Z engineering S/C development

[S/Cmk2 0]

Good evening guys and happy new year. I currently have a mk2 golf with a full vr6 engine with a zengineering S/C running approx 6 psi. i have had this setup for around 8 months now with no problem but can't help about thinking of more power. Ideally i want to stick with the same charger as this will be the easiest and increasng psi to around 10psi. I Know a few people run this setup a just want some opinions and advice on setups. i realise i need to lower the compression with a spacer plate or low comp pistons ect and i have a 6 branch manifold and 263 cams ready to go on aswell. im looking into a front mounted intercooler although i am unsure about this due to the limited smace and pipework needed has anyone run the above setup with a front mounted cooler if so what cooler?

i also can't find anywhere to buy a smaller pulley..will i need to hae one made from scratch? would people recommend uprating the fuel pump; running standard atm and also managment? again standrad with maf sensor fitted before charger.

Sorry for the long story, any help and advice would be much appreciated, thanks for reading, Luke.

[J5KE F 0]

Hi Luke and welcome to the site!

Glad to hear ur a fellow mk2 driver! The mk2's biggest issue as with the mk3 is traction.therefore anything over 250 brake will give you problems.

My first charges mk3 vrs was running a vortech charger and the biggest issue with this was belt slip over 8psi, and that gave me irratic power readings varying between 285 and 335bhp. again when eventually running at more boost traction was lost! My last charged vr was a mk2 with a 3,2 and rotrex set up. this was far more balanced due to a quaiffe lsd, toyo proxes 888's and the solid front mounts.

I have only seen one or two Z's and Ben Seabrook who is also a Mod on here used to / still has one.. (he may be able to advise you / correct me if I haven;t covered most bases.

In all cases lowering the compression is a must do., sometimes uprated injectors and fuel pump may be required.

Are you running standard management?

Front mount intercoolers can be beneficial and sometimes can reduce boost, the only real advice I can give here is to speak with someone who has run a Z' with an intercooler and make sure the sizing is correct. (I spent a fortune on my 2nd Vr with a self built front mount intercooler set up only to find I was running 2.5 psi whereas I was running 12 with the additional setup!

6 Branch helps to free up exhuast gas flow and for obvious reasosn is beneficial in any case.

but the 263 cams are usually only suited to na vr's. perhaps look at selling them in the site's classifieds as i'm sure

they wont hang about too long! with fi and particularly super charged vr's the lower rated cams are better perhaps 248's? .. again a costly mistake made in early years

Your best bet is to take ur existing pulley to a cnc workshop and get them to make a spare, then havve it turned down as required.. this way u will always have the original to fall back on.

bear in mind with all the above and a dramatic change in boost a specific map will need to be written.

Who mapped urs originally?

I think thats covered it, but I'm sure Jim, Craig, Tony & Ben will add theirs!!

Jake

[craggsy 91]

I think you have about summed it up Jake.

Other cooling option would bit water/meth injection a bit less space hungry. I will go that route no doubt, when I can afford it that is.

always thought 263s were a good all round cam...for NA and FI.

Personally i know nothing about the Z charger as Jake kinda got me to have a Rotrex, easy and very powerfull.

Ben Seabrook or Spindat are the 2 people i know with Z chargers

Oh and welcome to the club

[S/Cmk2 0]

Thanks very much both of you for the replys, i understand Ben has the same charger but not sure what psi hes running. Jake thats a good point about traction and i have been looking heavily into the quiffe lsd. this will be next on the list after the engine mods or at the same time depending on funds. traction is not too bad to be honest howvere tyres are not lasting long at all. MRC tuning have mapped the car previously and they willl be doing it again if i stay with the standard ecu. This is a bit of a grey area as some people like aftermarket stuff and some people say to stay with what ive got.

Ive heard good things about bosch red injectors although unsure whether these will be needed.

Craggsy, water injection does appeal to me akthough i havnt done research about this and am unsure about the pros and cons, ideally would like a nice front mounted cooler that works well ie doesnt loose me power and fits in the limited space i have.

[Ben Seabrook 4]

hi Luke,

yeah I am running the same setup and have looked into upgrading the pulley's but the guys in Switzerland ( the only people who sell aftermarket parts for these chargers !!! ) are massively difficult to deal with ! Do you have a ZR1 or 2 setup mate ? I know that they do smaller pulleys but they told me if you have a ZR1 then you cannot upgrade the power from 6psi without sending the charger off to them for re-conditioning – something to do with the bearings on the early ones not being designed to take more power !

