Ad: Spool Helix HPFP overdrive Kit
- Thread starter SpoolPerformance
- Start date
Bro I seriously thought of having a aluminium welder that we know to weld something like some little rail or 2 just to have more support on it to make it stronger but idk if that's possible lol and get the bracket on top of all that I know it might sound retarded lmao. but I already have my 4x sitting around. The bracket works to this point. Even has logs to prove it helped. So why not try. Worked for him. We have to work with what we have now.I MIGHT.. "might" run mine with the new bracket. Most the of the failures that I've seen are at the top of the vac housing, or on the stock vac plate at the mounting tabs. As a few others have mentioned, it seems like the excessive vibration in combination with the extra weight is causing the failures. Lmao... lets all whip out the dynamat and wrap the vac housing?
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i work as a development engineer and balancing involves my component (e-motor) as a part assembly of an electrical scroll climate compressor for cars.
So talking about balancing a component, a part system and the full rotating assembly. Actually balancing is complex but not difficult as long as you are not pumping fluid or gas through a scroll
A mechanical Engineer should have the skills to calculate through the system. An experienced mechanical engineer will do that pretty quick.
Just imaging every component as a balancing plane. Very easy with gears. Each and every component has a resulting vector pointing into one direction with a certain length. This is the grams of imbalance times the distance from the center. 1g * 10mm = 10gmm imbalance 10 mill from the center.
If the component are positioned axially from each other you take this into consideration also a radial gap.
Now what you do is to check the imbalance of the HPFP and put it into your equation. There might be of course the target that there is no imbalance in the HPFP which is completely unrealistic due to manufacturing tolerances. And i doubt that the HPFP is active balanced during and after assembly.
You have to counter balance the resulting imbalance from the HPFP (if existend) in your helix pumpt then of course. The Helix and the HPFP have both their own static and dynamic imbalances. They can eliminate each other or add up.
If their is only ONE position of interface of the Helix for attaching to the HPFP than chances are that they did counter balance the HPFP.
If you can rotate your helix as you want before attaching it randomly to your HPFP you start gambling! In EVERY case you are manipulating the resulting imbalance of the system.
A) Counter balancing - Good
B) Staying same with vector pointing into another direction - No Change of the system
C) You are adding imbalance - Very Very bad especially if the system now got longer
I hope you can follow a bit of my words.
Just to clarify, does that mean that ideally Helix overdrive must be attached to HPFP and this assembly must be balanced together and sold as a single unit? Otherwise, Helix can be ideally balanced by Spool, but the fact that HPFP has some unknown balance will always result with imbalance?
As mentioned above, does adding a bracket with some rubber/polyurethane bushings can help in our case? My uneducated assumption is that bushings should take away/consume some of the vibrations, if this is true, than Spool should just calculate what bushing size/compound should be used to reduce vibration to some acceptable level, right?
Helix has to add the imbalance of the HPFP in any case. Even if the Helix has no imbalance it works as a lever arm of the imbalance of the HPFP.
Ideally yes. The would need to be balanced together. But this is unrealistic and not necessary. Spool just would need to test some HPFPs or know the range of imbalance. The imbalance of the HPFP is on the drawing as this is a significant characteristic for the PPAP documentation. Process capability for this value and range of tolerance has to be proven by the supplier. Insider job would be beneficial
Bushings would not help as the vibration then always would stimulate the vac pump cover plate. Only Stiff brackets can transfer the vibration to other parts of the engine.
Decoupling only works if completely done. You cannot decouple the pump from the vac cover plate. Or maybe you can?
