Flyin' Miata : The Übercharger

Status: Released.
Availability: The first kits will ship early September.
Fitment: 1.8 applications initially, but all Miatas eventually
Price: From $3465

Yes, FM is building a supercharger system. It's a twin-screw 1.2l Whipple mounted on a custom intake manifold. This design is more efficient than the popular Roots blowers used in the majority of Miata supercharger setups. The supercharger has been sized for lots of headroom and long life. Boost levels for "normal" Miatas will be similar to our turbo setups. It will be available for all Miatas.

Why a supercharger? Because they have very different power and torque characteristics to a turbo. Our turbo kits will, of course, continue to be developed. We're simply giving the Miata owner another option.

Progress:
August 13 , 2004: The Ubercharger has been released. It's taken a lot of careful work over the past few weeks, but we finally have this beast to the point where we're happy to put our name on it. Before this point it's been powerful and reasonably easy to live with - but we weren't satisfied. See the release page for the latest dyno results as well as a full technical specification. We'll be able to start shipping the first kits in the next three weeks or so as the last production pieces come in. The 1.6 versions are closer than you might think and they're the next step to work out. The engine management for the 1999-04 U3 version will hopefully be arriving at FM shortly so we can begin testing.

July 27, 2004: The stock engine is going into the car now. We've taken advantage of the engine removal to confirm all the detail parts we need for an installation - coolant line lengths, washers, bolts, etc - and to photograph the installation for our instructions.

July 23, 2004: We're going to pull the motor out of our prototype car for several reasons. The tired junkyard bottom end needs some rings and the car has a fairly good head on it. We'll put it back together with a stock head and pistons so that we can obtain some truly representative dyno numbers. We'll also photograph the Über installation process for the supercharger instructions.

July 21, 2004: The Über-Miata is doing very well these days. Extremely driveable. We're in the process of putting together the final parts listings and writing the instructions. Once we have the parts list, we'll be able to set the price. As we've always expected the top-end version will be almost exactly the same price as an FM II. Initially the 1994-97 cars will be available in high and low boost versions and a low boost version for the 1999-04 cars. We're working on the engine management to handle the high-boost 1999-04 kit and the first 1.6 manifolds are being made right now. We actually have a number of the parts for the 1.8 kits on the shelf already.

June 30, 2004: It looks like the junkyard block in the car was not a good one. It was a bit of a gamble and it didn't pay off. We're still working out details on the system though. There is absolutely no idle droop on the car at all thanks to some tuning and software tweaks. We've also gone to a different style of bypass which works better. One unfortunate piece of news - the ABS version of the Ubercharger is not compatible with our new extraction hood. The non-ABS version uses a different intake and it should be fine.

May 25, 2004: We're still working out little bugs and fine-tuning things like driveability and belt alignment. The car has sparked quite a debate in the FM offices due to the different power delivery compared to a turbo. It's not better or worse, just different. Everyone agrees that it would be devastating on the autocross course and it's very fun in the city. People seem to find many excuses to do U-turns for some reason...

May 20, 2004: The car is up and running. It's a very fun car with a solid rush of power. The intercooler appears to be doing an excellent job, with cruising intake temperatures of 35C (95F) with an ambient temperature of 29C (85F). That's lower than a stock Miata! We're just making some final changes to the hose setup and belt alignment. This means lots of test drives as we terrorize Grand Junction.

May 19, 2004: The blower has been installed on our 1995. We're tracing some unrelated wiring problems - the Mustang throttle body that was on the car until recently required some modifications - but once that's done we'll be able to get the car on the road.

May 4, 2004: Sorry, it's been a while since we had an update. We are trying to set a price, but we keep coming up with ways to bring the cost of the parts down. We've been examining everything from the cost of the supercharger itself to nuts and bolts. It's working - the kit will come in at almost exactly the same price as the FM II. We'll have the final price next week. The 1999 prototype has been having some unrelated wiring problems and we've been working on clearing that up, as well as getting ready to install the first production kit on our own 1995. First we have to finish testing some turbocharger parts on that car. Trust us, nobody wants this kit to be finished more than we do, but it needs to be finished to our satisfaction. It's been a long haul.

March 26, 2004: The Ubercharger hit the dyno again in Austin, down near sea level. The peak power was almost identical to what we measured here - but interestingly enough, the thicker air increased the efficiency of the supercharger so that it made more boost and a higher manifold pressure than would be expected simply from the higher ambient pressure. The datalog shows approximately 15.5 psi of boost over ambient as opposed to the 14.5 psi over ambient that we saw at 4700'. The car did have a new engine with lower compression and was running on lower octane fuel.

March 11, 2004: It's been a long week as we've been working on the prototype solidly. We managed to uncork a lot more boost by adding a plenum to the supercharger intake and addressed a lot of small problems with the prototype - some of which were unrelated to the supercharger system. The focus was on making good, consistent power and on driveability. Both were successful. We had the car on the dyno for several days and managed to get some numbers. More importantly is that the car is very nice to drive and the dyno does not reflect the way it delivers power. All the power is available immediately and the car is highly entertaining to drive. See below for dyno runs. We've also been working on cutting the cost of the kit without compromising the quality.

