro Reference.

 

His little booklet on how to modify turbos into superchargers for small displacement engines is a fun read, and makes you look at those 5HP Honda Go-Kart engines in a totally different light. Especially the ones with built in generators...because when you got a spare megasquirt laying around and a kid with time on his hands....

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They say UP TO 98% efficiency on there website so I'm guessing they're talking about ambient temp/inlet temp. My guess is that they used an inter cooler at a low boost setting. Efficiency will go down with the more boost you apply due to boyle's law(compressed air creates heat) because inter coolers can only take out so much heat. I compared the C38 which max flow is 952.9 cfm to the smallest procharger (C1) with max flow of 1000 cfm. You also see that max impeller rpm is 90,000 on the C38 while the C1 is 80,000 and still produces more cfm. I'm not going to say which one I think is better because my opinion would be bias. You can look at the numbers and decide yourself. However, prochargers use straight cut gears in their transmissions which make them very screechy at idle the reduced noise of the rotrex is appealing. When we tune my brother-in-laws f1-r motor you have to wear ear plugs unless you don't mind hearing loss when the hood is up. It sounded cool at first but after a while it gets annoying just like putting a loud exhaust on your car.

 

efficiency-

http://www.procharger.com/intercooled.shtml

procharger specs-

http://www.procharger.com/models.shtml

rotrex C38 specs-

http://www.rotrex.com/pdfs/Rotrex_Technical_Datasheet_C38_Range_V4.0.pdf

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However, prochargers use straight cut gears in their transmissions which make them very screechy at idle the reduced noise of the rotrex is appealing. When we tune my brother-in-laws f1-r motor you have to wear ear plugs unless you don't mind hearing loss when the hood is up. It sounded cool at first but after a while it gets annoying just like putting a loud exhaust on your car.

 

And to be honest, that's the biggest reason that I'm not liking most of the big name SC makers. This will be a DD car, which means that something that p*sses me off at idle is going to be a no-go.

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While I do not doubt that a straight gear driven centrifugal will produce more power the fact remains that they are "REALLY LOUD", not what most people desire in a daily driver.

 

The Rotrex appears to be designed for reliable operation since it uses no gears, but planet rollers giving silent operation and less vibration.

 

I'll take silent reliable operation over "screechy" loud any day!

 

Mark

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While I do not doubt that a straight gear driven centrifugal will produce more power the fact remains that they are "REALLY LOUD", not what most people desire in a daily driver.

 

The Rotrex appears to be designed for reliable operation since it uses no gears, but planet rollers giving silent operation and less vibration.

 

I'll take silent reliable operation over "screechy" loud any day!

 

Mark

 

The volume issue with the rotrex unit seems to be more an issue of the size of the blower rather than the drive mechanism, since it is designed to spin faster. *shrugs*

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