Sorry, we've not been following this thread recently. to address issues and concerns, let me start off by mentioning Phil's is the only production 3x out of almost 200 that has cracked a vac pump itself. we have seen covers fail before for which the billet cover plate was introduced. Phil's case is a one-off at the moment and we haven't had a chance to analyze the unit for any imbalance or even determine if it was an install error. regardless, we went back to looking at possible root causes. we identified that in cases where there might a higher than permissible tolerance and resulting imbalance, the inertial torques would cause more stress on the components the assembly is mounted to. The new reinforcement bracket is designed to counter this torquing of the whole assembly. Another possible reason identified was that improper tuning could cause sudden loading and unloading of the pump during the operation of the relief valve when pressures are left unchecked and allowed to spike over 3600psi. Phil's issue and even the vac cover plates ( about 12/200 cases were reported) were never an issue on our test cars which ran over 20k miles before release. But we are focused on refining the product as soon as we can and in the best ways possible. we are currently testing prototype support brackets and should have them available for new kits and previous purchases withing 2 weeks if everything goes to plan. Will keep an eye out here for answering concerns from now on. Thank you!
Hard to tell from the pic but is this the vacumm housing cracked here:
Attachments
That’s one of our local testers for our beta helix extreme unit. It was not a production helix and turns much faster. So far we’ve seen two cases on the 4x test program and 1 for the production helix 3x.
That is really nothing. People scaring like every other unit broke the vacuum housing unit lol. Most just hear about it and making it seem much worse then it really is. I know guys that still have the original plates from begining and never had any issues.
I don't like the idea of being triple digits and my brakes possibly shitting the bed from a mod. Personally I'll wait until all of this gets sorted out. Thanks for being one of the brave guys willing to test this so I can get a safer product! Hats off to you in the New Year, @Glassreflectionzn54!
Filippo
If it was tested in a controlled environment like a track for a 24hrs Le Mans style test then I say hats off to you guys, reality is different and it will be tested on the street where lives are possibly put at risk and that's not brave.
Pray to whoever your god is nothing happens.
I'm in total support of this product and know that its needed.
Not here to shit on the product and use a bracket to support if you like but fix the source of the vibration as that is the real issue.
vibrations are not the issue here. Rotational moments of inertia is. The oem pump doesn’t not have constant loading.The loading changes as the inlet metering valve opens and closes. These changes and the accelerating/decelerating nature in which the pumps are driven causes a rotational moment. The effect of this moment is that it tries to rotate the whole assembly. Throughout testing phases we had been sure the mounting parts (vac pump) was strong enough to resist these torsional stresses but we did not take into account the huge Variation in casting quality control of the oem parts, hpfp tuning inconsistencies and also tolerance variations on our side On the helix. The Support bracket is an answer to the torsional stress issue and is not a band aid. We’re running them on Some 4x test cars right now since the stresses are much higher on those. Will post how it goes shortly here.
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Thanks for clarifying the issue, we can only go off the info that is provided by other users and I really hope you get these issues sorted out.
With all these poorly cast vac pumps, how hard would it be to make a billet one for the 3x & 4x kit ?
I know most people would not mind paying the extra dollars where this is the only solution available to them.
With all these poorly cast vac pumps, how hard would it be to make a billet one for the 3x & 4x kit ?
I know most people would not mind paying the extra dollars where this is the only solution available to them.
We've had the design completed on a billet vac pump but we're confident the reinforcement bracket will fix the issues. if there are folks who want the billet vac pumps just to have it, we would be able to get some made. it is a complex part with multiple setups so would not be the cheapest to get made.
How much do you think it would cost to get one made so people can decide if they want this option ?
we'll get back on this here soon.
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I have to say, you do a phenomenal job at not getting sucked into the “politics” of the N54 world. Very interested in seeing how the fix(es) work for the pumps and hope 2020 brings great things from you guys.
Seriously guys. Try starting your car with the brake booster hose disconnected. Drive at about 5 mph. Then try and stop the car. It's almost impossible. Now imagine doing 100+ mph and approaching a corner or junction. You'd be lucky to survive.
I realized that was one case of failure , and on test car with higher than at present revs...
One cracked pump was on an Australian street car that i know off not sure on others, seen a couple more on Facebook they disappeared into the hundreds of other posts
I've only seen one overdrive in person and it was vibrating pretty badly but let spool fix it and do more testing
I've only seen one overdrive in person and it was vibrating pretty badly but let spool fix it and do more testing
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