95SC 2.2L supercharger project (pics included)

93 Mark VIII

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This has been kept secret for a while, but after today's progress we decided there was enough done to post some info for others.

I'd like to thank Chris Mendola for supplying the car and assistance in the project, Jeff Garza (j57ltr) for help with CAD and design ideas, Apten for sponsoring the development, and several other individuals that helped. It still has some work before it's completed, but we expect to have the car on the dyno at the April 12th TBU meet.

I got this idea from a good friend who did a similar setup years ago on his SC with a lysholm blower. He went with an air-to-air intercooler instead, and was running low 12's all day long with less modifications than our project car has. I've wanted to do this for quite some time, and Chris Mendola was kind enough to volunteer as the guinea pig.

What the pictures below show is a 2.2L autorotor supercharger mated to a custom designed laminova intercooler. On the back side is a custom designed cast plenum, and a specially selected 1600cfm throttle body. I'll get into more of each item with pictures.


setup1.jpg

setup2.jpg



The supercharger...
This is like a whipple, but manufactured by Autorotor AB. They are essentially the same thing with the exception of the case and drive. Both companies use the same rotors. Autorotor does not retail sell superchargers, so Apten contacted them to distribute their products. Because of time constraints, the supercharger and bypass in this project were pulled from a Kenne Bell 4V Navigator kit. The only other Kenne bell kit that has this supercharger is the 2003 Cobra kit they sell, and the availability was not there to buy one of those kits instead. Everything else in the kit was sold off on eBay, but that was the fastest way for us to get one of these babies. The blower then had to be sent off to have a custom length drive pressed on.

To give you an idea of the size, the stock Super coupe blower is the Eaton M90. The 90 means 90 cubic inches. The larger lightning and 2003 cobra blower in an Eaton M112. A 2.2L Autorotor would be equivalent to 134 Cubic inches. This supercharger would easily provide over 30lbs of boost if we so desired.

sc1.jpg

sc2.jpg


The intercooler...
This was actually the largest part of the project. We decided to use a Laminova liquid intercooler system because they are touted as being the best flowing and most efficient intercoolers available today. There are no kits available, so we had to design the intercooler on CAD. Apten signed up and became a distributor for the cores, so we were able to get the one-piece all aluminum cores from Laminova AB in Sweden. The end caps and water passages were all designed in AutoCAD (with help from Jeff), and then sent off to be machined. Originally we were going to build a two-core system built inside of the intake to keep the height down. Because of time constraints, we decided to go with a three core system directly on top of the intake. The cooler is getting welded up this weekend, but you can see some construction pictures.

ic1.jpg

ic2.jpg

ic3.jpg



The blower inlet plenum...
This is a one-off piece. It was perfect for our setup and outsourced for manufacturing. If Apten ends up selling a 2.2L kit in the future, somthing like this would be key.


plenum1.jpg

plenum2.jpg


The throttle body...
This was manufactured by Accufab. It's an all billet piece, and HUGE. It's rated to flow 1600CFM, so we figured it would be adequate.

tb1.jpg

tb2.jpg

tb3.jpg


Other notes...
There are a few things that have been taken into consideration. When the plenum was built, we had to be sure it would clear the fuel rails. For that reason there is a notch at the bottom of it.

Note the TPS and throttle butterfly are on opposite sides of the throttle body. Because of how the butterfly was built on the accufab, it had to be mounted this way. Reversing sides would mean the cable would have to push the butterfly open, and that's not acceptable.

Also notice the blower drive is on the opposite side of the Eaton. This causes conflict with the water outlet on the intake. The water outlet is now being modified and will be included in future pictures.

This design will not clear a stock hood. We worked on one that would (with a laminova intercooler), but time did not permit. It may be something that Apten does on another car in the future.

The intake tube is being worked on, it will be either built from a mold using fiberglass or carbon fiber (we haven't picked which material yet).

The cost of this project is in the neighborhood of $5000 for parts only. Obviously the one-off pieces that were produced had a factor in that price. If you included labor and design time, the price would be unrealistic. The car also previously had a liquid intercooler, so we did not have to buy a heat exchanger, ice box, or liquid pump.

As far as what we expect to see, we'll wait till the car goes to the dyno for tuning and then post numbers. Mathematically the numbers look excellent, but we are waiting for real world stuff.
 
