Hello Gents, Q. Has anyone on here had the Ferrari 360 Bi-Compressor upgrade done by German tuner Novitec to their car? I was recently offered the kit (minus the ecu's) for a reasonable price which I was contemplating but apparently they no longer support this product (for a couple of years now) and if your ignition ECU's go bad there is no way for you to get your investment recovered! It all becomes a bit of a paperweight... Now this is seriously bad news and a reason why I always tend to buy genuine Ferrari parts wherever possible (!), since once aftermarket companies go bust or give up on their products (for whatever reason) it can leave people stranded who need spare parts. Anyway people if you do have this kit fitted get in touch and I will offer you a backup of your firmware so that if you EVER need to replace a bad computer in the future your not left with the a huge problem.... Hell, if you have a euro car I'm even willing to pay you for the privilege of being able to take a backup copy of your maps so I could look more seriously into buying this kit. Without the ignition computers (or the backup images) I think I'll just have to walk away from the whole deal... Shame really as its a 600hp upgrade for only 25kg extra weight... cry ... -T Image Unavailable, Please Login
This German dealership has a CS for sale with a Novitec Rosso bi-kompressor kit, maybe you can ask them for the ecu map? Not sure if it's the same as the 360 kit though but might be worth a try? https://home.mobile.de/AUTOMOBILE-LEGNER#des_227514518
Good find Mike! Thanks so much.. I'll see if I can communicate with them. All I need is one of the ignition computers for 5 mins
If you ever wanted to see how it looks when the Rotrex superchargers are fitted to the 360 engine... Here they are in all their glory... Image Unavailable, Please Login
Well, when Novitec discontinues something, the hardware itself also becomes obsolete...a friend had a novitec'd bi-kompressor scuderia and one of the pulley belts crapped out and disintegrated. The best piece of advice Novitec NA and Novitec HQ could give was, "Go to your local pepboys and see if you can find a generic equivalent." Couldn't even share specs of the original belt e.g. length, width etc etc just go buy a bunch and try a bunch and hope the car doesn' blow up. lol. They did find something they thought "could work", stuck it in and then sold the car as is lol.
Well Novitec may have originally assembled the kit but they certainly don't make the vast majority of the parts in it. Even to service it its all off the shelf parts, so quite why you struggled to get a belt is baffling. I don't get this Novitec attitude of not supporting their products after a few years. Very strange. Did you know for instance that the supercharger oil should be replaced every 2 years? Q. Did you not try the Rotrex website? Rotrex will even help with technical support if you ask them nicely. In terms of parts, many of parts including the core component, the Rotrex C30-94 superchargers are available and not obsoleted. They can still be purchased for about $2k each (brand new in USA), the pulley's are a specific size to the installation but you can buy them, even the V-belts are available, the oil lubrication, fuel injectors, in fact the majority of parts are common including ancillaries such as Rotrex supercharger oil (which should be changed every 2 years) and oil cooling radiators are all readily available to buy. In fact the more I look at supercharging the Ferrari engines easier it actually looks to put together a much more reasonably price retrofit kit! This is especially so if you run them at relatively low boost pressure so the internals of the engine require no upgrades or modifications. For an easy fitment you can just bolt it straight onto the existing aircon belt drive (sorry aircon!) then you can go with 50% extra power on the 360 with twin supercharges, one on each bank (and be running at less than 10psi of boost) for about 600hp on 97 Octane and about 550hp on US octane fuel. If you relocate the mass airflow meters and use the original's the engine management system will see the airflow into the engine as intended by Bosch. Sure, Novitec did do their own specific kit, they made the specific car template (i.e. specifying length of pipework, a pair of cnc custom machined aluminum back plates for them to fit onto the 360 and F430 engines, use of belt auto adjusters (again off the shelf) to ensure good belt contact and then got the remapping of the ecu's to accommodate the larger injector sizes. They may have even contracted the mapping out as its easy to access the Bosch ME7.3 ecu's in the 360 (and the later ones in the F430 too). The mapping is probably the most tricky part since to do it properly you need to camp out at a dyno and remap from pretty much estimates... Even then though we are talking only several thousands of development costs (few days on a dyno with an experienced tuner). Since its a twin compressor (1 per bank) if this kit was available for any other V8 application it would be around $10K-15K, sadly we have the Ferrari tax to deal with so it was $50k... ho hum... Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Don't see why you need the ECUs. Is there anything to be controlled like programmable valves ? I added a rotrex to my SR3 many years back - absolutely mega would leave 911GT3's standing. Don't see why with a combination of injectors and remapping it won't work. Worst case - albeit a lot of rewiring would be to fit a Motec or Life Racing ECUs, but that would be easier to map.
