Kenne Bell Superchargers

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17 August 2007
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Location
Central FL
I was browsing the Kenne Bell website today and was reading about Kenne Bell's LC (Liquid Cooled) Superchargers.

LC lowers air and oil temps and allows the supercharger to develop more boost and rev higher without rotor scuffing. Anything that cools oil increases the life of the gears, bearings and supercharger seals. And the benefits of LC and SPE are incrementally greater as boost and supercharger RPM rise.
LCnew.jpg


Notice the water inlets on the front of the SC?

I am just curious if anyone here has ever tried one of these, vs an intercooler.

And, why hasn't SOS introduced this as an option for their Kenne Bell Units?
 
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Wow that is really cool, I will need to do some research on what different dimensions they come in. The down side is you would be limited to 1400hp which is a shame.
 
That is pretty neat
 
14 psi is a little too high for the nsx -- though they don't say how big it is.
 
Although this may have some benefit to the supercharger itself, the change in AIT from this will be minimal. This is not a substitute in any way for an intercooler.
 
I only posted that particular picture and info to show the LC SC...not to suggest a 2.8L SC for the NSX(Which is what the picture shows) but rather wonder if an LC Supercharger would work in the NSX.
 
I emailed KB and they said they only sell their SCers in kit form. That does not make sense as they have part numbers for the 2.8 and 3.6 Liquid Cooled units on their pricing sheet. I am trying to get some clarification.
 
The liquid cooled housing is for the larger superchargers, 2.8L and above. It is not required for the smaller superchargers. By the way, this is not the same as a charge cooler, it has a minimal impact on the charge temperature. The large superchargers use it to cut down on screw and gear case temperatures that the large unit produces.
 
The ability for heat to transfer (i.e heat transfer coefficient) between the outer wall of the SC's alum case onto the high velocity compressed air passing around it is VERY VERY small even if the case was ice cold. The surface area is just not that big. That's why radiators/heat_exchangers have a lot of surface area (think about all the fins) just to suck out the heat from the charged air.

This will have very little impact on actually cooling charged air. You want meth/water and/or an intercooler.

Makes for a gimicky sales pitch though and will likely work as expected in extending the life of oil affected components.
 
The liquid cooled housing is for the larger superchargers, 2.8L and above. It is not required for the smaller superchargers. By the way, this is not the same as a charge cooler, it has a minimal impact on the charge temperature. The large superchargers use it to cut down on screw and gear case temperatures that the large unit produces.

Ahhh...thanks Chris.
 
Does anyone realize that internal combustion sucks? All that heat is energy you wasted. After 100 years we have an engine that is less than 50% effIcient. With a turbo and cooling and oil and thousands of parts we have kind of a piece of junk from an engineering standpoint that's like 44% efficient.

Compare that to an electrical motor at 90%. Supercharger this turbocharge that intercool this, oil that, fan this, gear that. WTF... If we had spent 100 years on electric motors they'd be the size of a watermelon making 100 HP with none of this crap. No transmissions, radiators, oil changes, exhaust systems, emissions equipment. They just don't sound as cool. Yet...
 
A local machine shop and blower specialist has been adding coolers to the blower snout for a while now, he is very good at what he does. They specialize in the Eaton blowers but they work on all of them, if you every need work done on a blower this might be your guy.

http://www.stiegemeier.com/vcoolers.html

Keep in mind that all of these system ussually make use of the WTA cooler from the intercooler to draw heat from the blower gear drive. This will need to be factored into the heat load for the WTA heat exchanger or you will actually raise your IAT's as the system heat soaks from the added heat load.

Dave
 
Does anyone realize that internal combustion sucks? All that heat is energy you wasted. After 100 years we have an engine that is less than 50% effIcient. With a turbo and cooling and oil and thousands of parts we have kind of a piece of junk from an engineering standpoint that's like 44% efficient.

Compare that to an electrical motor at 90%. Supercharger this turbocharge that intercool this, oil that, fan this, gear that. WTF... If we had spent 100 years on electric motors they'd be the size of a watermelon making 100 HP with none of this crap. No transmissions, radiators, oil changes, exhaust systems, emissions equipment. They just don't sound as cool. Yet...

you are very right turbo2go.

This is why the entire R/C model industry has gone from nitro(gas) engines to brushless motor and lithium battery technology.

Brushless electric motors are much simpler, run at lower temperatures, are not messy and have no maintence. They also provide maximum torque at all rpm's and can incleace power by simply increasing voltage and amperage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFw6H3xhVVI
 
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