March 5, 2004: That didn't work. We tried blowing through the throttle body to minimize the throttled volume, but driveability was very poor. It was also extremely loud. So we're back to the earlier design. The prototype car is getting final fettling at the FM shop right now and will be on the dyno shortly.
February 19, 2004: We've decided to try something different. There are no photos of the change but if it works out it will be worth the wait. The '99 is being used for a test fit. Once it's running, it will be dyno tested and debugged.
January 21, 2004: We're busy working on sourcing parts. The prototypes were made with a high proportion of expensive handmade pieces and we're trying to find off-the-shelf parts and examining alternate production techniques to bring the price down and quality up.
January 6, 2004: The design has been finalised and is going into production. We're still working on the final prices, but it's a seriously quick beastie. We have not had the chance to dyno test the final design.
December 15, 2003: The intake leak has been found and the unit has been torn apart. It'll be back together tomorrow. It's nice and strong with some good packaging.
December 12, 2003: We have some photos of the latest prototype. You can see the shorter nose on the blower. Bill will be working on solving the last small problems next week then this unit will be disassembled and used to start on installation instructions so we can get the kit to market as soon as possible.
December 5, 2003: The newest prototype is up and running. The design has been reworked to keep the volume of the intercooler down and it's worked nicely. As an added bonus, it will be less expensive. The team is still chasing a couple of small vacuum leaks.
November 19, 2003: The latest prototype is in the middle of installation. Photos are below.
October 23rd, 2003: The intake manifold has been redesigned and is being cast. Our blower is getting a new, shorter nose to accomodate the new mounting position. Patterns are being made for a new bypass valve that will speed up throttle response and avoid idle droop.

earlier: There are three prototypes. After the first two - equipped with air/water intercoolers - showed problems with high intake temperatures, the third was equipped with an air/air intercooler setup. This proved to be far more effective at cooling the intake charge, giving us temperatures only a few degrees above ambient. The air/water setups could not remove enough heat to keep the temperature below 200F, something we consider to be a requirement. To accomodate the new setup, the supercharger will be moved forward. This means a new intake manifold as well as the removal of an expensive SC extension.

Photos (newest at top):

Final prototype runs
15.5 psi of boost on a 1999 Miata with a Brainstorm header and a Thermal exhaust. This is the same car as the run below, but it was tested on a Dynojet dyno in Austin at close to sea level. The car is now running a built bottom end with 9:1 compression and the gas was a mix that works out to approximately 98 octane. No changes were made to the tuning and the head is the same.

14.5 psi of boost on a 1999 Miata with a Brainstorm header and a Thermal exhaust. There is loads of room for other header designs. Stock head, stock internals. Note that these two runs are shown as image files and the runs were done on a different dyno than before. The power curves and the boost levels are corrected for altitude so they will be accurate. The new dyno does give slightly different curves than the older one. This run was done on race gas because we were concerned about the health of the stock 2002 bottom end at these boost levels. A built motor went into the car the next weekend.

Dyno run!
The first dyno run of the Übercharger! This is at 140 KPa, equivalent to a 9 psi boost at sea level. The car has a (very noisy) FM turbo exhaust and midpipe and a BSP header. The head and engine internals are stock and the car is running 91 octane gas. Due to pulley sizes, that was the most boost we could run with this setup. This was also before our modified supercharger intake.

1995 dyno run
At approximately 170 KPa of manifold pressure, this is the result on our 1995. The intake temperatures were still much higher than we wanted. This is on the original manifold design with fresh cold water feeding the intercooler.

ABS-equipped cars like this one will have to use a version of the original intake. Non-ABS cars will have a much simpler design.
The throttle body adaptor
The final intake manifold.
The intercooler.
The Ubercharger out of the car.
Pulleys and belts, oh my!
It doesn't look like much, but this spacer was worth 25 hp. No kidding.
How do you get the throttle cable to do a 180 degree turn?
The intercooler.
The last prototype on the road.
The redesigned setup with the short SC nose.
The SC outlet casting mounted on the new manifold.
The air from the SC gets directed forward.
The new manifold design mounted on a car.
The pattern for the bypass valve is done.
So, when you run out of room for gauges, what do you do? Make a new "gauge pod"! IC in, IC out, heat exchanger in, heat exchanger out, boost, air temperature for all four intake runners...
The intercooler.
The 1999 prototype car. Dan and Dani Pedroza campaign this car in SM2, finishing third nationally last year with an FM II. Dan is very happy with the way the car drives and thinks it's going to make an excellent autocross weapon with the new setup.
Check out that camo valve cover! This is the 1999 Übercharger.
Putting the water reservoir in. This is a prototype setup, and may bear absolutely no resemblance to the final setup. We're seriously considering putting the reservoir in the trunk - but this will tell us how much (if any) improvement needs to be made.
The Übercharger has left the building.
The Racing Beat header and the supercharger intake live happily together. We did have a bit of a problem with the EGR tube, but nothing that can't be fixed.
Installed! We don't have the intercooler hooked up yet.
Imagine that you're an air molecule. Right after you see this, you get rammed through two spinning lobes, spat out, cooled off, doused with gasoline then set on fire. Be glad you're not an air molecule.
The throttle body and bypass valve. The bypass doubles as a boost limiter.
Instrumentation? Oh, yes. We'll have instrumentation.
The supercharger outlet.
It doesn't look like a big pile of torque, does it?
The heat exhanger for the intercooler. There's also a big reservoir in the car to alleviate heat soak problems. Again, more instrumentation.
The intake manifold partially installed.
Test fitting the blower. That's the EGR pipe running around the front of the engine. We'll be able to make this setup work with the Racing Beat 4-1 header as well.

Some photos from the original prototype.
The front pulley of the SC.

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