CLS55, E55, SL55, CL55 and S55 Supercharger
 

Hey guys,

Does anyone have a service manual for the supercharger's in our cars? Idally I'm after diagrams of exploded views of all the parts.

What I want to do is go with a fixed pulley upgrade. But in addition to removing the clutched pulley, I'd like to remove the large rotating drum to reduce overall rotating mass.

Has anyone done this? If so, do you have any DIY instruction's? Possibly some pictorial diagrams of any sort.

I prefer to not fly blind when the equipment is sensitive. I always like to refer to a drawing just in case thing's go awry.

Thanks,
Pete.

Try the 211 AMG forum. I've read it requires a special tool to get off, but that is all I know.

Thanks man, good tip. I'll post a new thread there.

-Pete.

Pete, you know what would be interesting .. to make a different gearing of the S/C !
if you have a cnc at hand maybe you can make a new pinion&gear with a different ratio.
... in case, i should have somewhere a few pics of S/C internals for you

Dyno,

Hmm... that could be interesting, but I don't know if anyone would consider re-gearing the supercharger... has there been any issues with the gearing? Reliability? Excess heat from them?

I haven't heard of any issues with respect to the gearing, at least none as of yet?? :confused:

Let me know, maybe we can work on something...

But for now, let''s stay on subject, removing the large black drum. So far.. pull two small pins, heat the hub and slide it off. That's all I've got to go with.

Cheers,
-Pete.

no, no issues with the gearing.
not in that sense, but for doing without all those crappy pulley upgrades !
..just fitting an appropriate re-gearing and you'll get your blower running faster with no need of any bwk, issues with the crank harmonic balancer ... and, above all, everything stealth.

yes, stealthy .. maybe that's appealing only to me ? .. no like how people are transforming this car into a lemon.

pm me in case.

cheers

There's no step up gearing in the blower, it's just to time the rotors together. They spin at shaft speed, which is why we change pullies.

indeed I see a specific gear at the shaft of the blower's nose, matched to a different gear at the rotor...

you're seeing something different ?

Precisely. Couldn't have said it better myself. That's why I asked if there were issues with gears, in the reliability sense. A set of gears, as Joe put it, would simply not do anything for the rotors in terms of a step up in ratio for increased rotor speed.

However, if there was a gear between the input shaft and the two rotors. THAT could ultimately be modified to generate a different ratio... I have never seen the internals of the supercharger to know what's inside, but from what everyone is saying, its a direct drive from the pulley shaft.

On an extreme end, if you're the ultimate 1/4 mile junkie and all you are after is getting that next 0.001 second, the gears could be made out of titanium or something similar for increased strength and reduced rotational mass... but if you truly are the 1/4 mile junkie, I would imagine going with the Weistec package would be your best bet...

Any one else that can chime in on their experience removing the black clutch drum assembly?

-Pete.

just to avoid further misinformation
 

Pete, unfortunately that's precisely WRONG.

just to avoid further misinformation


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mbw...747ab058e6.jpg

only need #1 bigger and #2 smaller
but not that easy said & done ..


cheers

Dyno, easyyy, down boy lol, read my post, I covered by bases when i spoke about the gears, in the second or third paragraph I said, "However, if there was a gear between the input shaft and the two rotors. THAT could ultimately be modified to generate a different ratio... I have never seen the internals of the supercharger to know what's inside..."

So, as we can see in the photo you have provided, there is in fact, a set of gears that are before the two timing gears of the supercharger rotors...

When upgrades as simple as a pulley swap up top, or, a swap down below on the crank, do you think people would go for a set up internally. I mean I love the idea of stealth, but to me, every car is stealthy enough with the hood closed lol.

My concern is for the people that eventually plan to sell their car. The swap out of a pulley takes nothing, having to remove the supercharger to re-gear it... I'm not so sure people are going to be fond of it.

Also, without knowing the EXACT shaft to shaft centre to centre distance, and the current specifications on the gears (helix angle, and tooth profile, as there are 2 contact angles 14deg and 20deg, unless they're special) it would be really hard to make a replica set with a different ratio... the biggest concern is the amount of space in the casting... would there be enough space for a larger input gear?

