supercharger for na 8v

[porsche1984944]

I just got an email form rennlist about a supercharger and went to the website listed and looked at some of the pictures ans ws amazed. ~3400 for the stage one and 5600 for the stage 4 which they say will increse hp by 100%. Also says all except the stage 4 can be put on in a day with regular hand tools. Almost sounds like a good deal. Anyone know of these guys?

[Magnus_944]

Didn't somebody on this board use a supercharger and destroyed his engine?

//Magnus

[Scott R]

That would be me! Blew the entire motor out. Get this! Turns out Porsche never designed the 8V NA engine to except 100% more hoarsepower. Who would have guessed! But in reality I did have some input into the "Speedforce Racing" kit that was mentioned above. And there additon of the intercooler and timing controller in there $5600 kit should make it work.

[stupenal]

TurboTim from rennlist, aka Tim from speedforce racing, developed the supercharger alongside with John Anderson (owns a monster of a 951 with over 500rwhp i think) all in a matter of a couple of months. There is a nice warranty on this thing, and Tim seems like a guy that you can DEFINITELY trust. Very knowledgable about the 944 series. He used to be associated with Huntley Racing, but something went bad between em so he moved and opened up shop a couple of blocks away. Anyways, it seems like a great deal, he claims the supercharger is VERY reliable and will not cause blown head gaskets and etc. Check out the extensive thread at rennlist. He's there "promoting" and answering many questions about his supercharger.

[Scott R]

How can I make you understand. It's not the design of the kit. It's not the quality of the parts. Your taking on average between a 10 and 15 year old car, that should never have been forced induction in the first place, and heavily modifying it. The head gasket was the least of my issues. Rings went first, then bearings. All I am saying is that to truly make this a reliable solution you need a turbo block to bolt this too. I found this out the hard way, and others will too. Also lest say $5600 for the stage III, plus lets just say $3500 for the car = 9100! Hey wait isint that the cost of a 951?
I have followed the Rennlist string since the first mention.

[garrity928]

I disagree with some of the posts on this list. Sure anyone can blow something up. How did you manage the fuel air delivery on the engine that blew up? I am sure it ran rich than lean etc until everything gave up the ghost.

The 944 engine is fully capable of reliably producing 300 peak horsepower. What do you claim in the weak link. The crank can handle 600, the rods 400, the bottom end 600, etc. It has been done time and time again. Sure people can blow anything up, but Tim spent a lot of time making this kit and I will give it a try for a customer of mine.

Garrity

[ehpower]

I made a trip to SFR on Saturday to drop off my 91 944S2 cab for a supercharger install. I had a chance to see all of their product line along with the newly released 2.5 NA supercharger kit installed on car. The kit is very well engineered using very high quality components. John and Tim know there stuff when it comes to the Porsche cars. John removed the supercharger from the car and reinstalled it with me watching to prove how easy it was to install. I am going with a stage three kit. As soon as I get the base line numbers vs. the supercharge numbers I will post them.

[eimkeith]

Garrity, please post your impressions, also...

[Scott R]

I had a Lindsey AFM gauge. I also have a 3 gas anylyzer and kept the engine in good tune. I used H2O injection for detonation control. Like I said at 3k I had brass material everywhere. I cut and cross-sectioned my oil filter and found a pile of brass and metal in it. As far as this post goes I have the only pratical experience in this department, and myself and my mechanic at"EuroSport Limited" in Colorado found that the motor just could not take the stress. I never blew a head gasket. I blew rings and bearings. Actually I did this to two motors. The moral of this story is that stress numbers are useless on this, you can't use figures from the factory to judge the impacts of a project that the designers never inteded. Saying that it can handle this and that means nothing until you do it. I did, it was a maintinance nightmare, and required constant revision to the original design. Enjoy your NA or get something faster. People that do this are under the impression that this is a reliable "daily driver" solution. If thats what you think than good luck! May your NA rest in peace like mine did. As for "rich lean" amswer was NO. I used an aftermarket AFM and larger injectors and a rising rate FPR to control all these conditions. 9k later and it still sucked! Enjoy.

