High pressure turbo, part II

[R3T]

I keep posting mostly as a therapy while waiting. If you keep reading, don’t hold me responsible for wasting your time!

Most of my time so far has been spent on trying to find someone that would be willing to transport the beast the 1000 km up to the tuning company. No forwarder would even think about transporting a bike. The risk for it to be stolen or damaged is far too high. To ride up, fly back and up again to ride back seamed a bit too much. Finally I got in contact with a car racing team that could help me. Only thing is that I have to wait until Sunday 28/5. The following week has only 3 workdays here so in all it will set back the schedule by 1 week.

We have had a lot of discussions about where to place the charger. Turbo Connection uses an odd charger with self-lubrication and can therefore place it low behind the engine. “Normal” chargers need an oil-return pump if placed too low. Finally we had to give up, use the same location, and add a return oil-pump to the overall price. I have tried my best to keep the cost down as much as possible. The sad truth is that I will use my pension fond to finance the project. It kind of makes sense in a sick way.

The location of the intercooler and oil-cooler are not fixed yet. Need to figure that out as we go along.

One thing I have been a bit afraid of is a “turbo-kick-effect”. With so much power it could be a nightmare on the road with a sudden effect increase. The solution will be a High/Low switch on the handlebar that will change between 2 pre-set programs and where “low” will limit the effect to 200-230 hp/ 300-350Nm, and keep the “kick” to a minimum. This will enable a maximum setting on “High” regardless of driveability and give access to everything the charger can pump any time it’s “needed”.

To start with, the clutch will only be modified with stronger springs. This will hardly be sufficient, but it will have to do for now. As long as it can take the dyno, there will be time to fix this later.

We also talked about adding one of the long forgotten water injectors just for fun, but decided that it would be more funny then fun.

The rear tire problem has also been on my mind a bit. Without talking to anyone, I have been thinking of using a car tire. There is just no way the standard Metzler would be able to handle the beating. To my surprise I found a lot of useful information on this board. I’m very grateful to all of you who gave your input. I feel much more secure of my decision to join “The Dark Side”, although I’m sure that will course more debate among my friends then anything else. Think it’s illegal here too, but then again, so will the rest of the bike be anyway.

I must admit that I am getting to be a bit worried about it all lately. Once I had an old Porche 928 with a 4,5 litre V8 with 300hp, and it start to sink in that the Rocket will out power it both on effect and torque. That was a heavy beast with 2 very wide tires (285) and it had no problems to create white smoke in third gear. It’s a bit scary. Love the feeling!

To be continued…

[IceT]

Keep it coming R3 man.....def go the car tyre, your also going to be over powering your brakes of course but sh*t happens, do you have any plans to reenforce the motor to stop it self exploding at revs?

[Toystoretom]

This sounds like a great project!

How are you going to get the "High/Low" programs to work? Are you using a different ECM other that the Rocket's own unit or are you going to try and fool some sensor into doing your own bidding?

However you are doing things... keep up the good work, this project sounds like fun!

Tomo

[DYEHARD]

I highly recommend the Areocharger. I have had them on different bikes and have had no problem with them. They come with a high/low switch which restricts boost on low. They are a sealed unit with very little lag. I tried to get one for my rockett but they said it would be at least until Aug.

Good luck!

[Rocket-tre]

Were are the tuners? At Esrange? (sweden´s equivalent to Cape Canaveral rocket- base...)

:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

[R3T]

IceT:

All engines can take a lot more power then they are built for. 3 times the hp is normally no problem, at least in the short run. The tuning company has made a 685 hp GSXR 1300 and it survived (with a few mods) and has a kit out for +400hp. One positive thing about turbos is that the power comes without having to increase the maximum rpm. Since an engine is basically an “air heater”, more power means more heat. This can be a problem for the valves mainly. In this case, the engine sits in a bike frame, and that will save it from working on maximum power for any longer periods. All bikes acceleration is limited to the point where it starts to wheelie. Once the front wheel is in the air, there is no way to make it go faster without a wheelie bar. I expect it to be able to lift the front wheel at any speeds at any gear, and therefore will I not be able to use all power more then for very short periods of time. This will save the engine. The dyno test will be the biggest challenge.

The weakest link is probably the transmission. The killer here will be the “metal twisting” torque. I have seen the inside of the gearbox and all I can say is that it’s huge and looks like it would do the job. Anything behind the gearbox is where I expect problems first. I heard about bearings that have to be changed on bikes with high mileage. That could indicate a weak spot.

There have been low-pressure turbo bikes out for some time now, and I have not heard of any major problems so far. It would be very interesting if someone knew of anything and let me know.

Then again –***** do happens!

Toystoretom:

There will be a separate system for the turbo that will only use a copy of the impulse from the original fuel system. This is where the Hi/Low programs will be. I don’t expect to do anything within the original program.

DYEHARD:

Aerocharger looks very nice. I did not choose the turbo myself, but relied on the experience of others.

Rocket-Tre:

Hehe, well it’s not far away actually.
Hmm. Wonder what Esrange could do to a Rocket.