Kraftwerks Supercharger Owners Thread

[FreshFRS]

Originally Posted by Acree

I'd like some clarification here. You said that was "the" point, as in there were no other reasons for not running a single belt for the entire system.

So essentially, the system was designed in anticipation of failure?

The short answer is a little more complicated than that but: yes. @captain_jack

i would say the design is more focused on reliability in the event of a belt failure or bearing failure. With a divorced belt, none of your other accessories are affected by a belt or idler or supercharger failure, ensuring that you could pull over remove the supercharger belt and continue driving to the nearest place to have in fixed,(though the tune would be super rich) but without the chance of running with no belt at all which would be much more trouble, (IE no water pump or alternator.) this design leaves the factory serpentine belt stock and thus under only as much load as a stock car lessening the possibility of failure.

TL;DR IMO this would be the setup i would choose (if not turbo) for HPDE or Tracking, a few more bearings (failure points) but one major upside. if something is to go wrong with the divorced belt system its going to slow the car down but not cripple it.

[Acree]

In all honesty, my question was more of a "bait" question for @KraftWerks because I thought it was a poor statement from a marketing standpoint.

But thanks for all the responses.

[captain_jack]

Well then how bout you go troll somewhere else then. We don't need silly drama here.

may the schwartz be with you....

[KraftWerks]

Originally Posted by post_break

Lol freaked me out. I was like WHAT IS THAT I DONT HAVE THAT lol.

Time to bolt the pulley system up and see how she fits with the oil cooler.

Nothing to worry about! The OEM one is used on the FRS/BRZ kit.

[Acree]

Originally Posted by captain_jack

Well then how bout you go troll somewhere else then. We don't need silly drama here.

may the schwartz be with you....

Literally not a troll. My comment had a purpose. Thanks tho.

[captain_jack]

@KraftWerks did Joe get my message about sending the blower pulley as well as bolts. I would need them as I sent mine with blower being it was damaged as well. He also said that the cogged idler pulleys would be shipped as well. Can you confirm this for me please?

may the schwartz be with you....

[KraftWerks]

Originally Posted by Acree

In all honesty, my question was more of a "bait" question for @KraftWerks because I thought it was a poor statement from a marketing standpoint.

But thanks for all the responses.

A "bait" question? "Poor marketing"? The fact is that we at Kraftwerks are actually car people too, not a marketing firm looking to take advantage of the community with pretty words and smoke and mirrors. No, that is not the ONLY purpose of the divorced belt system. The funny thing is, if we didn't do such a thing a "con" of the kit would be that the belt system wasn't "thought out well enough" and that we "should have taken the time to engineer a divorced belt system"... The question you should be asking is "what will people with OTHER kits do if/when there was a belt failure?" We know Kraftwerks kit owners will be able to make it home or to a safe place off the road... can't say the same for the others.

[zoth]

Originally Posted by KraftWerks

A "bait" question? "Poor marketing"? The fact is that we at Kraftwerks are actually car people too, not a marketing firm looking to take advantage of the community with pretty words and smoke and mirrors. No, that is not the ONLY purpose of the divorced belt system. The funny thing is, if we didn't do such a thing a "con" of the kit would be that the belt system wasn't "thought out well enough" and that we "should have taken the time to engineer a divorced belt system"... The question you should be asking is "what will people with OTHER kits do if/when there was a belt failure?" We know Kraftwerks kit owners will be able to make it home or to a safe place off the road... can't say the same for the others.

[gmsii]

Originally Posted by Acree

I'd like some clarification here. You said that was "the" point, as in there were no other reasons for not running a single belt for the entire system.

So essentially, the system was designed in anticipation of failure?

lets take your 'bait' and address it from a design perspective

First of all, we try to use the independent cogged drive (whenever possible) for the following reasons:

1) The independent drive is more reliable than a shared drive set-up:
Adding accessories to the factory belt line creates additional load on the belt as well as additional load on existing accessories. The belt is naturally going to see more load (tension) when the additional resistance that comes from turning the blower is introduced. Furthermore, often times in order to avoid belt slip, there must be even more tension introduced into the system (via the tensioner) to handle the increased loads and decreased mechanical advantage caused smaller diameter supercharger pulleys. If there is inadequate tension, the belt may slip; if the belt slips, it will heat up and its life will be reduced. With increased tension, we find that the water pump is often times the weak link (pulley and/or bearing failures). Furthermore, the additional idler pulleys and tensioners needed with supercharging systems introduce additional possible points of failure into the system. For example, Vortech kits were said to have experienced some belt breakage problems due to bearing failures of idler pulleys; they said it was because of counterfeit bearings making their way into the supply chain which is very possible and no fault of Vortech, but it just goes to show that sometimes its hard to anticipate why and how the system might fail. So the bottom line is that the independent drive system removes the possibility of the factory belt failures, pulley failures, or bearing failures.

