I wanted to share some fun stuff surrounding my Kraftwerks supercharger kit.


Introduction:

Got car, noticed it was leaking oil from the front "somewhere". Looked like a loose oil filter or something akin to that. Didn't think much of it. Started driving car, heard noises coming from the setup that it shouldn't make. Noticed pulleys were loose, and that there was just.. Odd stuff in the setup.

Took it to Science of Speed to "look it over"

Brace for awesome:


Here you can see the pulleys look a little rough and that there has been belts that have broken here in the past.




Can you tell which pulley has been replaced recently? Notice the screw sticking out of one of the pulleys? apparently there is supposed to be a shield there. The bearings were so worn it was amazing that they even turned at all.




Here comes the meat and potatoes;

Clearly more than just "an oil filter" leak. Note the non-OEM oil filter. Clearly the head is leaking for some reason. Those mounting bosses look fine right?


Check that out! They go on top of the head right? Why the hell would you mount the damn supercharger to the FRONT of the head with that huge heavy blower and bracket acting as a huge pivot point that pulls right against the head? Seriously?


What about the other bracket up top, that's fine right?


Yes that's correct. The force travels along that bend at a hard 90 degree angle and is expected not to break.


Now I these are the original version 1 brackets of the v2 supercharger but seriously? I called up Kraftwerks and told them my situation and they decided to go the mile and sell me new pulleys and brackets "at cost". My total was $220 and I got it in. I don't have pictures but will take them, but they decided to send me used, pitted nasty condition brackets. That's what I paid "cost" for. The cost of fixing the head? $600 for SOS to remove and replace, $75 for my fab guy to weld the piss out of it, $75 for a machine shop to deck it $150ish to get new seals and vac test to see if I needed a valve job (don't know yet). Kraftwerks reply to all that? We only cover parts on the kit to the original owner. Ok. At least I got cost.

Quite frankly, here's my thoughts on the kit:

The intercooler piping routing is terrible. In the interest of cost and doing as little modification to the chassis as possible they use an excessive quantity of hard 180 degree bends and a lot of silicone couplers. Fixing this I think would net quite a bit more power. I don't knock them THAT much on it because it's to be as "easy" to install as possible without relocating the coolant overflow tank, and having to cut the chassis.

The intercooler itself is trash ebay grade stuff. Take a look at the fin spacing on it vs a garret core




The recirc valve is stupid. Why do they put one on here? Just to be cheap and not put a TIAL valve on here? It just blows hot air right back into the intake and cause IATs to rise as air cycles through.

The mounting plate is more attractive than the TT-S kit. The original mounting points are stupid, the new ones are industry accepted but if I keep the kit I might add more.

The C38-81 is an impressive blower. I've been in Vortec powered S2000s and some Paxton setups and have been a very big letdown. This feels amazing even though the car was running rich.

I'm going to see what the kit makes after everything is tuned and fixed before I make any decisions regarding keeping the KW kit. If I do it's getting a garret core, or a bell AWI core, tial BOV, properly routed and sized piping, and a C38-91 because I can't leave shit alone. If not that a EFR 7163 .80 AR T4 TS with a quickspool valve.

I would also like to say that SOS is an absolutely stand up group and I'd like to thank them for helping me out to sort through this fun mess. They have been more than cooperative with me and my particular brand of scope creep. This was just supposed to be a "check the car over" hour inspection and turned into this mess. Hopefully I'll be back on the road next week, get tuned and go from there.

Stay posted for dyno results sometime next week.

 

All I can say is WOW! What a mess!

 

Might want to post this in the Forced Induction section as well to inform them. There are lots of eyes on the new Kraftwerks kit at the moment and waiting for the next group by myself, hate seeing posts like these

 

This is odd to hear although I never followed this second version of KW system. (are you saying this is version one of the second system?) From initial impressions back when it came out, I thought this was an improved layout but apparently not. Why did it mess up the block? I don't see anything prying the head apart. Was the belt too tight for the system? AFIK there was an SOS setup (I want to say Vortech based) that ran a similar setup in the front like that but maybe had different mounting points.

