supercharged fto

[markj113]

Im aiming for 6-7psi which should be safe on stock internals and with a supercharger the boost is alot more linear than a turbo so should be kinder to the fto's engine. Boost starts from around 2500 rpm with a nice healthy torque increase from low down.

Reliabilty should be good providing is mapped correctly and as a supercharger is a simple device you can even get home rebuild kits for when it needs doing. Maintenance wise it will be just simple belt changes as needed and when the bearing wears out in the custom pulley a new one can simply be pressed in.

The supercharger is also a self contained unit so no need for oil feeds/returns too which makes life easier and no need for those expensive custom up and downpipes a turbo setup needs.

[fergal1980]

following this post with baited breath ..but ive just been on youtube and seen an fto running a toyota corolla vvti supercharger dont know what ones they are but it shows it spinning as there checking alignment looks good and sounds pretty sweet youll have to take a look mate....cant wait to see how yours goes as im saving ny pennies already

[colm_mcm]

That's the same superchaeger as in the lotus exige too.
Ask on octane.ie as they know their lotuss on there

[ade01]

Hi, the post you are following is a little project me and my brother-in-law are doing on his 1994 GPX. Thought I would register as there seems to be some real interest in this type of set up. The techie details are:
Emanage Blue Piggyback ECU - e-bay
Ogura TX12 supercharger from a corolla VVTi - e-bay (there was another on on there the other week)
CDH275 injectors - Googled, came from a company in China
Rising Rate fuel pressure reg
Mini supercharger bypass valve
3 metres of 2.5 inch steel tube
intercooler (new) again from e-bay
4 pot GTO calipers - e-bay
Nissan 350Z brembo disks
oil cooler and adaptor plate

We have a copy of the ecu map used by Rob in the UK for his eaton M45 supercharged FTO which is running the car nicely.
I put together a spreadsheet to calculate pulley diameters, injector sizing etc to ensure things were OK as we had heard that much more than 7psi can make the standard internals start to behave like plasticine!

Look at my you-tube vids for some idea of how it has gone together.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ip9vS8OMctk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7RGLbV3 ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4IxiuoT9Bs

It has taken 6 weeks to put together and should be running on the drag strip at the FTO meeting at Shakespeare Raceway on the 25th of July

Ade

[CJ]

Nice work Ade and well thought out by the looks of it.

CJ

[fergal1980]

Adeddy on youtube has posted a vid of his finished fto project . Iwant mine done like yesterday http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNxkG49cr_M

[ade01]

For all you interested parties out there considering going down the supercharger route - IT'S AWESOME!!!!

The 1st run of the car was a slight disaster - ran down the road - bang - and the car is running like crap, no throttle control, no brakes to speak of and the car revving and dying on it's own.... managed to blow off one of the flexi hoses. All fixed took it down the road and what a difference. What was a quick car before is now something else.

What you see on the you-tube vid is the car performing well, or so we thought. It turns out that the e-mamage was only measuring 55% throttle opening and thus not mapping properly - and yes it was pulling like a train like that. A long conversation with the brother-in-law last night (his car) resolved the issue - we moved the throttle body onto the supercharger which entails lengthening all the cable runs - this has affected the resistance read by the e-mamnage. Quick reset and the car is boosting at 6.4 psi (only reading a max of 5.1 psi before the 'fix') and even quicker!!!

To give an idea, it is pulling strongly in 4th from about 20 mph. It is going on the rolling road on Friday for a power run and tweak to the map as required - can't wait - then to Shakespeare Raceway for the UK FTO owners club 'run-whay-ya-brug' meeting to see if it beats last years 14.8 on the 1/4 mile.

Ade

[Sebastian]

Can't wait for a 1/4 mile measure .
Brilliant job guys!

[fergal1980]

awesome .......want mine done now

[SmokeSolid]

Ive been so busy on my project I didn't browse around much.

Finding projects like this one makes my day. Good job mate can wait to see this on video.

Regard,
Smoke

[ade01]

Update on supercharged project.....

Went on the rolling road on Friday and the results weren't quite what we expected..... Only producing 200 bhp at 8200 RPM with 3.5 psi of boost trailing off at about 7000 rpm. Not right I hear you cry - and you are right. The torque figure is 200 ft lb at 2500 RPM which trails off with engine speed and the dropping boost.........

Not deterred we set of to the 1/4 mile strip where I went up against the other supercharged FTO. He beat me with a 14.2 against my 15.8, but using the racing excuses I can genuinely put this down to an immense amount of wheel spin off the line in 1st and into 2nd and I was catching the other car towards the end of the run. 2nd run with my brother-in-law at the wheel and he got a much better start and then the drive belt to the supercharge broke! End of the weekend!

Now the investigation starts. Why are we not getting the anticipated boost?
Two possible causes:
1) Supercharger by-pass valve is leaking boost away (well known with the mini by-pass valves)
2) The electro-magnetic clutch on the supercharger is slipping

Theory 2 is currently the favourite and has been experienced with these ogura superchargers on Toyota's in the past. We are going to weld it shut to eliminate that possibility but is makes sense that the charger is not maintaining speed as the engine revs rise hence the drop in boost as the clutch slips. Be rest assured that both causes will be fully investigated to ensure the anticipated 6.7 psi of boost is delivered and with it the mega torque and HP we were anticipating..........

I will keep you posted......

[ade01]

I should point out the the boost reading my 20th July thread is incorrect. I was interpolating a figure from the E-manage which is given in volts. The actual figure was read while on the rolling road via a sensor plugged directly into the plenum......