2) If by chance the supercharger drive belt breaks, you won’t be left stranded with the independent drive system. Not the case with a shared drive system.

3) The independent drive allows us to run a cogged belt. The cogged belt does not slip, and requires little tension which results in less load on the supercharger nose bearing. Contrary to popular belief, the cogged system is NOT noisy (when run with toothed idlers). With the independent cog drive we can run higher supercharger loads. In general, the bigger the supercharger and the smaller the supercharger pulley, the more belt ‘grip’ is required. With a serpentine belt, the belt grip is achieve through A)width of belt (ie number of ribs) B)amount of wrap around the pulley and C) amount of tension. With a shared system you cannot increase belt width; however many ribs the factory belt is, that’s what your are limited to. Though a well designed supercharger system will always optimize the amount of ‘wrap’, often times that is still not enough and requires additional tension. Once again more tension equals less reliability. And often times even when more tension is introduced, it still not enough to prevent slip when the blower pulley is small (less mechanical advantage) and the blower is being spun harder (more load) and as a result performance and belt reliability are compromised. Unlike a serpentine belt, a cogged drive has positive engagement and does not rely on belt friction or tension like a serpentine drive. While a serpentine system likes at least 180 degrees of wrap on the supercharger pulley with a minimum of 114Nm tension, in the most extreme cases a cog drive would only need 70 wrap at 26Nm tension; so ¼ of the tension. In the case of Rotrex based systems, it is our belief that any system with shared serpentine drive would not have optimal reliability or performance when trying to run the bigger C38 line of blowers if using high-tension 6-ribbed belts rather than the 8-ribbed belt recommended by Rotrex.

4) The independent drive system gave us more flexibility in terms of blower placement and blower selection. Because of the independent drive we were able to offset the placement of the blower to give us a straight shot into the cold air cavity inside the front bumper cover and in front of the radiator. At the bare minimum the air in this region of the bumper is atleast 10º-15ºF degrees cooler than inside the engine compartment behind the radiator. As a result we are seeing intake airtemps at the throttle body of only 10º-15ºF above ambient air temp. Another advantage of the offset placement is that it allows for a nice clean straight shot from the charged 3” intake piping to the throttle body. No kink or hump is needed in the tubing just before the throttle body because there are no belts or pulleys that need to be cleared. Furthermore, the offset location and cogged drive allows us to easily swap the C30 blower for the C38 blower. Other Rotrex based systems utilizing a shared belt drive are limited to really only one location making the upgrade from C30 to C38 problematic (ie insufficient hood clearance, insufficient belt tension, insufficient belt width).

Hope this post sheds a little more light as to why we believe the independent cog drive to be the better solution over shared belt drive set-ups on the BRZ/FRS platform.

[Acree]

Awesome information.

[post_break]

Still waiting on those cogged pulleys that were mailed out last friday. Also, I'm installing this kit next saturday.

Would anyone who has installed this kit be willing to be "on call" with a cell phone for any questions I might have should I run into a show stopper? I'd really appreciate it but I understand if no one wants to get a call on a saturday along the lines of "I'm totally stumped on page 5".

[captain_jack]

Originally Posted by post_break

Still waiting on those cogged pulleys that were mailed out last friday. Also, I'm installing this kit next saturday.

Would anyone who has installed this kit be willing to be "on call" with a cell phone for any questions I might have should I run into a show stopper? I'd really appreciate it but I understand if no one wants to get a call on a saturday along the lines of "I'm totally stumped on page 5".

I'm available. Wife is hosting a scentsy party so I will be doing my own thing anyways.I'll pm you my number

may the schwartz be with you....

[digital_assassin]

@post_break - PM'd you my number. Give me a call if needed, I'd gladly help. Also be sure to read the first few pages of this thread which will identify any of the issues I had and Cobrabyte had a early kit to so there may be some of the same issues.

[post_break]

Thanks for all the help guys, I'm so pumped yet nervous about this thing. Here's to hoping I don't have to make a dreaded "Help I'm stuck" phone call, but I'm really glad you guys will be there to field the call should that happen.