I would love to see someone try an MINI witha VWs TSI style Twincharge system (its actually a sequentical system). I also think it wouldn't be that hard to do! The advatnage of the system is once you bypass the supercharger it no longer becomes ANY form of restriction. Sooooo you could have a twincharged setup that would make as much power as the turbo only guys, at the same boost presure, and yet spool the turbo FASTER than the conventional compound setup (turbo into supercharger with NO bypass)!!!!!

The reason for the faster spool is that you would not have to pully down the supercharger. In fact you would want to run it as hard as you can (maybe even +19%) as this would make more power down low and thus spool the turbo sooner.

soo how would it look in a MINI? Well you would need to retain the SC in its current location. The outlet to the SC should also remain where it is. However before the air would normally go into the top mounted intercooler you would need to feed that air into the inlet of the turbo. At the inlet to the turbo you would need another pipe leading to a filter. In this pipe you would also need to mount a bypass valve (more on this later). From the turbo you could run the pipework to a fornt mounted intercooler and then through a second throttle body and into the inlet manifold.

so how would the system work? well at low rom the bypass vavle would be closed and the supercharger would be doing all the work. It would be forcing air into the inlet of the turbo. As the bypass valve would be closed the air would be going through the turbo, through the intercooler and into the engine. once the turbo started to spool up the bypass vavle starts to open and allows the turbo to solely provide the boost. Therefore you have little to no losses, restriction or heat implication that you would normally get from running a compound setup. Also you make as much power per PSI as the turbo only guys, but with a turbo thats problably fully spooled over 1000rpm sooner than a turbo only setup AND one that is much torquier down low.

How dose the bypass valve work? Well you would need a presure operated valve that would look like a throttle body but with a turbo actuater mounted on the side. Reference presure would be taken from AFTER the supercharger but before the turbo. Boost presure would then need to be taken from the intake manifold.

At low rpm when the supercharger is doing the work and the bypass valve would be closed. This is because the presure in the intake pipe would be equal to or a little higher than the presure in the intake manifold (the turbo and intercooler would add some restriction). Once the turbo starts to spool the preusre after the SC will drop, but the presure in the intake manifold will remaine the same. at this point the bypass valve starts to open (manifold presure higher then supercharger boost presure) and the turbo takes over the job of providing the boost. However it has probably spooled over 1000rpm sooner than the turbo only setup.

Overall a very simple solution, it just needs someone to engineer it to work in a MINI now.......

Chris.

 

"Overall a very simple solution, it just needs someone to engineer it to work in a MINI now......."

That's the problem. Every thing looks doable on paper - at least for me. It's when I try going from paper to appilication that I end up with stuff on my shoes..............

Kevin

 

Kevin I totally agree with you! its not an easy task at all! but not easy is not not doable. The propbelm is there will be less and less money being spent on the R53 minis over the up and coming years. That will mean people will be less and less willing to invest in developing new systems and turning these ideas into reality. Its a sorry state of affers, esp as the tuning potencial of the 1.6 turbo engines in the newer MINIs looks far less easy (Direct injection)

On a plus note, it will be intresting to see what Prodrive do with the new MINI WRC and what engine they use (it has to be 1.6 ltr from 2011). Maybe they will release some tuning upgrades (they did for the scooby) that will make things better.

Another option will be engine transplants. I have seen a VW 1.8T motor in ther front of a MINI already.

anyway back to topic.......

Chris.

 

Then one must go forth themselves and experiment. You dont need a degree in engineering to do this stuff. In fact 3 years in ME hasnt really done me any good when it comes to what you want to do. There are lots of really good books out there on this stuff too.