Picked up a cheap, new BMW Mini cooper S supercharger.
Looks good enough to mount and display on the coffee table but have thoughts of 'blowing' my Locost crossflow. Anyone seen any threads in
supercharging the Crossflow?
Can always sell on Ebay at a profit but fancy the extra power a blower can give!
Alan,
From memory your car is a 1300xflow isn't it?
Personally I wouldn't waste my time with the supercharger, change the engine if you want more performance, a pinto sould be a relatively easy
option...
Ned.
And then superchrge the pinto.
My mate had a early sprintex supercharger on his 105e Anglia, bugger me that car was mental
Tim.
quote:
Originally posted by ned
Alan,
From memory your car is a 1300xflow isn't it?
Personally I wouldn't waste my time with the supercharger, change the engine if you want more performance, a pinto sould be a relatively easy option...
Ned.
yes, as viper says: bigger engine, then stick the blower on that!
Ned.
get a 1600 Xflow and stick some 1300 pistons in (works the other way round, so why not this way too?) And bolt it on!
The 1300 will probably be too small to get all that air into.
So indeed: get a bigger engine and supercharge that!
This may be completely incorrect but..
... isn't there going to be a very strong market for a BMW mini cooper supercharger, what with the Cooper being numerous and there being a big
shortage of scrapped mini cooper S's to liberate them from? Wouldn't the better idea be to sell this supercharger at a profit and bolt a
more common charger onto your X-flow (or indeed pinto)?
I want a supercharger on my car - as long as it sounds like one of those 1930's Mercedes racing cars when accelerating!
If you don't know what I'm on about, watch that Robbie Coltraine programme on Sky, all about engines, cars, etc.
rgds,
David
Whats invloved in putting a supercharger on? is there a better way of making a 1600 xflow go faster?
Mark.
Have thought about supercharging my Zetec westfield with the Mini supercharger.Any piccies of the thing,so as to see dimensions?.As for fitting a 1600
x flow,I would personally leave the 1600cc pistons in,which would keep the compression ratio lower.
The only bad part of a crossflow is the standard cast pistons,which are heavy and prone to disintegrate.If you did attempt the project,maybe fit some
flat top aftermarket pistons with a lower C.R,so as to give a free-er reving engine and better lighter piston.There is a guy on the Westfield site who
has supercharged a x flow,so can be reasonably done.Tell us how you get on with it.I only live 20 miles from you,so could help you out.
Sebastian
"The 1300 will probably be too small to get all that air into"
That's easy to fix - just regear the blower!
Cussed
It's nothing to do with scrapping Mini's (though that's the best thing for the new ones - IMHO)
It'll all to do with a Cooper upgrade and replacement blower. They give you your old one back!
ATB
Simon
PS Might get a couple and blow my R V8
If you can get the bits for a 1600 crossflow cheaply then I'd stick the 1600 in and supercharge that. As has been said above, the reason there
are lots of these around cheap is cos of the mini cooper upgrade kit.
I have seen a supercharged westfield 1600 crossflow and it goes like 5h1t off a shovel, dunno who's it is but saw it again at stoneleigh last
year.
Your easiest bet for fuelling would be either a Weber 38 dgas (3 ltr capri carb) or single weber 48 or 50 dcoe. Make an adaptor to fit this to the
supercharger intake and run it as a suck through setup (common with screw type blowers like the mini one)
As was said further up the thread, you can "gear" the supercharger to give the air you want by changing the sizes of the belt pulleys
(though having said that, on a locost where most of ther "free" space in the engine bay is ahead of the engine and behind the steering
rack/rad, I would be tempted to shaft drive the supercharger from the front crank pulley, if the 1:1 ratio gave enough air?? you could use a shortened
car driveshaft for this perhaps and drill and tap the front pulley???)
Getting carried away here!! I love superchargers (and HATE turbo's!!) The first go in a supercharged car is extremely convincing!!
