Supercharging An Mx5 Engine

[Al Milton]

Really looking forward to seeing how this will fit Richard.

I like subtle, guess the cut out in the bonnet will show off how shiney the charger is

[richardm6994]

It's going in Terry's (tazzaman) roadrunner sr2 which has loads of room down the side of the engine! I think it will look great in an already spotless engine bay!!

[richardm6994]

Not a lot of progress to report this week as late nights at work plus a weekend away starting from tomorrow.

 

I've rebuilt the supercharger and roughly mounted it on the engine to ponder the next step with mounts......I actually think 4 tie wraps work really well so it could save me a load of work

 

 

[Al Milton]

I think tie wraps would be a great idea, you can get nice shiney stainless ones!!

 

Just a thought, what would be the effect of the heat from the exhaust manifold (it does look close) be on the charger?

[richardm6994]

We'll shield / insulate it as best as we can but we're stuck with the location of the charger as there's no where else it can go and still fit under the bonnet.

 

There will probably be some bhp lost because of the exhaust heat, but this will be outweighed by the bhp gained in having the supercharger even though it's not ideally located.

[Tazzzzman1]

Hi Alan

 

Yes it will get a tad warm, but is the standard way to supercharge the MX5 lump, I have the manifold wrapped, but as Rich says it may loose a couple of horses due to heat. However from 140 to 220bhp+ I think loosing a few is not really too much of an issue

[Shaft]

You'll be too busy losing turds to worry about a few horses mate!

[Al Milton]

Aha, I see. No noticeable impact to power then, but could be a good way for instant weight loss as Nick suggests above.

Look forward to seing the pics as the project develops

[richardm6994]

So I decided to replace the tie wraps that where holding the supercharge on with something more substantial.

 

This is the front engine bracket. It's still unfinished as more metal can be removed, corners smoothed etc...

 

The 3 slots are for the supercharger saddle to bolt to and gives adjustment to align the pulley...

 

And the rear (loads of tidying still needed here)

 

And mounted to the engine...

[richardm6994]

Currently I'm machining the supercharger saddle. I'm still a way off completing it as the tensioner pulley will be fixed to it, but it gives you an idea...(note that the long length of steel has been left until I'm sure exactly how much to cut off)

 

 

It's machined at an angle to incline the supercharger slightly for a better fitment in the engine bay

 

And mounted to the engine bracket...

 

 

And some pics with the supercharger bolted on...

[richardm6994]

 

[richardm6994]

So the next bit is to get the belt and work out where the tensioner should fit.......

[richardm6994]

I'm going to do tonight's update in a over a few posts. I've just typed out the whole thing with photo's and it's thrown a fit trying to load them onto the forum and I lost everything I'd typed...

 

so here I go again....

 

There is still a quite a way to go yet with the front bracket as loads of excess metal is still to be removed. Nevertheless, it is taking shape....

 

Routing the belt took a few attempts before I was happy with it's location. The main problem is that the "natural" route of the belt clashes with the front of the water pump pulley and so you have to dog-leg around.

To achieve this dog-leg needed an idled pulley. So I've used a ford mondeo pulley and I've machined the shaft to set it the correct distance from the bracket face....

[richardm6994]

Next came the belt tensioner. This is a pug 106 tensioner (thanks timbo!!!) again with a special "carrier" that sets it the correct dimension from the bracket face...

[richardm6994]

photo of the idle pulley shaft and tensioner fitted to the bracket....