Pictures look good.. Will the supercharger need to be rebuilt after a certain amout of use?

the better question is Will the engine have to be rebuilt after years with FI?

You might want to just put all the pics in one thread. ;)

If you're having trouble with size limits, or it won't let you post more than one pic, try www.imageshack.us and upload. Copy/paste each file name to your post, complete with the [img] tags.

Also, how is this different/better than usual turbos? I'm not sure I've heard of it before.

supercharger
 

OK I didn't think anyone out there in RX land would remember the Latham supercharger. So I droped that name for this new unit. But for those who do remember I am the designer and builder of the Latham Supercharger.

This is a much smaller unit but can blow as much or more than the old large size PRODUCTION unit when the blading is sized right. My large scale BILLET units could flow 2800 cfm or more.

All my research of the last 10 years has gone into this unit and it has tested better than it showed on paper.

This unit as you can veiw it in the photo gallery is only 10 lbs. I haven't tried to push the envolope but I'm sure it can go to 1000 cfm. Pressure is dependent on stages. The four stage makes 8 psi plus. A five will make 11 and it just keeps compounding.

Current bench tests have shown 85% adibatic and there may be a couple of points left to be had.

Hope this helps. We are working on a web site. hope to have it up next week to ten days.

Richard

I would buy one if the performance numbers are good!!!!!!

I agree. Threads from Multimedia combined with this one. No reason to spread the one topic all over the site...

A little quick research indicates that Axial Flow superchargers have typically been expensive to produce and a major design issue was the need to signicantly over drive the blower (typically 500%) -- at 9,000 rpms that is 45,000 blower rpm :eek: -- can your new blower design reliably handle the rpm load the Renesis would put on it?

would be kinda coold to sound even MORE like a jet engine.......

why would an intercooler be "optional"? doesn't it create hot air just like everything else?


And the comment about being like a centrificul super/turbo.... those designs work with an inverse square pressure curve, more RPM = more PSI. just speculation, but axial would be closer to a linear pressure curve, which is much like a positive displacement (roots/screw type) supercharger.

Hey,
Im not an expert here but I like the looks and sound of this. Rotory God sure has creditbility on this forum and I like what he has laid out. Richard Paul seems sincere and I wish him luck and success. Time will tell. It's a long road from having a FI unit and then getting it to work on this car. It sure looks sweet and the price range quoted is right. If he developes a workable system I think he will find a substancial number of customers.(which was one of his questions to us)
Good Luck!
olddragger

I prefer no sound.

Yes an intercooler would still help. I think though that since the efficiency is so high that one could run another 1-2 psi of boost versus a Roots before using an intercooler.

Are you sure about the pressure curve differences? If so that would be great! Maybe Mr. Latham can set us straight.

Like a few others have already said, I too am sick of people claiming a soon to come FI product, then never hearing from them again. It's getting very agrivatin'.... So Richard Paul, I'd like to say skip the whole Honda thing and be my hero man! Get that thing on a 8 now, and lets do sum biz.

supercharging
 

Let's see if I can answer all the questions at one time.
Speed of blower; The design speed is 42000 rpm. The tips go sonic at around 50,000. The bearings are rated at 54,000 with grease but they are oiled so the speed goes up. There is a 4-1 planetary gearset in the nose of the unit.

The pressure rise is a linial slope. Roots are flat, centrifugal is a curve as discribed. Now these are THEORY only numbers. In real life things like clearence leakage effects things.

Heat rise is a function of efficency. Nothing is 100%. A good roots blower is still a 50% unit. That means twice the rise of 100%. I can't lay out the math for you here but I'll give you the answers and you look up the math and check it if you are a skeptic.

7 psi or Pr of 1.5 has a perfect rise of 64 F
OK I'll show you.
pressure ratio 1.5 to the power of .283-1 gives a Y factor of .12

Take .12 times temp abs or renkin. 460+70=530 x.12=64
now that's perfect or imposable to get. So 50%=.64 over .5 or 128 temp rise.
Now an axial flow at 85% is 64 over .85 or 75 F.

Now you see why you do not need the intercooler?
The radial flow blowers run about 65% So their temp rise is 64 over .65 = 98F


Next you should know that the intrcooler never adds mass charge. What comes out of the compressor in mass is all you can get. You can change it's volume and pressure but it is still only so much air. If a pound by weight come out there will never be any more.

