Harv's Norman supercharger thread

[Harv]

The turnbuckle is mounted to the engine block, preventing the supercharger, generator or idler pulley from slipping back out of tension. By twisting the turnbuckle it is also then easy to tighten the belt without using long bars to swing the supercharger, generator or idler pulley.

Plastic is generally not suitable for supercharger pulleys, though is sometimes used for idler pulleys. As a general guide, plastic is suitable to be used provided the idler is employed on the slack side of the drive loop (not the drive side), and when the belt wrap is at most 90º. Idlers operating on the drive side of the belt or with more than 90º of belt wrap should be made from either aluminum or steel. Some idler pulleys have a shoulder (or flange), such as the Kilkenny Castings KC160 pulley shown below.

[Harv]

The flange can help keep the belt aligned, and whilst no replacement for good setup alignment can help with minor belt misalignment. Some flat pulleys are also crowned, where the surface is gently curved at the top.



In theory this can help centre the belt (provided the initial alignment is perfect), as can be seen in the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6sM0Qjumyro. However, practical terms for a home-built system is probably neither a hindrance nor help.

Idler pulleys are available from SuperCheap Auto as per the table below:

[Harv]

A single 11A vee-belt has a width of 11.2mm, and would run readily on any of above pulleys. A twin 11A pulley has an effective belt width around 25mm, which would rule out the use of the Gates TrueAlign 38015. The pulley that stands out though is the Kilkenny Castings KC160, pictured above. It has a width suitable to run either single or (most) twin vee-belts. The chromed steel look is also period correct. The pulley runs a SKF 6203-2RSH bearing, which is rated to 12,000rpm. The pulley internal bore is 17mm, suitable for an M17 bolt to be used as a shaft. M17 bolts are somewhat unusual, but have a shank diameter around 16.974mm. An alternative is to use a ¾” bolt (19.05mm) and turn the shank down to just under 17mm.

One issue that needs to be checked is the speed that the idler pulley operates at. The large diameter of the crank and supercharger pulleys will generally mean that bearings will tolerate the speeds involved. The smaller idler pulley however can often spin much faster. The pulley speed is proportional to the diameter of the idler pulley i.e.:

Idler pulley speed = crank pulley speed x (crank pulley diameter/idler pulley diameter)

As an example, the Gates DriveAlign pulleys noted above have a nominal speed limit of 8,000rpm. If we assume the crankshaft pulley is approximately the same diameter as the grey motor harmonic balancer (45/8”, or 117mm), and that we are running at a grey motor typical rpm redline of 4500rpm, then

8000 = 4500 x (117/idler pulley diameter)

, and we see we can go down to an idler pulley as small as 66mm diameter without any speed concerns (i.e. each of the above pulleys would be OK). Checking the Kilkenny Castings KC160,

Idler pulley speed = 4500 x (117/82) = 6420rpm

This is well below the 12,000rpm pulley speed limit, again making the Kilkenny Castings KC160 an ideal candidate.

Regards,
Harv (deputy apprentice Norman supercharger fiddler).

[Harv]

The missing images from the frowning face above (damned if I know why they would not post):

[Harv]

Cheers,
Harv

[FCRB26]

Hope you dont mind me posting pics Harv

But shes all done hopefully.
I sat it on a stock grey with stock manifold.
The top of the bit that bolts to a stock intake needs a smidgen of a grind other that it looks good.

Fingers crossed.
(yes its heavy )







Now heres a  quizz what is wrong with the last picture 

[KFH]

Again nice work Pete.  Not clever enough to pick the "problem" in the last picture.

Keith

[weddo]

Its a bit burnt Pete

regards

Weddo

[FCRB26]

Your onto it weddo 

[Rod]

Superchared.

[Harv]

Very, very nice Pete - and thanks.

Prey it ain't superchared...or even well done. We'll be running as rich as buggery on the 2" SU until it's sorted.

Cheers,
Harv (super excited.... looking forward to a test run).

[Harv]

Supercharged by Norman.
Manifolded by Malaby.
Ressurected by Harv.





Just a tease for now - more notes on the manifold etc once the allignment is sorted out... just sitting there very rough for now.

Cheers,
Harv (deputy apprentice Norman supercharger fiddler).

[Old_Mt_Isa_Boy]

Looks the part Harv. If they are any indicator its going to move along.

Regards

Wayne b

[Professor Grey]

Won't that knot in the rope make big vibration problems?
 
Gaz

[Harv]

Won't that knot in the rope make big vibration problems?
 
