Trophy Manifold

[Mike T]

Do not supercharge it - the belt drive is a nightmare, heat generation is a bitch and inlet temperature control requires two air to water chargecoolers and its just not reliable enough.

Turbo install was much easier and more powerful with very minimal lag using a garrett hybrid from Owens.

Do not do either without steel rods and turbo pistons.

Rods fail at over 350bhp and the compression ration needs dropping to less than 9 at 14 psi boost to avoid detonation (if you just retard the ignition to avoid det you won't make power).

14 psi will see 400+ bhp and will blow your gearbox up so don't forget you'll need a Sadev box, race clutch, as well as proper driveshafts as the standard ones are made of cheese.

If you run less boost than this save yourself a fortune and go high end NA like Tim - its more reliable and ultimately less complex and expensive to maintain and still over 300bhp.

Oh and don't forget you'll need a Motec piggyback ECU to map the sucker once you're poor.

Been there done that got the t short and the video and the remakes and the gong!

Good luck

Mike

You can't run covers due to heat either so its a bulkhead

 

[Brett]

14 psi will see 400+ bhp and will blow your gearbox up so don't forget you'll need a Sadev box, race clutch, as well as proper driveshafts as the standard ones are made of cheese.


You can't run covers due to heat either so its a bulkhead

Or a cheaper, stronger Volvo/Ford gearbox Also means you don't need the expensive Motec to manage rev matching needed for the Sadev. Can't beat the occasion of a Sadev though!

 

[ray]

all ready have motec and will be having a full engine rebuild any way weather supercharged or not have a stroker crank ready to go in and i still think the super charger route can be done will be taking a lot of advice before parting with any money this time lessons learnt

 

[Brett]

You going for the Sadev then Ray?

 

[ray]

no not sure at this moment there is a possibility that the standard box can be beefed up to take it if not there is a jap box that could be converted or may be down the route you have suggested but when i am ready i will have done all my reserch and sourced all the bitts and i will do the job right i will take on veiw s from those that have done it and try to resolve the issues they had i think it can be done and with the covers in place as well

 

[Mike T]

Theres room for one for sure without the bulkhead - I tried a rotrex and two prochargers - the second one with a 12 rib belt running it - it still slipped and squealed and only really made a max of 380 bhp - the turbo at the same boost with cooler inlet temps made 440bhp and a shedload more torque.
With the right turbo - a relatively small one - the lag issue is very negligible, theres a road test in performance car magazine of mine with shots of the install.
The turbo is so simple next to the supercharger because of the belt drive and clearances on the offside. You can't run a second belt unless its a six rib because of clearances so you have to run a 10 or twelve on all ancillaries - these all have to be custom made as well as a very strong tensioner due to the belt length and route. The stronger tensioner then destroys ancillary item bearings and ultimately the bearings in the chargers overheat and blow.
The other big problem is that to get boost the charger spins at a max 80,000 rpm - if you flat shift the speed change at the charger is 20% in milliseconds and it will explode its internal gears, mine did three times under warranty until they told me to go away politely.
Superchargers are great on automatics where the rpm shift is damped or on a slow shift manual - on race cars with quick boxes they are not fit for purpose.
This is why anyone with a quick gearbox goes for a (much cheaper) turbo or a slack supercharger charger belt to slip and compensate. I tried that and fried belts which then snapped and delaminated.
Happy to sit in the pub for three-twelve hours and explain the three years I spent trying to make a charger work and the 2 weeks it took to install the turbo and get more power, more torque and total reliability, only mistake I made was putting the oil return in to low, it needs to return to the block, not the sump.
If you do go charger I have a shedload of pics floating around somewhere.
Any help gladly offered - no offence if refused!!

Charger install has to be the thick end of £5k with no electrics. Turbo is probably £1500 less.

Full engine from Swindon Race engines will be 100hp less but still go like stink for similar money.

HKS turbo pistons proved excellent with enough meat for machining and setting compressions.

boy could I go on!

Mike

 

[Mike T]

Oh and on the covers

Its not the physical constraint of the covers its the temperatures.

If you think renault had to put naca ducts in and two fans just to keep 250bhp in check you can imagine what happens when you run a boosted engine with chargecoolers in the same environment. We ran sensors after boiling fuel in a swirl pot and the temps were off the scale.

Solution was bulkhead, no under tray etc. Funnily enough it becomes the same space as the race car car has, its even worth venting the side windows in and the rear window out as Tim has done - just like the metros.

Heat is the biggest wrecker of this kind of setup - the solution is not subtle but by the time you've doubled your investment in the car you may as well get it on show - its hardly a sleeper!!

