I know, I keep toying up with the turbo/s'charger idea, and putting it off, and thinking of it again.

I'm now planning the rotrex C15 charger, mounted with a custom bracket where the PAS used to be on the front of the block. I'll use a spacer on the offside engine mount as per Arron, so i can retain a 1368cc pulley, but mod the outer belt drive pulley from a 5 to 7 V.

With the charger fitted at the front i can get the charger oil supply and cooler that the rotrex needs up there as well. I will also run an IC form the charger to the inlet.

My main concern, apart from the stupid money its gonna cost, is from DaveTheTrikes experience, the crank pulley giving way under heavy load.

The rotrex is very efficient, and i won't be aiming silly, 140bhp is, but this is a major concern, especially on a superfire. If it gives, all hell breaks loose. Is there any way i can re-inforce it, or another place i can easily take the drive from?

I have two 1368cc heads, so plan to explore the one head, see how much i can take, to increase the chamber volume.

I think, that, with a decomp plate or increase the the gasket depth form a metal 0.5mm gasket, to a spesso performance (but thicker) gasket, I can acheive a nicer CR.

I'm hoping i can get the rotrex for £1200, a a few custom pieces of work, and some consumables, adn i'll have a nice setup. I have gone off the turbo idea, due to the comlexities of exhausts etc. I',m sure the costs will come out similar.

Back to the question anyway. Any way to improve the crank pulley to crank strenght.


I'm justifying all this by telling myself i'm helping the economy by spending


Anyone in the buisness who can get me a good deal on a rotrex, feel free to shout

Kristian

Give Chris a shout over at 1320, he knows the guy who imports Rotrex, he also built a few Civic Type R Rotrex charged when he worked over at TTS http://www.tts-performance.co.uk/tts.shtml I think they are listed as the UK importers but think Chris can still get cheaper direct, TTS are not far from where I live, but no longer have a r/r as Chris took his when he left.

I have seen Rotrex fitted to Harley Davidson on Chris' r/r and as its not like the Rootes type chargers and works more like a belt driven turbo doesn't have the same load bearing criteria, plus packaged much better, though Chris is the man to talk to.

Sounds like a nice project.

We have a MLS turbo gasket sitting in garage, its 5 layers of steel rather than 2 (or is it 3??) of N/A gasket, so even fitting that would bring down compression ratio.

Ah, I know TTS are the only authorized distributor in the uk, and they have been less than forthcoming with prices. Seems like they prefer to install the kits they make, and not supply for the DIY'er. I shall ring chris in the week and have a chat.

I think it will be quite a tidy setup. I prefer the relative simplicity and lower temps of a s'charger, and the rotrex, on paper, looks a fantastic bit of kit! Small, efficient, simple seperate oil loop, long service intervals....but price is a fair bit.

Going s'charger route means no changes to the current setup at all really though, exhaust, inlet, injectors (hopefully) can all remain the same.....just some enigne and gasket mods.

I may try and get a cheap cinq or whatever to run about for a few months to do a propper job.

I was suprred on by the TG essesse 500 review. I think i can get a faster 0-60 and a lot more fun for far less money

Its just the pulley concern i have, i think the rest can stand up to a lot.

I may get a 1108 crap crank and pulley, and see if they can be, drilled on one end, tapped on the other, and have a nice dowel put in tht may actually weaken things further though lol.

Kristian

dude, i have two 1108 engines going for scrap, also the crank out of the 1242 16v is on the floor

how about a larger/multiple keys

Now that would need some one with a milling machine and a slotter. Sadly i have no experiance on our slotting machine(infact we've never even had it running)

Made plenty of keys tho

I think Aaron's probably right on the Rotrex putting less strain on the crank pulley. And my guess is something probably went pear shaped elsewhere in the chain to cause the pulley to slip.

BUT, the issue isn't the key itself (which is there just to locate), but the interface between the crank and pulley. If that gets too big a load put on it, it'll simply strip the key clean off. You can do this by hand -- as I did when pulling the head off Emma's engine -- if you just slacken the crank bolt off and then attempt to undo the cam pulley belt with the crank locked at the flywheel. Obviously with a steel key (or two) that will be harder to do, but it will still happen.

The trick is in the amount of torque the interface between the crank itself and the pulley will take before it slips and the obvious solution is to increase the clamping force between the surfaces. Easy mode of attack here is simply to have the end of the crank drilled out and tapped to take a bigger bolt (I think the existing one is 10mm, 12mm should make a lot of difference). And use a super tough locktite!

Talk to Chris. The other people to talk to are Ferriday, who are now offering combustion chamber re-machining (that's what I now intend to do with Blue). It's cheaper than forged pistions and a better engineering solution than thicker gaskets/decomp plates. May well be that the CC shape can be improved in the process.