Wondering if anyone has done an e-shaft driven centrifugal supercharger as I'm interested in the idea (like a crankdrive procharger). I don't have an RX-8 but I may buy one in a couple of years, I'm just putting my ideas out for debate. Yes I know turbos are more efficient, but I believe better reliability can be obtained with a centrifugal supercharger. I also like the idea of a linear power band. Most are driven off a belt, which puts strain on the front stat bearing but with a crank driven SC it's a non issue (in my mind). Also with turbo setups if mounted low heat build up could be an issue, affecting side seal life in my mind but this is probably a non issue with the right cooling, tuning, maybe coatings etc. With an SC you can evacuate all that heat since you don't have any restriction there, helping engine life (imo). Was looking into Rotrex centrifugal SC's but don't know how to read the compressor maps yet.

The goal would be 250WHP+, if possible 300WHP tops with an engine that doesn't need to be rebuilt every 10K miles while still holding power at 8000rpm+. In my mind some things that would definitely need to be done is rebuilding the engine, blueprinting, and balancing. Maybe some exhaust port polishing/very very slight porting to help flow a little since I know porting the exhaust is a dangerous game. Light clean up on the intake manifold possibly, maybe an air to water IC to minimize intake piping (another weird idea). SOHN adapter if possible w/ premix, fully adjustable ECU, water/meth injection and lots more. Anyone think it's possible? N/A power from what I've read caps out around 220WHP and that's the best of the best. Never driven an 8 but if it could squeeze out a little more power I feel like it'd be perfect. Looking forward to hearing from y'all.

 

There have been a few belt driven SCs over the years. Those have worked fine up to around the 300whp level but low down power is disappointing and they never really took off because of that, IMO. Eshaft drive creates another set of issues that no-one to date (AFAIK) has attempted to overcome.
Off the top of my head :
*No room in front of the eshaft due to x-member and power steering.
*how to do the timing wheel
*How to deal with the loads on main bearing and torrington bearing.

If you have all that figured out .... be the first

 

Not worried about the first 2 I'm sure those can be figured out quite easily, but wouldn't the loads on the main and Torrington bearing be minimal since its driven off the crank? Certainly less than a typical belt driven sc right?

 

I'm no expert. You might be correct on that - or there might be detrimental loads put on the bearings in other ways.