On fuel the solution was a bosch 044 off a swirl pot fed by two in tank pumps - one each side - plenty of pressure for big green injectors running in a trophy car fuel rail.

Back to the telly!

 

[ray]

already doubled my investment mate ,feel like a naughty school boy being told of by the teacher reading that last posts heat will be a problem turbo exactly the same no disrespect to your efforts and i have noted your pointers on this but i will look in to it all when the time is right and then i will make my mind up i have options at this moment i can stroke it /turbo/ or charge it but i am not doing any untill i have talked to lots of people who have the knowledge on these mods

 

[V6 2HOT]

Fascinating stuff :bow: Have you still got your vee Mike? What is your set-up now? What BHP and torque is your vee producing? Top speed and 0-60? You and Brett should definately meet up.

 

[Brett]

Just my input. If you do decide to supercharge it Ray, definatly stick to the Rotrex type of charger. Me and a friend recently added an Eaton charger to his pro ET drag car. Worked great up to 750-800 bhp at low boost/slow pulley speeds but the second we dialed more in, the inlet temperture went crazy. Ended up decreasing power and causing really bad pre det. A week later he installed a one off Rotrex and it proved much much better and it made over 1100bhp with out huge changes to cam timing or ignition. However, on the engine dyno, it showed a certain ammount of delay when it came to producing maximum boost. He regrets going down the supercharger route now as he reckons a pair of turbo's with the right compressor map will give him more low down torque and much higher hp levels at the flywheel.......and like Mike says......much cheaper.

As for the gearbox, I looked into a few good boxes from Japan. The best ones are from Honda and there are loads of upgrades for them such as dog box kits.

 

[Mike T]

Sorry if I sounded like teach!!
Running between grandson and keyboard!!

Heats just one of the functions of power produced so whichever way you go you get a big headache - the point I guess I'm making too much of is that the design of the car is so compromised for cooling that a small increase leads to a big problem fast (or several). If you put the aesthetic ahead of required cooling capacity whichever route you go is compromised.

My advise (sorry if its granny sucking eggs stuff but I lived the pain and others are reading!) would be to recognise that if you go for 400bhp (which is easily achievable) then the likelihood of cooling issues is massive. Even with no floor and no covers I had to run two chargecoolers, the largest water to oil cooler sold for the engine, a gearbox water to oil cooler, a full additional V6 front rad to cool the water from the chargecoolers, through a fully vented front bonnet, and a bilge pump from a 72 foot boat to pump it all around. It worked a treat in the end.

I was really surprised at the massive difference between having your engine and inlets in cold frontal air (like most) and running it wrapped in sound deadening at the rear. I shouldn't have been but starting at marginal cooling from Renault was a bad place to start. The place to start is to look in a Trophy shell and see what they did to race an N/A. Even Atlanta Motorsport had to extend the sidepods out for cooling on their race car which was N/A and modified.

I've sold mine now but at its happiest, not quickest, it was 400bhp and nearly 400lbft. It was a total bitch to drive without traction control and you just had a sausage roll at the garage if it rained! It did 100 in about 8.9 seconds and 60 in under 4 with launch control engaged (geared for 130 at 7400rpm) - all tracked from Motec logging so very accurate. It would beat a 600 sportsbike to about 50 which was always a surprise for the rider!

Personally I'd go for boost because its just an awesome kick - if I did one again I'd spend a chunk of budget on putting a cage in the rear shell and removing as much car as possible. Ideally the rear bodywork would lift off. It'd be cool and COOL, easy to work on, unique and best of all reliable.

Other thing I learned over the years - there are not a lot of people that know about boosting a rear engined clio. The best bloke I spoke to pissed himself laughing at my first effort, explained all the issues I'd be having before I told him that I already was, and told me to start again. Smartarse.

He was ex Lotus F1, ex champ car, ex F3 - I listened to him!!

He was a good investment as was Scott whose fabrication, preparation, plumbing and wiring were exemplary.

Back to the staff room to mark some GCSE's - WTF happened to good old O levels!

Mike

 

[Mike T]

By Rotrex type I guess you mean centrifugal? These are efficient at higher RPM and effectively a mechanically driven turbo rather than the eaton screw type which work well on lower rpm V8's etc.
They are best on higher RPM european engines but the issue you face is that if you set the rpm ceiling for the charger at max engine rpm then they don't flow enough air at half engine revs to develop decent torque figures - its just more of the standard power curve. A decent turbo and wastegate control with a well flowed set of heads will bring earlier torque and more of it when you want it.
Best of all would be two small garretts which would spin up really fast - there is room for this and with a decent engine build 500+ bhp is there for taking, I did spec these at Owens but came to the conclusion that it was just to much for everything else, including the car!! Probably need four wheel drive by then!!!!!!