Gaz

Less problems than I am going to find at Christmas, when the tent rope is 10' too short 

Cheers,
Harv

[Harv]

Ladies and gentlemen,

As noted in some of my earlier posts, I am pulling together a Guide for Norman superchargers. Whilst the Guide has a strong technical content, it will also contain a number of Norman supercharger-related anecdotes. I have previously posted two of the stories – one on a twin-supercharged Elfin land speed record holder, and one on speedway Normans. I have also been pulling together an anecdote on Eldred Norman, which I will now share below. Any errors in this anecdote are mine. Apologies in advance if I have failed to acknowledge the owner of any of the information – happy to correct (or delete) as requested. So here goes – hopefully an interesting story. Please bear in mind that I have written it for an audience interested in early Holdens, and who (like me) may not know what a monoposto is (I learn something every day).

1. Foreword, Forewarning and Thanks.
In the anecdote below I will try to paint a picture of an Australian character who was larger than life – Eldred Norman. I will focus on Eldred’s mechanical exploits, but also try to paint a picture of the times that he lived in and the people surrounding him. I will give some of the history of the vehicles Eldred campaigned, both prior to and following his ownership. I apologise in advance in that it can be hard to follow a timeline in the material below… Eldred would be racing a new vehicle while people were still campaigning his old one. I have roughly broken the story up by the vehicles he drove to try to help this.

I owe a huge thanks to Ray Bell for allowing me to use the information in the article he wrote about Eldred for Motor Racing Australia magazine (http://www.motorracingmag.com.au/). I have drawn quite a few facts from the article, and in some cases have directly quoted it, particularly where Ray has captured the spirit of the issue far better than I could.

[Harv]

Having said that, the information noted below is based on a variety of material, including that written by Jon Chittleborough in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, an obituary written by the late John Blanden, a collation of anecdotes drawn together by Ken Messenger for the Sporting Car Club of South Australia magazine in the early 1980’s, an article on the Zephyr Special written for the Australian Motor Sports Magazine of February 1960, and an article written by Ted Robinette for his Technical Workshop column in issue 258 of Australian Street Rodding magazine. I would like to particularly thank both Patrick Quinn from Vintage Racecar magazine (http://www.vintageracecar.com) for access to the article he wrote on the Zephyr Special for the February 2007 edition of the magazine (not to mention educating me on Valano Specials… but that’s another story).

I have also drawn material from a wide variety of online sources, with thanks to several forum members who have corrected my appalling knowledge of circuit racing. Eldred was a frequent occupier of column space in many newspapers, and in particular Adelaide’s Advertiser. The National Library of Australia online files recording this era are outstanding resources – see the image below of Eldred in his late 30’s perched in his Maserati, taken from an (Adelaide) The News article of September 1952.



The article celebrates Eldred winning the Sporting Car Club of South Australia’s Morgan Trophy, awarded by the Morgan Motor Co Ltd UK for the most successful (top aggregate points) in speed events (races and hillclimbs). Eldred would also win the R.J Kennedy Perpetual Trophy for the leading club competitor in motor sporting events in that year. I have also drawn material from With Casual Efficiency, written by Dennis Harrison. This book chronicles the history of the Sporting Car Club of South Australia, which awarded Eldred the two trophies above. A special thanks also to Terry Walker for his excellent online recording of Western Australian race history, to Graeme Snape for braving a cold shed to take measurements on the Zephyr, and to Toby Carboni for having the patience to talk me through some of the Double Eight’s history.

A word of warning regarding the information below, most notably the anecdotes. Eldred was a particular larrikin, and stories of his exploits are legend. As one commentator has posed:
“One of my favourite Eldred stories occurred when I was driving up to a Port Wakefield race meeting at a sedate 70 mph and being passed by a tow car and trailer complete with Eldred sitting nonchalantly on the trailer mudguard doing up the exhaust manifold nuts on his Maserati race car as they whizzed by.”
Many of the people who witnessed the events below have sadly passed away. It has also been nearly a century since Eldred was born. In the eighty years of time since Eldred starting making his story some of the anecdotes have “matured”. Caveat emptor.