-Pete.

There are two ratio's out there, depending on the part number on the top of the SC. Also the SLR has a ratio higher than both of them. There was a thread about this a couple months ago in the w211 forum.

Yes, there are two ratios, gears 3 & 4 should not be touched as those are the timing gears of the rotors, however, gears 1 & 2 can be altered (provided the housing has room for it, but by the looks of it, things are kept quite tight... some people say the SLR supercharger appears physically bigger, if it is, I wonder if part of it was to accommodate the alternate gear ratio?

to Pete:
thanks for the Boy but I'm no more - LoL
I think there should be room for 5mm, so a bigger Dia of 10mm till maybe a max half in.
if you're usual working with gears would be nice if you can guess a quick estimation of the leverage obtainable considering the corresponding shrinking of the matchin g gear...
Then, yes not easy task making it but you don't need a 5-axis Mazak ;)

ARTIST: could you link that thread ... thanks

its much time I don't look anymore on these things except I happened to watch again this forum and came across a few threads that grew again the passion for engine mods on me ..
so I'm attaching this further pic from my old database that should be referrable to our S/C specs quite largely ..

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mbw...e84b43a84b.jpg

Dyno,

LOL unfortunately we all grow up eh? As for the sizing of the gears, its not simply a matter of going up in size 5mm or 10mm on one gear and shrinking the other by the same amount.. each tooth is exactly the same size. whether it be a 15Tooth or a 60Tooth gear, the teeth stay the same. Each gear has a specific diametrical pitch where the gears mesh, that NEEDS to be consistent. So a 10Tpinion and a 50T gear, will have a 1:5 ratio, but they have a pre-determined center to center distance... here we have a fixed center to center distance, and making two gears work with an existing center to center doesnt always work the way you think it might. For example, if the current ratio is 1:1 say a 20tooth to 20tooth gear setup. The two gears, through calculation have a specific center of bore to center of bore dimension, for ease of numbers, lets make it 3inches.

Say you want to bump up the ratio from 1:1 to 2:1.. a 40T to 20T, the distance between the center of bore and center of bore will more likely be 4 inches, not 3. In an attempt to solve that issue, we use different teeth numbers to try to get close, maybe a 30T to 15T, but this reqires 3.125inches or 2.875 inches apart... see where im going with this? the gears cant simply be swapped being that the center to center distance is fixed. there is VERY little options available, if any, in order to make that work properly. a distance of 0.005" will cause a TONNE of chatter, and the last thing you want is supercharger gear chatter, damaging the blower...

Nice to see some of the old blood around again :), hope oyu have been doing well mate:y

ahah.. glorious Zod, thanks !
..not fully toying again with the car, but ..thinking at it - lol

great explanation, Pete !

I see the difficulty of the center to center fixed distance
.. but hopefully there's no additional matching gear as a really limiting factor. I mean, you still remain with a nice degree of freedom in dimensioning the teeth.
Can't say if its worth .. but weren'you, willing to mess with the S/C ? ;)))

Unless I had a donor supercharger fully in tact, there would be no chance that i could mess with the gearing. I'd have to see if they're a standard "off the shelf" pitch size. if they are, there might be a combo that works on the center to center distance, however, it may not work based on sizing.

S/C COMPARO

visually the SLR's doesn't seem to have a bigger neck.
it appears shorter because lack the air-pump channels.
From the bottom pic, it could be that gear #2 is a bit smaller... but unfortunately don't have better pics.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mbw...3465a416c2.jpg

Interesting, I hadn't pulled the snout off a lysholm, I was going off of previous eaton experience.

In this case, yes the gears could be swapped, and I don't see how a custom set of matched helical gears couldn't be cut for the size/center spacing you want. But have you looked into the cost of custom gears? I have for other projects, transmission stuff, and it's not worth it. Especially in something like this where you can easily get the desired change from a pulley swap, we don't have the option in a transmission situation and it's still not cost effective to have custom gears machined.