So why the intercooler?? So you don't exceed the thermal limit of the parts. You can tune more power out of a given mass if you can keep it from going unstable. Every degree that goes in goes through. If you can't stand any more ex temp then you best not add anything to the intake. That is why a turbo has to have the intercooler.

Now come on you guys, I only type with one finger and this is getting time consuming. If these questions keep coming I'm going to look up some text books and make you guys study.

Hope I got everyone.
Richard

All of this sounds great, but do you have the R&D done for putting this product on the 8 and available for the public? Or Just in the test phase?

I have no doubt you can get this thing to move enough air to make big power...but I think the trick will be getting Mazda's ECU to cooperate with you. :)

I'm very interested if you get it to market...

Ditto

This all sounds great of course in the generic automotive sense, but I'm missing how this has any direct bearing on the problem most of us here are interested in solving, namely that of getting a working, reliable and cost effective FI solution for the RX-8. While this axial supercharger thing may well be a better mousetrap, the fact remains that there are a bunch of existing mousetraps that work well...they just don't yet work well for the RX-8...and as several people have alluded to, the primary reason seems to be getting around the engine management issues. So, when someone starts a thread about a new FI solution for the 8, I think most everyone gets excited, but realistically I don't think this is any closer to being reality for the 8 than any of the other bits of vaporware that have been touted on the forum.

Of course I'd be delighted to be told I'm dead wrong!

jds

I admit I don't have experiemce with the 8 ECU in person. But, tell me where I am wrong about this.
If the superchatger is installed between the throtle body and the manifold, how does the ECU know it's there?? The MAP sensor is replaced with a 2 bar unit.
The ECU only knows that more air is going in and what the mixture must be by way of the O2 sensor.

True it will run out of headroom on fuel flow at the top and that needs to be solved. It is possable to piggyback a second system with it's own nozzle on the inlet of the blower.

That's just a first thought and I'm waiting for the feedback. Tell me what hasn't worked in the past.

well, sounds pretty amazing to me.

screw the RX-8's ECU and whatever... that's something you can contract to someone with experience (there are a couple that do).

i just wanna see this work, what costs will be at what production numbers, and realistic projected reliability. i mean, holy shit, if this is really as great as is claimed i will not be going for a single turbocharger in my dream RX-7, but one o' these axial superchargers *eyes bug out of head*

I'm not really sure what hasn't worked in the past, because every time someone starts up a thread on how they're going to be putting out a forced induction kit, they explain everything, show some pictures, tell us all they're a few days away from dyno numbers and then...the silence is deafening. There are certainly piggyback ECU solutions that appear to be viable for this. However, no one really knows yet how well the Renesis will take to the additional stress (at least, no one that's talking!). Its just getting a bit frustrating seeing all these "almost done" projects, most of which don't even depend on anything unusual in terms of the parts being used, never panning out.

jds

Richard, maybe you can talk to Canzoomer as he has a programmable piggyback already modifying stock ignition and fuel maps..

I'd prefer it so that I could use my existing piggyback device :D

or hook up with greddy and look into controlling it w/the e-manage.

And I thought you were strickly a turbo man;)

Richard, make it happen. The BEST wat to succeed is to allow some of the expert rotary folks to assist. Have you considered approaching Racing Beat? You make the unit, they test, you tweak, they market.

Whatever happened to that TurboRX8Renesis guy. Showed pics and everything. After waiting for weeks, he ran away. Maybe his car went too fast and crashed, killing him in the process? I'd like to think not.

I'm not picking a fight with anyone. As the old timers can tell... I have very few posts to back up my experience. However, the recent efficiency, and need for intercooler information is a bit misleading. So I thought I would chime in. The basic relationship for compressor efficiency is as follows:

Adiabatic Eff = Ideal compressor work divided by actual compressor work.

This equation holds true from centrifugal compressors and axial compressors (as is discussed in this thread).

In general, all of these compressors increase the temperature of the air entering the engine. The intercooler is there (obviously to reduce the temperature of the incoming charge of air. As a result it increases the density of the air and reduces the likelihood of pre-ignition (ping). Please note: The intercooler also introduces some negative things also. The pressure drop through the intercooler reduces some of the benefit of the compressor, there is increased vehicle weight, and of course we should not forget the cost.

I thought that the best way to show the effect of efficiency on compressor exit temperature would be a do a few calculations in EXCEL and plot the results. So I've created a figure that shows the compressor exit temperature for different boost pressures, different adiabatic efficiencies, and different inlet air temperatures. I will try to attach these figures to this post to show the influence of these variables on compressor exit temperature.