[TurboTim]

Scott,



Just because you blew up your motor twice does not mean everybody else will.Using a roots type blower is not such a wise choice.The roots type blowers produce a much higher charge air temp then a centrifugal type blower.The roots type blower is almost impossible to intercool because of its design.This is why you had to go to water injection to avoid detonation.Another thing you did not mention was what type of boost were you running? What type of octance gas were you using? What were you doing to the timing? There are many other issues as to why you had problems that I can think of.Again,just because it happened to you, doesnt mean it will happen to everybody.



Tim
86 951
http://www.speedforceracing.com

[J Anderson]

I know its laye to jump in on theis thread but I had to say something about people blowing up the motor when adding a supercharger.

I can blow a motor without a supercharger, its simple, just neglect it and pay no attention to tuning when running it hard. Kaboom......your a mushroom cloud.

I agree with Garrity, the engine in the 944 is like a tank, its strong as hell. When its modded right, and tuned correctly its a fun car to drive in. Reliability is in the hands of the owner/driver.

How do you suppose the honda guys are doing it? There are numerous kits out there for super chargers and turbos that strap to the stock block.

I should address one other post :-) It was I not Tim that was employeed at Huntley, and yes I did leave a few months ago to join Tim at SFR. We do great work together and its a pleasure driving to the shop everyday. I doubt Tim would want to be confused as to having worked for Huntley!

Anyway, we designed this kit to be bullet proof and very reliable. Our main goal was sustainable and reliable HP, we are not running for a MAX number on the dyno rather we look for a nice strong gain that can be driven WOT with no worries on the track.

Take Care All!

[perfectchoicemotorsports]

Scott I am not picking on you, by any means! We are just trying to prove a point to the masses.

"I never blew a head gasket. I blew rings and bearings."
Detonation blew your rings and bearings, its the only thing that could have.

"the motor just could not take the stress".
This is a very incorrect statement, the block is the same for 944 and 951. Pistons are different cast over forged. thats it. The problem with your setup was the same as the first statement.

"People that do this are under the impression that this is a reliable "daily driver" solution"
People you cannot dump 12 to 15 psi on a set up cast pistons without retarding the timing and cooling the intake charge. even then you are AT THE BOOST LIMIT!!! with cast pistons. 7 to 8 psi, cool the intake charge and back the timing off under boost, and high octane fuel. Its just as dependable, if you go out and beat the hell out of it everyday then no.

"I never blew a head gasket"
A blown head gasket is your friend! leave the weak head gasket in the mix. It is a hell of alot easier to change a blown head gasket than pistons. In most cases its a safty valve to release pressure under detonation situations

"How can I make you understand. It's not the design of the kit. It's not the quality of the parts. Your taking on average between a 10 and 15 year old car, that should never have been forced induction in the first place"
Totally incorrect, nothing is bullet proof or idiot proof! Age of the car has nothing to do with anything. Its the condition of the engine parts.

Things to do first!
#1 Compression check.
#2 New head gasket.

On the 944 and 951 the block is a floating cylinder design, like a honda. Why? easier and cheaper to cast!! And you thought you were paying for Porsche Quality.

Why change the head gasket at the start of a forced induction project. As the head gasket ages it rusts inside the block if the coolant is not maintained properly. it allows the ring part of the gasket to expand and blow. Its kinda like a truse on a roof as long as the pressure is being pushed in the right direction, it holds. When the portion between the edge of the cylinder and the edge of the block rusts the truse has no center support, and it fails. On the floating cylinder design their is nothing surrounding the cylinder to support the head gasket.

All in all forced induction on a 944 engine is fine, if done right and with moderation.

Kevin
PCM
www.perfectchoicemotorsports.com

[Scott R]

I never had detonation! I literally had enough boost that over time it started to push past the rings first nefore the headgasket. The headgasket was new and the rings were old. I had several safeguards in place to control detonation including a timing controller for automatic retard. And no matter what a 10 year old engine is going to be a bigger risk for failure then a 1 year old or even new engine.

[Scott R]

Sorry, to answer the above it was 91 octane gas at 7psi of boost. As for Tim's response, not only did it happen to me it happened to the PO of the kit, and three other guys that I conversed with that had 944 SC kits. I also started with an Eaton supercharger bolted to my kit, it was too noisy, and failed, Rimmer then gave me an Autorotor roots blower. Both had issues. I won't say anymore, do what you like. Use my experience of running conditions over time and use them to your advantage.