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No wonder you guys were so interested in my Whipple project! LOL It's impossible to be "first" with anything!

I agree the numbers on paper look really good! I want to have those real world numbers for myself as well before talking too much. These one-off kinds of projects do get up there in $$$, but someone has to try. Can't wait to see how your project comes out.

Mine may be pushed out and not installed until late this year. I want to enjoy driving my car and probably will not take it out of commission during the short Ohio summer.
 
I'll try and get pics of the first one of these that I know of. I don't know if the owner will let me post them or not, but it was done several years ago. Instead of the liquid type, it was done with an air to air intercooler.


Brian
 
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Very Impressive....

Your going to be moving alot more air. A couple of quick questions come to mind what kind of CR are you going to be running and what are you doing about fuel system upgrades, and, and.....

Nice work...now if it only fit under the stock hood.
 
Chris Wise built the motor on the car, and it has stiegemeier heads. I believe the compression is below 9:1. Mendola can probably chime in on more mods, but the fuel system should be adequate to the mid-400RWHP level. It may need larger injectors than 42's, but we'll have to wait and see.

the other i/c design would fit a stock hood. That's somthing that can be considered down the road, but that design was much more complicated, and time did not permit.


Brian
 
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You guys ROCK!!!!! :D

I can't wait to see the end result, looks like the engine bay will be cleaned up nicely, thua allowing some easier wrenching on these cars.

Matt
 
engine bay clearance improves greatly. I think you could change the spark plugs in no time flat. Also, you can now run a full size radiator. We may trial fit a Mark VIII radiator and Mark VIII fan in, that would be the ideal combination.

Another thing this opens up is the ease of swapping to other 3.8L's. You wouldn't need to worry about mounting an I/C somewhere in the front.
 
Yeah, I gave Brian my car for a weekend asking him for a SIMPLE TUNE. You drive-thru addicted SC-loving SPEEDFREEK!! Outta control. Brian has worked very hard on this project, thanks again man for all you've done.

The blower is massive but the fuel system should be adequate for this setup. There are 2 255lph fuel pumps inline with one-another. Fuel pressure jumps 5-7 lbs when the auxillary unit is kicked on. All of the parts from the last liquid IC system will be used except the IC itself. This includes the Jabsco pump, heat exchanger and aluminum fill-tank. If the 42's end up being too small, I know of a white SC with a fancy front mount with 50's I could wrench for free :) Neibert, what's YOUR next move?

Dola
 
Most impressive!!!

{...Bowing to the Gods of SC's...}

I'll look forward to hearing more about this product when you get things fired up and start acquiring some numbers.

Best regards,

Sean
 
Congratulations Fellas.. Sounds like we have a sweet upgrade in the works.. ...

As we all have heard, the paper numbers look good but you wait for real world numbers... Welp, the public would like to follow a little closer & do a comparison of what the paper numbers are vs. the rl dyno numbers are. ... That can help us inspiring Edison's have a clue down the road of discrepencies of the two number..

hehe, plus it sure would be nice to get excited over the numbers you have now.. Even if they maybe tainted or different than a go-live figure.

Anthony
 
Very nice Brian and Chris.....This St. Louis group gets tougher to hang with every year. I guess I'm gonna be forced to get one of those electric superchargers I saw on Ebay.

Can't wait to see it on the track next month.

David
 
Ohhhhh, I'm glad I logged on tonight...

Chris mendola.... I thought you were trying to SELL your car? last I checked I thought you left the SC world.... obviously I was wrong!

When that engine is complete, it will stomp @$$. I wondering if 10's aren't that far off?

You're gonna need the 50's dude, I'm sure of it. Also, you may need to upgade your exhaust with the sick HP you're gonna pump out. Past 500hp, I don't think that 2.5" duals can cut it any more, or am I mistaken?


Gonna be at Carlisle this year????
 
I was wondering when you were going to let everyone know about this. I can't wait to see it at the track, I'm trying to make sure I can be there.
 
I was anxiously awaiting this to be unveiled myself.

Gotta love the SC grapevine. Great job guys...nice work Brian!

You just couldn't wait 'til it was done....;)

I wise man once said....

...get a supercharger with more displacement than a Honda engine...

I love it!
 
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