Supercharger bracket

[krinkov58]

Now that the weather has cleared up I'm finally turning more of my attention to my '51 Roadmaster. In 2008 when I started restoring my '52 I had collected some cool speed parts with the intention of hopping it up a little bit but that all fell by the wayside and I just wanted to finish the darn thing and drive it! One of the things I've been hoarding is a early '50's Mcculloch VS57 supercharger which I'm sending off to be rebuilt and have it re-set to Mcculloch factory pressure (it came off a '54 Kaiser, was factory equipment but set at a lower pressure for longevity) and have a +2psi impeller installed but before I do I'd like to get the bracket fabricated. Clearance issues on the manifold side (power steering) dictate that I have to mount it on the passenger side and adapt the oil filter canister to the coil bracket and move the coil to one of the rear bolts on the pushrod cover. My plans is to fabricate a bracket that used the 2 bolts the oil filter canister was mounted to for the top of the bracket, maybe an arm attaching to the water pump bolt, and have a "dog leg" on the bottom of the bracket attach to 3 bolts on the timing chain cover. Anybody see any danger in this? Seems as if the weight would be distributed evenly...the bracket has to be large; the supercharger is 2 speed and when it's kicked into high boost the 2-piece pulley seperates and the V-belt rides lower in the pulley, so it needs an spring-loaded idler arm/pulley as part of the bracket to take up the slack in the belt. I have an extra '52 320 that I'm building up for this car and it has the P/S harmonic balancer which is thinner...if I remove the P/S pulley from the front of the balancer and bolt up a heavier crank pulley from a Studebaker VS57 application, is it as simple as subtracting the weight of the P/S pulley from the Stude pulley and removing the difference in weight between the two from the balancer plates so the mass would remain the same? Maybe either move the power steering pump back 1" and drive it off of the water pump/generator belt or, since I'm going to be using a 12V alternator, snatch up one of those ugly MSD jobs with a double pulley and try and run the P/S pump off of the alternator pulley?
Any thoughts?

[krinkov58]

Anybody? Here's a couple of VS57 inline setups...the Buick one is probably using the front engine mount, not an option for me.

[freeman]

Did you ever complete this install? I'm very interested in learning what you did to make this work. Do you know who owns the red motor in the picture with the dual carb setup and the supercharger? Do you have any information on this install?
Thanks

[krinkov58]

I have no information at all regarding that install, which I think was on a '42 Special if I recall correctly. The post you're replying to is pretty old man ha ha...my car got damaged in Hurricane Irene 4 months after posting this and ended up being a loss; I put some money into it but ended up selling it in October because for the same expense I could buy a decent running Roadmaster and have it driveable immediately as opposed to at least 18 months bringing my '51 back. Which I did manage to do last month, picking up a '52 Roadmaster 76R.
But as far as the project went...the VS57 install was obviously doable, with a custom bracket with a post for the idler arm. A higher-boost impeller for the VS57 designed by John Erb and sold by Paradise Wheels would give maybe 7psi total overall. Fuel pump had to be boost referenced by plumbing a nipple behind the fuel pump diaphragm like the old Kaiser VS57 installations and hooking up a line to that from the discharge port of the supercharger to bring fuel pressure up in real time with boost...fuel pump vents had to be sealed (lead shot). I started a independent-runner type manifold for 4 Carter YH side-draft carbs, the type with the mechanical choke used on the '53-'54 Corvette with balance tubes between runners 1-2 and 3-4. The idea was to seal the shafts etc. and blow-through the YH's with the fuel bowls boost-referenced the same way as the fuel pump. The YH carbs had to be indexed slightly counter-clockwise to keep them level because of the engine angle. Same type of throttle/choke linkage as the Corvette. With long runners, icing would be an issue on humid summer days so carb heat would have to come from engine coolant; I never figured that out (pretty simple) but again the project went under when the car got trashed. I ended up getting a tandem methanol/water injection and nitrous oxide injection system from a WW2 fighter plane...which is a story unto itself; still have it...which I was also planning on using, with the methanol/water only when the VS57 was in high boost. Exhaust headers dumping ports 1-2-7-8 into one collector, and 3-4-5-6 into another...seemed the best scenario based on firing order to even out the pulses. Had a plan to open up the valve area a hair but instead of installing ridiculously huge valve, turn the valves down as far as they can go to seat...the idea behind that was that larger valves would be optimal at an RPM range the engine would rarely see anyhow, but reducing the valve size would allow better mixture flow at low RPM's and let the supercharger handle things when intake volume requirements began to supercede intake velocity requirements. But that's as far as I got, brother.

[freeman]

Thanks for the info, I have contacted John Erb and am planning to install a modified VS-57 on my 263.
Pat

[krinkov58]

John Erb is THE go-to guy for these units. Keep in mind that some VS57 units were set fairly low from the factory (The Kaiser ones especially) as compared to others. The 263 is a perfect size for these.