DISAPPOINTED!!!! But as mentioned above, we have some ideas to get everything where it should be

[Danny Kierans]

i have to say i love this idea. alot better then trying to turbo one.i know for sure when these teething problems are fixed.there will be many who would like to have it done.like....me ..lol

[ade01]

Supercharged FTO UPDATE: The clutch was slipping on the supercharger. That was welded closed which saw boost rise to 4.7psi. Much better and, with some fettling of Mini SC by-pass valve (they all need this apparently) and some re-jigging of the vac lines, the car is transformed to a real road rocket.... 0-60 is arriving in under 6 seconds!

The fettling has also allowed an accurate figure to be ascertained for the whole system efficiency i.e. how much of the calculated boost is lost through system losses e.g filter efficiency, pipe routing and diameter, inter-cooler efficiency and heat. The figure comes in at 26% efficiency losses. This in turn has enabled a calculation to be made for a smaller charger pulley to give us the anticipated 7 psi boost we intended to deliver into the car. So with a calculation for an 87mm dia pulley - we have gone for 85mm just to make sure!!!!!!

[Bernard]

Excellent stuff!
I'm looking forward to seeing some more video and a dyno printout

[Myfeckin FTO]

Sounds great - can't wait for the dyno printout - what ECU are you running? What bhp do you hope to acheive? How confident are you on running this extra power on standard internals?

[ade01]

The ECU is an Emanage Blue piggyback job. Nightmare to install as the connections have to go back to the existing ECU which is on the passenger side against the left hand side wall...... Trust me - two 6 foot lads trying to wire it in was not fun, my brother-in-law kept burning me with the soldering iron!!!!

Power wise that is an interesting question. The supercharger is an experience to behold. Unlike a turbo it will boost from tickover, but only with the throttle WIDE open. Maximum boost has been recorded in 3rd and 4th gear loading the engine from low RPM with the throttle buried in the carpet. In 1st an 2nd the pick up is so rapid that you never see max boost as it is over and next gear is required. Also, because of the way the mivec comes in and changes valve overlap etc. the boost does tail off at high rpm. For example, the max boost we saw - 4.7 psi - tailed off to about 3.8 on the limiter - but trust me, the limiter is rarely visited these days as the car is so fast in gear.

But to answer your question, now it is fully fettled I expect a max of 220 to 230 Ft lb of torque and hopefully 250-ish BHP at the flywheel.

I have been informed that the engine is comfortable to about 7.5 ish psi. For the reasons mentioned above, the car won't actually see 7 psi very often, so hopefully the prognosis is good. Rob, the other fellow here in England who has supercharged his FTO, has done 20,000 miles on his engine running up to 7.5 psi. Trust me, this is the way to go - it is all good!!!!

[ade01]

UPDATE: The car now has an 85 mm pulley. Was looking good at 7 psi until it blew the side of the outlet plenum on he supercharger apart!!!! Now welded back together (properly!) and judging by what was ground away to allow a new weld it looks like the welding had been broken for a while. New tensioner arrangement installed to increase belt wrap on the charger pulley and a remap booked! Got to be finished for the 2nd of October as it is heading for Germany with me and the brother-in-law for a few laps of the Nurbergring!!!!

[ade01]

New pulley and repair tested on the road and logged in the e-manage software. Pushing just under 8psi on full load!

Part mapped and now pushing 216 ft lb of torque at 3000 rpm and 248 HP at the flywheel - bit more to come with the rest of the mapping to be completed. For reference - before supercharging 161 ft lb of torque and 200 HP.

[bigbear21]

looking into options for my fto and this looks great. what was the total cost for this? did you use the garage for this mod? are you going to use a intercooler kit?

[ade01]

Total cost was about £1500 spread out over 18 months or so. That includes setting up on the rolling road - and this is essential if expensive, but it does remove the risk of engine detonation! Inter-cooler is fitted in the nose cone along with an oil cooler kit. The inter-cooler now as a water spray system installed to lower charge temperatures a little further if required and we are looking into water injection into the inlet for next year.

The unit was all home made, none of it was farmed out (apart from final rolling road setting up). If you check out the you tube link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMbKLKtw9D0 it will give you an idea of how it went together. There are some other video's of it running on you tube and I will be posting the Nurbergring lap from 2 weekends ago and some other vids the brother-in-law and I took while over there - one is the 0-60 time which is a shade under 6 seconds and the other is of a 911 getting out of the way when he heard the shriek of the supercharger......

Supercharging is, obviously, a different way to go from turbo charging as the power delivery is instant due to the supercharger being able to provide an instant pressure boost from very low rpm rather than waiting for a compressor to 'spool' up. Ultimately you will get more power from a turbo but it is concentrated at the top of the rev range again rather than plumping out the lower rpm ranges which is where the FTO really benefits. If you read an earlier post 220 ish ft lb of torque at 3000 rpm is a massive increase over standard which I would guess in only generating something around 100 ft lb at that engine speed and generally peaking at around 155 to 160 ft lb at around 7000 rpm.

I would post a picture, but I am buggered if I can work out how!!!!!

[Bernard]

I would post a picture, but I am buggered if I can work out how!!!!!

Just highlight the picture's link in the posting window and click the Img button

[ade01]

Some you tube links of the car on the road....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YM3RcimR4ew
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMDEGdvH ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF17avkezl0&NR=1

[Kace]

Great job - she's certainly whiny though - does it seem that loud in the cockpit when you're giving it socks, or is it just the video making it seem that way ?

[ade01]

It is a great noise, and only there when loading the car, otherwise it is a quiet as a standard car (depending on exhaust system!) when cruising. It is a very addictive noise when in the car though, and quite musical!!!!! I am posting come in gear acceleration vids on you tube soon to give an idea of the flexibility the supercharger gives - with the supercharger whine.......