Hi im on about runing my xflow with a turbo not a supercharger but the problems are the same but a supercharger is simpeler to install and with less
problems.
you have less heat put into compresed air so you will probably get away with out a inteercooler (but with one may be better).
you do not have turbo lag but you want to the pipes as short as posable with smootn bends for better responce.
i think you could run 7 to 8 psi with standed pistions i would not put flat top pistions in because the rim round the edge of the pistion creates what
you call a squish zone when the pistion comes up to comperss the air fuel mix the edge of the pistion at TDC comes very close to the cylinder head
what corses turbulace and helps burn the fule.
i would use flat top pistions if the head had a chamber macined in it and the pistion came close to the head and made a squish zone.
what happens if you do not have a squish zone is that you are more prone to get detanation (pinking) this will damage you engine (hole in pistion )
you will need to think about detanation because higher presure in the cylinder can also corse this. so you are limited to 7 to 8 psi eney more and
you will probably need to have low compertion pistions or have yours machined.
i would not use a carb system to do it right you need carbs sutable for comprested air and for a 1.6 or a 1.3 there are not meny about you can mod 40s
to do the job. but i would not go for a draw thow system yes you can use a standed card but you are drawing air and fuel throw your supercharger and
pipes eney split or leaks and you will spray fuel and air mix in to the engine bay you also have starting prblems and idle quaty is crap.
i would go for a injection system there is a diy fuel system i will be runing called mega squirt the advantage with injection is that you get a much
better contole of the fuel this leds to better power ,better econamy, less prone to detanation. its the way to go
I ran a supercharged mg midget back in the 80's. It went rather well and surprised quite a few rs escort turbo's at the time. It was a shorrock supercharger on an A series engine. A very good book to look at is Vizards.... Tuning A series engines. It covers supercharging/ turbos and give a hella lot of useful info
sebastian NO, if you run 1300 pistons in a 1600 x flow due to the increased wall thickness of these pistons you will be running a compression ratio of ~11 to 1, with a super you will blow yourself of this planet , just to where you brains are!!!!!!!
2.3 ford lima block with a good garret T3, port the heads and 20 lbs of boost and your set-easy 300hp and 300+tq.. looking at my extended frame going
where do I fit the intercooler
Dale
So did you do it in the end?! I want to do the same!! Does anyone have experience of the Shorrock supercharger made for the X-Flow?
Cheers,
Stu
Ive been thinking of using the m45 supercharger from the cooper s on my blackbird engine but its a bit more dificult as I have no external belts to
drive it from.
Can't use the end of the crank where the ignitor cover is because I already use that for a scavenge pump. The remaining options are
1. Get rid of the alternator and fix on a pully then have a car type alternator on the supercharger belt.
2. Mod the cases to drive from on of the balencer shafts (a bit dodgy)
3. Space off the alternator and have a pully between the alternator and crank (a pain to seal and all that mass stuck that far away from support cant
be good)
I havn't looked at compression ratio yet but a spacer gasket should do the job. A lot of sums needed here!
Airbox should be easy as its just fabbed ali.
Mapping easy as I have mappable ecu and can just take it somewhere with rollers to be mapped.
Carnut
In Oz the 4agze (1.2 litre per rev) or Supra 1g (1.4 litre per rev) are extremely cheap. I know cos I run one on an A series for hillclimbs, yes a Sprite. Not as flash as a screw type but at A$250 great value, if you break it you don't feel bad. Use an SU of around 1 3/4 and fabricate your own manifolds.
After spending some time (15 years! Including cosworth and the factory rally team) working with for engines think I might be able to enlighten you all
a bit here...
Ok firstly pinto is not a strong block by today’s standard, buggering around fitting 1300 pistons in a 1600 is pointless as they are not pushing the
compression ratio in the right direction. I cannot comment what piston to use in a pinto /cross flow as to be honest those engines are now only fit
for museums!!!
Supercharging is better than turboing for a whole host of reasons, less stress full on the engine, no lag and 1000 times more reliable.
if your looking to do a ford upgrade the best and proven route is use the zetec(duratec) engine as this has a strong block, good waterways and easily
tuned.
The best for value supercharger is the Eaton m45 as used on the new mini and as pointed out these units are plentiful and cheap at £100 new.
Fitting is easy; however you will need to lower the zetec compression ratio to 9.0:1 for best performance and reliability. This can be done with
forged pistons from mahl, however their are a few s/h pistons like the calibra red top that will fit if the engine is rebored to 86.5mm+
Replace the rods too if you can they wont rev over 7,000 safely if super or turbo charged!
Lastly carbs?.. wtf is a carb!!!.. Injection is easily modded with a piggy back injector or replacement ecu, we use megasquirt which gives our zetecs
: supercharged, chargecooled, water injected, boost controlled and 3d injection and ignition mapping...
So in short bin that old crap cross flow and join the 21st century!!!
jenna.