[Harv]

2. Eldred’s History, and Family
Eldred De Bracton Norman was born on the ninth of January 1914 in Adelaide, South Australia. He was the second of six children of Australian-born parents William Ashley Norman, solicitor, and his wife Alma Janet, daughter of Daniel Matthews. Eldred’s father William dabbled on the sidelines of building caravans for sale and hire. Thomas Magarey, an Irish-born miller and pastoralist and Member of the South Australian House of Assembly and the South Australian Legislative Council was Eldred’s great-grandfather. Eldred’s brother, Murray, was later to be killed in a motorcycle accident, tempering Eldred’s passion for two wheeled machines. Eldred attended Scotch College Adelaide and studied law at the University of Adelaide for four years, driving a Bentley during his student days. His 1934 exam results for Psychology are still available from the online version of the Advertiser (Eldred passed with Credit). In 1938 Eldred set up an engineering workshop and motorcar-dealership in Halifax Street Adelaide. Rejected for military service in World War II because of asthma and flat feet, Eldred drove taxis, then began to make garden tools and to manufacture charcoal-burning gas producers to power vehicles. His Ace Gas Producer was unique in providing cockpit controlled lighting.

Eldred was to meet (and in May 1941 to marry) Nancy Fotheringham Cato, a 24-year-old cadet journalist working at Adelaide’s The News newspaper. Nancy was born in Glen Osmond in South Australia on the eleventh of March 1917, and was a fifth-generation Australian. She studied English Literature and Italian at the University of Adelaide, graduating in 1939, then completed a two-year course at the South Australian School of Arts. Nancy’s The News cadetship lasted from 1935 to 1941.
As noted in Ray’s article:
“They met one night when, at a gathering, Eldred was playing “Tell me Tonight” on the piano. Nancy had two suitors, one holding each hand, but the strikingly attractive young woman only had eyes for the pianist”.

[Harv]

The vehicle taken by Eldred and Nancy on their honeymoon was fitted with one of Eldred’s Ace Gas Producers. The couple invested £6 for charcoal for the journey, with Eldred stopping along the route to Queensland, axe in hand, to top up on charcoal from the bushfire stricken roadsides.  Eldred and Nancy had three children in the space of three years – Michael, William and Bronley (Mike, Bill and Bronnie). In filing out one of the children’s birth certificates, Eldred listed his occupation as “retired”, and his hair colour as “burnt umber”.

Bronley, pictured below with Eldred and Nancy, was born in 1943 and started writing while still in primary school.



She was educated at the Presbyterian Girls' College from 1949 to 1960, then trained at the Adelaide Kindergarten Training College from 1961 through 1963. She worked in kindergartens and nursery schools in Australia, England, the United States and Canada before deciding to leave teaching. She worked in the tourism industry for a while and lived at Tewantin, Noosa, working for Telstra and writing plays.  Bronley began writing seriously in 1980, mainly one-act plays. Several have been staged by Little Theatre groups. Bronley became a member of Playlab (one of the largest theatrical publishers in Australia and the only professional organisation that works across the lifecycle of play – from initial idea to the stage, and on to the page) in 1985. Bronley’s drama works include Cyclone Warning (1980), The Girl in Green (1983), Nineteen Eighty-Three (1984), Eliza Fraser (1986), The Hand of Fate (1987), Letting Go (1989), Travellers (1994), A Game of Chance (1994) and Jessie Who (1995). Bronley co-authored I remember when ... : a social history of the Nambour Manual Assistance Centre (1990).  Bronley’s work A Game of Chance also appears in the second volume of the anthology Noosa One-Act Winners (1994), which also contains her mother’s work Travellers Through the Night.

[Harv]

Bill Norman, pictured below, has followed a number of trades, including journalism (authoring for example the Motor Sport column in the Canberra Times in the late 1960’s), Sydney based manufacturing and farming.



Where Bronley followed her mother’s passion for literature, Bill inherited his father’s love of racing. Bill started racing at Mallala Race Circuit South Australia in a Standard 10 aged seventeen, winning his first race due to a handicapping mistake. He moved on to Steve Tillett's 1947 MGTC Special which had won the 1951 Australian Grand Prix on handicap. Bill took the MGTC to outright fastest position at the Canberra Sporting Hillclimb at Lakeview, Australian Capital Territory in 1965, running 22.1 seconds against a field of twenty-nine vehicles. Bill’s passion for racing has seen him own vehicles including a homemade Nissan Clubman TC2, a Mallock U2 powered by a supercharged Ford Cortina engine and a Reynard 92D Holden V6 F4000.

Mike Norman inherited his father’s pragmatic engineering skills. Having left home to go fishing, Mike later moved into an engineering role, operating Offroad Automatics Pty Ltd at Magowar Road in Girraween, Sydney. Whilst the business was involved in fitting automatic transmissions to Range Rovers, Mike also commenced manufacturing superchargers, as we will see below.