superchargers

pelican · Dec 22, 2009

So there's a norton supercharger on ebay...let's discuss :lol:

Cookie · Dec 22, 2009

Not that I haven't been tempted in the past and I have owned a number of supercharged and a couple of turboed engines, but I'm not sure I'd do that to a Norton. It certainly could be done and if you used a lot of the latest equipment out there you could probably make a reliable one. Some engines are understressed, like a Goldwing for instance, and seem to take a blower easily.
I'd think this might be like buying a hand grenade and packing in more powder.

maylar · Dec 22, 2009

I was working as a young engineer when the Drouin was introduced. My boss had designed superchargers for diesel trucks (Cummins?) in his past life and when I showed him the magazine article he said my (new at the time) Norton would self destruct. An engine needs to be designed from the ground up to handle the stresses and get rid of the extra heat. He said a supercharger consumes half of the power it creates, and that goes up in heat.

Complete Drouin kits sell for big bucks on eBay so I guess people are willing to take the risks. I remember the article said they got 90 hp from a stock 850 and that the factory cam worked better than the Combat cam.

I don't want one, thank you.

RennieK · Dec 22, 2009

I just searched drouin on this site and got 5 pages of links here:

search.php

I remember when they came out but always lacked the extra money, time and bikes to play around with them. They could be a lot of fun though. It's one way to get around the inability to install 8 valve heads on a Norton to increase the breathing capabilities.

pelican · Dec 22, 2009

Not interested in one just thought it was interesting. I've seen an old drouin or 2 go for silly money on ebay, but the one on ebay now is a new type. Still expensive, and the seller has multiples like he expects them to be popular.

JimC · Dec 22, 2009

RennieK said:
I just searched drouin on this site and got 5 pages of links here:

search.php

I remember when they came out but always lacked the extra money, time and bikes to play around with them. They could be a lot of fun though. It's one way to get around the inability to install 8 valve heads on a Norton to increase the breathing capabilities.

C.R. Axtell considered the Norton such a good breather he used the engine as an air compressor pump for a Jet Propulsion Laboratories project.

Supercharger, what the hell, some folks are shimming cylinders to lower compression.

RennieK · Dec 22, 2009

Huumm, I need an air compressor.

Chris · Dec 23, 2009

Hi Renniek

I remember the Piper 8 valve head for a Commando & I know Les at Fairspares developed & still sells them (or not!)
However I also remember a quote attributed to Pete Lovell saying it improved nothing!
Ask Fairspares? What ever they say about the 8 valve I am sure it wont be a lot less than the supercharger.
all the best Chris

builder · Dec 23, 2009

pelican said:
So there's a norton supercharger on ebay...let's discuss :lol:

That AMR charger he's selling is the choice these days for cycle projects. I've seen 1/2 dozen vintage Triumph machines running it succesfully...have seen it on more Japanese machines though.

There is a used one with a current bid of $107.

These SC were stock items in a number of cars, easier to find outside of the US. Cheap to rebuild.

RennieK · Dec 23, 2009

Chris said:
Hi Renniek

I remember the Piper 8 valve head for a Commando & I know Les at Fairspares developed & still sells them (or not!)
However I also remember a quote attributed to Pete Lovell saying it improved nothing!
Ask Fairspares? What ever they say about the 8 valve I am sure it wont be a lot less than the supercharger.
all the best Chris

That's interesting, I remember the Nourish, the Weslake and there was another popular head for Triumph but I'd never heard of anything for Norton. There's nothing on the web about the Piper.

lcrken · Dec 23, 2009

It was developed by Piper for Norton back in the F750 days, but never used seriously. Fair Spares eventually ended up with it, and did some more development work on it. They ran it on at least one race bike, and has some reasonable success with it. It never really took off, and I think the rights eventually got sold. My memory says it was Andy Molnar who ended up with it. He may still have it. Mick Hemmings used to have one of the factory 8-valve heads in his shop. Back in the '70s and '80s I had business trips to England, and stopped in to see Mick periodically. He joked with me that he was saving the head to help fund his retirement. If I recall correctly, one of the problems with it was the weight of the rocker arms.

Ken