Even at around 10psi you would probably be making just over 300bhp so not sure that you need to lower the compression or upgrade the pistons either tbh although I would take Jake, Jim and Tonys advice on this over mine !!

I have just put a 6 branch, de-cat and 263 cams on mine ready for the charger to go back on and would expect the power to be around the 280-290 mark which without doing something to help with the traction ( as you say an lsd check out this thread - http://www.vr6oc.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?330085 ) I think is enough ! I hadn't looked at intercooler's mainly because in all the time my car never ran hot and I didn't have any probs with keeping the temps down.

I have also looked at having a pulley made and had approached a local company who said in theory it wouldn't be a tricky thing to do so am toying with the idea.

I would recommend getting the car live mapped by either Storm, Stealth or C2 on here – they all know VR6 engines inside out and deal regularly with turbo's and chargers. Spoke to Kevin on here about the MAF position several times and both of us had been told to leave it after the charger although it makes much more sense to have it first although the limited space available is against you achieving this !!

Personally I am going to get mine mapped with the cams etc and see what power I get and then decide about more power by upgrading the pulleys, but based on how the car handles after mapping I might be tempted to spend the money on an lsd

[S/Cmk2 0]

Thanks for the reply Ben, its interesting you say about the zr1 and zr2 differences, im not entirely sure which one i have but will try and find out tomorrow. Stupid question but is it identified anywhere on the charger? If it is going to be tricky to up the psi i may have to look into another charger. Its also interesting you say about running it without a cooler and my engine temps are very low with the intake simply dropped down beside the charger through the foglight hole. Has anyone gone down the route of a short intake with the cooler to make it more efficient?

I may well go with you Ben and get it mapped with the cams and 6 branch to see how it feels then. following that spend the money on pistons, rods ect and a rotrex. Ahhhhh im indecisive!

[rodney 17]

Well most of the information is covered above.. May I suggest you become a premium member as it opens up other discussions for you.. (and discounts )

http://www.vr6oc.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?155255

If my memory is all on song then you can go up to about 9psi without the need to upgrade internals and deal with the compression ratio. If you look at the VF product. Stage2 (8psi) is a bolt on affair. it is not until you hit 10psi that you add the items you spoke of in your thread as part of kits. So look at how far you want to go. The gearbox is fine at these sorts of power although when you get the chance a clutch upgrade may be worth the effort. As you are already running a decent level of charge you will note that the wheels spin in anything other than dry weather. I personally feel that a LSD is a must as you increase. It will also help with tourqe steer a little.

As an option. is it worth having a word with Regal or NSracing to see if they have a second hand set up as this may be more cost effective (rotex or VF)?

If you have standard injectors you will have to upgrade to at least redtops and look at the fuel pump you have in the car. if it is the VR6 one all is ok.

As said there are other options to get more power R32 will allow you to hit similar stage 1numbers before you add chargers etc...

Cams.. as you have to retard the timing on engines to run chargers the sportier cams tend not to be as effective and can cause other problens as the heat build up becomes an issue. 245 and 248s are known as a charger cam....

I would suggest a 6 branch and it is heat wrapped. The extra heat can be an issue to cetrain areas. So get it outta there as quickly as you can.. I assume you are Decat so as long as you are over 2.25" then all is ok there. Finally yup a remap is a must and the chaps above are the best at it.

I add as some of the others. I am not an expert on the Z units. But again give the 3 companies a call and chat to them. They will have had experience of this. Let us know what they have to say as it would be good to know as well..

good luck and let us know how you progress

[Ben Seabrook 4]

Thanks for the reply Ben' date=' its interesting you say about the zr1 and zr2 differences, im not entirely sure which one i have but will try and find out tomorrow. Stupid question but is it identified anywhere on the charger? If it is going to be tricky to up the psi i may have to look into another charger. Its also interesting you say about running it without a cooler and my engine temps are very low with the intake simply dropped down beside the charger through the foglight hole. Has anyone gone down the route of a short intake with the cooler to make it more efficient?

I may well go with you Ben and get it mapped with the cams and 6 branch to see how it feels then. following that spend the money on pistons, rods ect and a rotrex. Ahhhhh im indecisive!