Custom gears cost a fortune. The idea would be to have an off the shelf type tooth profile and also the centre to centre distance and see what other tooth combinations fit. however, even an off the shelf gear is going to cost you a pretty penny especially if they don't typically make that tooth count.

Its much cheaper to just stick with what's available and swap the pulley out for something of your interest. A custom sized fixed pulley is something I can do with ease. the clutched pulleys are do able as well, but I don't have the riveting tool to re-mount it to the clutch.

but again, you'd need a custom tune to match a custom pulley. every pulley out there has its own tune ready for that level of boost. so in essence, why bother?

just for not letting this "re-gearing" theme without catching at least a rough idea of how it translates in practice, for example in crank pulley size terms, i.e. something we all have in mind very clearly, i made some quick calcs ...

the sensation, as I said in my previous post #14, was that re-gearing two meshed gears would yield a big leverage as, while you are increasing one gear you are correspondingly decreasing the other meshed gear...

1-: gear #1 has apparently 45 teeth and gear #2 has 35 teeth . This means the existence of an implicit 45/35= 1.28 overdrive ratio
(again, I made just a quick count so don't blame me if you'll actually found a one tooth difference or so.
The same goes for the following as, while I tried to take into account the said fixed distance constraint between gears' centers, equal teeth steps, etc ...the aim is presently just for A ROUGH IDEA).

2- if we increase the radius of gear #1 for just 3.5mm or a lil more 1/8 inch, the number of teeth will vary by 4 teeth .. hence the new ratio gets 49/31= 1.58
this means a net increse of +23% (i.e. 1.58/1.28)

so, this is really A LOT !! ... it compares to go from a Stock 154mm crank pulley to 154*1.23 = 190mm pulley. And this with just a lil bit of a 1/8 inch gear radius increase. Wow !

consider that
- 5mm gear radius increase would correspondingly give 6 more teeth, a ratio of 51/29 .. and a crazy Net increase of +38.5% , equating to 154*1.385 = 213mm crank Pulley ---

- just 2 teeth difference, or about 1/16 inch increase in gear radius, a ratio of 47/33 .. and a Net increase of 1.42/1.28= +10.9% ... same as a 171mm Pulley

will keep all this in mind and who knows, maybe next time instead of asking my guys to cnc machining for me a hub's cap matching to a wheel cap, I could ask for ... a couple matching gears - LOL

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mbw...978d2be7e5.jpg

Of course a small gearing change will have a drastic effect. the size difference of the gears is where it matters, our OEM combination of 45-35 has a specific pitch diameter that these two gears meet at. when you combine the radius of these two specific pitch diameters, you are left with the center to center distance of each gear. now, for a different combination set, say your idea, 49-31, yeah sure, that ratio might be your idea ratio for your application, but how do you know if the centre to centre distance is going to work? gears cannot be simply "close enough" they have to be exactly right. "custom" gears are not simply cut based on diameter and amount of teeth. A gear is cut based on number of teeth and the pitch of the gear (teeth per inch, or width of tooth). To order a set of gears, this is how its done, select your tooth size, select your number of teeth, and select your hub diameter. the size of the gear is not determined by your requested diameter. the size of tooth and the number of teeth will give you a circumference and in turn, a pitch diameter can be calculated. Everyone is under the impression that "its so simple, just increase the diameter by 10mm or 1/4inch etc" it doesnt work that way my friends. Sorry.

Gears are a VERY complex item to design, trust me, I've been down that road more than a few times.

yes, I forgot to specify: you'll need a CUSTOM designed gear.

While making a 2-spur gears reduction with a defined fixed center distance to account for isn't anything of stellar difficulty, You'd better enter, for example, ANY shop experienced with gearboxes, as they ares based on the same concept.

There's really no expectation of entering the first mall in the village and ask for an off-the-shelf gear reduction to fit the AMG Lysholm supercharger - Lol

P.S.: those with a deeper interest can start watching this nice review of "Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements" by Henry T. Brown, 1868 http://507movements.com/mm_039.html