 

[Brett]

A decent turbo and wastegate control with a well flowed set of heads will bring earlier torque and more of it when you want it.

Best of all would be two small garretts which would spin up really fast - there is room for this and with a decent engine build 500+ bhp is there for taking, I did spec these at Owens but came to the conclusion that it was just to much for everything else, including the car!! Probably need four wheel drive by then!!!!!!

Thats exactly the conclusion we came up with Mike. As for the twin turbo set up, I reckon you went the correct way in the end. Two turbos would bring even more heat into the equation. At least with one single the huge heat is fairly localised and easy to extract.

 

[ray]

any one on here running t/bs yet? will make my mind up when i have had my car back and tested it may just stroke it and put trottle bodies on it i have options which is good but it will be done and complete for the spring next year it might as well be in some one elses garage being done quick question isent it a waste of time doing the heads when you go for forced induction as the cost far out ways any gains when all the power comes from the turbo?

 

[Mike T]

That'll be the flow vs boost argument again.

You want flow not high boost - the more efficient the heads the lower the boost for the same flow resulting in lower inlet temperatures and the ability to create more power without detting. (or more boost with chargecooling)

Turbo indy cars ran 900bhp at 6psi boost as they flowed so well.

High boost occurs when the engine is restricting the flow of gases through itself (or the turbos a mismatch).

You should be able to get more than 100bhp per litre from TB's on a well set up (cams and heads with decent pistons, lightened and balanced bottom end and decent rods) so if you can stroke it to 3.6 you can get circa 360bhp and it'll probably pull 8000rpm and not bust gearboxes other than on mad launches.

Have a word with Tim - he's on here and doing this now with Motec and jenveys, not sure he's stroking it but the principals are the same. He's got the extra ponies from dieting!

 

[ray]

the diet idea is the best pound for horse power you can get but what do you junk with out it looking like a track car

 

[v6Max]

the diet idea is the best pound for horse power you can get but what do you junk with out it looking like a track car

Depends on what you're prepared to compromise on to be honest. Your CD magazine is strapped to a large metal plate - get rid of it and that's some weight out. The glass in the rear of the car can go and be replaced with Lexan, the rear tailgate can be replaced with a fibreglass part which saves weight (they even paint ok and look "factory"). Do you need a passenger airbag? if not that's more weight out. Front bonnet liner can go, air con can go. They are only small things in their own right but it does begin to add up but...

If you go down the turbo/supercharger/tbs route you're going to end up with something that may end up looking like a track car anyway - as alluded to by Mike etc you're not going to keep that sort of power cocooned within the existing covers.

 

[Mike T]

Seats!
Steering wheel!

Obviously replace the above with carbon items - otherwise both sitting and steering will be a major issue!

Carbon bonnet painted to match.

Change the exhaust system to decat and lighter back box

Lighter wheels and tyres - rotational mass is very important for accel and decel!

Theres a lot more but it will look stripped out really fast beyond this.

I lost 4 stone and all my friends so no-one was on the passenger side - you just need commitment!

3.6, TB's and a custom engine cover for the airbox and it'll be as quick as you'll ever need on the road and other then the cover look standard.

Underneath kw's, AP brake 6 pot brake kit and a set of pirelli p corsa's with a small rear anti roll bar (slows the transitional induced slide) and a MK2 front anti roll bar. Don't lower the suspension as the suspension rides the stops as soon as you brake and turn which means your relying on the bump stops and side walls for springs. Use stiffer springs with the KW's and up the damping if you drive hard or track day it. Won't help with lift off spins if you bottle it but does help with getting the rear to follow the front into corners rather than starting to go wide as the front goes suddenly stiff on the stops. Slow in fast out negates the understeer induced by the bigger MK2 anti roll bar.

Sounds like a lot of fun to me!

Lose the dual mass flywheel as well if the engines sorted properly - be careful as its so heavy it has its own gravity and has been known to suck small children in from the street.
It'll need storing in a zero mass neutron grimbalator powered by a zargon emulator for total safety. If greenpeace call just tell them it an alternative energy source and that your neighbours have always glowed orange, they'll be fine when the blisters burst.

Mike

 

[looch]

Mick...seriously mate have you considered writing a book on your V6 story....get em printed on demand here:
http://www.printondemand-worldwide.com/

and sell em through the forum...

It would be a cracking read, like a diary showing what went well, what went wrong, photos etc

 

[Mike T]

its the first thing to do when I retire!!!

If I make retirement after turbo'ing my new Harley VROD - 260 bhp!!!! :evil: [smilie=icon_eek.gif]