Wasn't there someone in Tucson who got this not too long ago and was showing us cool dyno charts? They sounded happy.

I have the very first KW system with the smaller Rotrex blower and it's always been good to me. I think your new blower goes up in the 420hp range but I have not driven it to see how it feels. I've always loved the linear power delivery, as if it was an NA car. So far I haven't seen anything come close to that. I do have to say that most bearings and the bov on mine were upgraded on day one. I've ran many track days and it has never overheated, even before I upgraded the radiator.

I think all these companies have to cut corners somewhere to make these bolt-on kits competitive and easy to install by non-engineers. It's up to the user to make them ideal. Unfortunately there is a disconnect on the assumption drastic boost kits will provide OEM reliability without constant supervision. SOS is the only one who goes the extra mile on their kits and support.

 

So I'll take some pictures of the old bracket, but basically the original mounting hardware of the v2 kit attached to those 2 front mounting points of the cylinder head, and if you look at any installed pictures is roughly even with the lowest part of the supercharger itself. The problem with this is the whole thing acts like a huge pivot, a lever that wedges a lot of force against the top of those mounting points. The other mounting bracket goes off to the side where the intake manifold is also pretty weak.


I think that with these new brackets it shouldn't be an issue anymore and it obviously does not attach to those points on the cylinder head. The belt was not too tight. Take a close look at the head again and try and see how the supercharger with this bracket would act like a gigantic lever that was prying at it at a 90 degree angle.


I like the concept of the SOS kit, they do an AWIC setup and integrate with the factory oil system. I didn't care for how the paxton blowers felt as much, but I haven't been in a car with the heavily modified SOS kits either.

 

Here's my results;



Here's the list of mods;
Stock exhaust with 44mm UK exhaust mod
70mm TP
ASP Header, ceramic coated
KW kit v2.2 with reg pulley, the stock exhaust did indeed raise boost to 13.5psi, but it raises boost because of the increased cylinder pressure, not because it makes more power 90mm on the charger and 128mm on the crank
1000cc grams injectors
320lph grams pump
BC Stage 2 cams with I think supertech springs
Skunk 2 TB (No I didn't install this)
Gigantic ass 55mm PWR Radiator with integrated oil cooler that overheats with my
Ptuning 14" SPAL fan (Getting replaced with moar fan)
.005 off the head from machining (not even a CC off of each dome, but it's there)
ARP Head studs
OEM Head gasket
Stock TCT, getting replaced due to noise
Hondata Flashpro
Some unknown clutch and flywheel combo that is terrible


all in all, meh. I can't decide if its 7163 or 8374 time.

 

not knowing what you paid for the car, the miles etc, it's hard to say anything. YOu bought a highly modified used car without (apparantly) having a PPI. The discount you got over the price of buying the equipment new is mitigated by the risk of buying used. If the kraftwerks stuff is reputed to be questionable (I know nothing about it... i only researched SOS before jumping into the FI scene) then a PPI is even more important. So, sounds like you got some aggravtion and ended up paying under a grand in extras. Is the car still worth what you paid?

 

Yes it still is. If I parted it out right now and walked away from it I'd stand to make a few k. The issues with the kw kit primarily comes from their lackluster engineering capabilities. Even their newest brackets are... Questionable.

Honestly I really like the car it's a ton of fun and I'm really happy to have another s2000. I think with a turbo setup the car should be more fun. The linear powerband is nice but the lack of midrange is noticeable. I probably would keep the kit if it had a c38-91 since it appears to have a bit more midrange. I have a hard time choosing between a 7163 and a 8374. One should spool sub 4k and the other likely wouldn't spool until 4300 if not later. Either way you slice it, there would be more power lower in the powerband than what's there now.

 

I thought Kraftwerks v2 had the pulley problem figured out. numbers look good.

 

Glad you're still (reasonably) satisfied.... Buying used is a risk...I've always done it.... Been stung...still do it haha..but the story of my shitbox pickup truck could run a full season in t.v...