[/quote']

nah I don't think it is, there is a number on the charger and if you contact RUF I believe they can tell you from that though mate

yeah as I said mate I know that I will be happy with it with everything on and any extra cash will then be spent on an lsd. However If I were to start again I would defo buy a Rotrex charger mate - so it may be worth looking out for a second hand one buying that and then selling the Z if you are deperate for more power

[Rikki 2]

Zr1 have i micro v belt zr2 like mine have toothed pulley!

[Ben Seabrook 4]

Zr1 have i micro v belt zr2 like mine have toothed pulley!

feck of course !! cheers Rikki :) anymore to add, your running 6psi too aren't you mate ?

[S/Cmk2 0]

My charger has a toothed pulley so im guessin its a later model.. i will definately be speaking to the above mentioned companies s hear their point of view. i have been looking into rotrex chargers today and can't find much either new or secondhand. I have breifly looked into turbo options but would rather stay supercharged as im unsure whether i would get good power without spending a lot of money forging internals to run biggish turbos at high boost. Have seen a complete turbo setup on ebay for £800..can't be great. Thanks for all the info so far guys, hop the info shared will help a few people who are thinking along the same lines as myself but it seems theres a good reason why knowone runs high power on these chargers!

[craggsy 91]

Storm Developments are a Rotrex dealer in UK.

Give em a call as they know there onions there. Been a few times myself, but strangely never bumped into Jake or any of his cars yet

[binliner 0]

I used to have a ZR2 charger, mine had an 8psi pulley on it when I bought it but that was the only one I've ever seen. I think someones probably already said they don't recommending upping the boost above about 10psi on these chargers and parts are notoriously hard to get hold of now, you need a lot of patiece and preferably a second language!

[Ben Seabrook 4]

right so looking back through my old emails from RUF these are the pulley sizes they have available

88 Pulley

73 Pulley

27 Pulley

21 Pulley

and I currently have the 27 & 73 on my car - so if I changed to the 21 and 88 pulley I guess that would increase the psi ? is that correct ? so confused after reading all these emails !!

[Rikki 2]

Yea im running 6 psi....but very interested in going 8 psi....as Binliner said dont fancy 10psi due to unreliable. Need to find out some deffo sizes for pulleys Ben!!!!!!

[Ben Seabrook 4]

well those sizes quoted above are the correct pulley sizes ( measured in number of teeth per pulley) just need to know which ones we need to up the psi now - anyone ??

[S/Cmk2 0]

sounds logical Ben that going down to a smaller pulley with less teeth would increase psi although there is no information anywhere i can find to that confirms this or anywhere that sells such a pulley.

[Ben Seabrook 4]

I know where to get the pulley's ;) those sizes come from the only official aftermarket retailer for these chargers mate

[rodney 17]

just fyi....

http://www.vr6oc.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?333936

[wayne_1@tiscali.co.uk 27]

z-enginnering only made the charger up to 8 psi only so thats why ns racing then started doing the vortech v9 as that went from 6psi to 20psi ? but u can ring the guys in switzerland on fridays only for the z enginnering only day they answer the phone apparantly they were designing a zr 3 and 4 charger

[MaidenVR6 26]

Ive done 1 year with a ZR2 9 psi charger. Zero issues. A very nice piece. Remember to have half full oil chamber with fresch engine oil. If someone needs it, i have a OBD2 chip from Z-Enginnering for sale. It was running perfect.

Take a pic of your SC so we can see how it looks.

Water/methanol should be a nice upgrade. When it comes to cams, its alot to choose from. I know Schrik 268's are very nice with a ZR2. Gasket port your exhaust manifold instead off using money on a header. It doesnt give any power on a VR6 anyway. I used stock exhaust with my ZR2, and it was really working well.

Here is a clip 3 or 4 years ago:

[Matt W 4]

z-enginnering only made the charger up to 8 psi only so thats why ns racing then started doing the vortech v9 as that went from 6psi to 20psi ? but u can ring the guys in switzerland on fridays only for the z enginnering only day they answer the phone apparantly they were designing a zr 3 and 4 charger

The ZR3 has been released and discontinued it looked a lot like the VF charger when installed.

What i have heard is that RUF have improved/redesigned the ZR2 charger which is now called the RSC.

Also RUF are redeveloping all their VR6 charger kits and they will be available at the end of February (according to the website)!