No programmable valves. In order to achieve +50% power increase and 600+ bhp they simply went with much larger 1000cc injectors which required a full remap. I want a baseline map at a given level of boost and octane of fuel from the original Novitec ECU's remap (of the original ecus) before I'd consider taking this on.... Why, well its many hours on the dyno to get there safely. I do not see any reason why you'd need to go with Motec's or any other aftermarket ECU's in this case since the Bosch ME7.3's are up to the job and only use checksums which is known and they can be reflashed onto your existing ecu's. Job done.
The german carpassion Forum have a member which bought a novitec compressor kit ~2-3 years ago. It was a long way because informations from novitec are needed which arent available anymore. 600 bhp and more than 100 laps around the nuerburg ring (green hell). Trev, i will ping the guy. Regards Joerg
Trev, I read up on your car yesterday and it's an awesome build. That being said, if I owned your car I would never consider forced induction. For many reasons I think keeping it naturally aspirated would give you the most enjoyment. Just my opinion!
James, in this case I am talking about supercharging, totally different to the power you get from turbo's which can generate drivability issues with lag, no matter how clever your electronics or fast spooling turbo's are. Rotrex superchargers give very linear power output which is exactly what you want and you don't loose your high redline either. All this makes me partial to Rotrex superchargers since they are almost silent and highly reliable in providing very healthy +50% increases in power for very little weight penalty (the weight of a car battery). Also you don't loose your throttle sensitivity, the torque curve is immense and you can really feel the difference. I could always see if its possible to run with different maps too for low boost, medium and high boost settings, in effect going from N/A to higher levels of power with just a switchable map option. The compression ratio stays the same so nothing is lost, you just gain huge swells of power....
Parasitic drag does dull the throttle response and the blower in the inlet tract also reduces the lovely sound, which are both parts of what makes a Ferrari engine so great IMO. OK if a pure race car if that's your intent.
I'll let you know what I think if I pull the trigger. Rotrex marketing bumf seems to be particularly proud of the throttle response aspect. Also ultimately its a digital throttle on the 360 anyway and you can dial it in quite a bit. Here's what they say 'Rotrex manufactures a compact, efficient, highly reliable and low noise supercharger boasting state of the art traction drive technology. The traction drive transmits power through friction forces between its rolling elements. Extremely adiabatic efficient (up to 82%) equals great cruising gas mileage Superior low end torque compared to other centrifugal superchargers Ultra-high mechanical efficiency (up to 99.2) High durability (3 year warranty) Superior throttle response Excellent fuel economy Engine durability Top performance No turbo lag' I'm certain the throttle response won't be an issue once I've played with the throttle sensitivity maps in the ecu. I'll be interested to see what it does to sound, however since its only changing the air intake side I don't think it will be catastrophic like on turbo's... Here's a vid of a CS with the supercharges fitted, still sounds lovery classic CS sound to me... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlSoFWdV0b0 And from the track (and that vid is from within the cockpit with closed windows...lol, the cs is LOUD!) ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1jWTlz6dRk
And here's the kicker.... Look what it does to the power to weight ratio's... Image Unavailable, Please Login
I know you're talking about supercharging, I tune supercharged combinations every day. Having driven countless supercharged vehicles I will say nothing feels like a naturally aspirated engine except a naturally aspirated engine. Quite easy to tell the difference and for this car especially I think it would unfavorably change its attitude. Again, just my opinion.
I have been researching the Novitec 360 supercharger build for a while now . There doesn't seem to be much info out there that I could find . One interesting observation is that the centrifugal blower doesn't change the character of the engine , like a positive displacement blower would . Which I thought was very relevant . I have found a number of pictures over time on the net and you can follow how the design has evolved . Some of them are from a 430 install . In the first pic you can clearly see the Rotrex oil reservoirs mounted behind the tail lights some where in there is a filter as well . They are quite a long way from the blowers ? You mention the 1000cc injectors . I'm not sure about that as in if you look at the next pic you can see what I assume is a fuel hose coming from the fuel rail of each bank of manifold injectors to the front of the intercooler ? This is a later install as you can see how the air boxes have evolved and their connection to the carbon pipe . Next pic is an earlier install and that same pipe off the manifold goes forward to where the TB is buried somewhere above the hot exhaust manifold . Next pic I think is the TB buried somewhere down near the exhaust manifold ? Can't be a great position for the TB and if you look at the later 430 install you can see the Tb,s have been moved . While looking at the 430 install here are some pic's of the front radiators for the intercooling , not sure where the pumps sit ? In the next pic in the center you can see the electric pump for the intercooling , think there are two one for each side . Now here is a question if you look at the last two pic's of the earlier intercooler , They are obviously interchangeable side to side , with blanks on the inner side and fed from the outside face at the bottom . But what is the center fitting for ? Is it possibly an internal injector like the later setup ? I would love to know more . Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Whose observation was that? I would say a centrifugal supercharger greatly changes engine characteristics.
James, I'm guessing everyone has their own thoughts on this as to what constitutes engine character changes and what's acceptable for the 50% increase in power. Now I'm sitting on the fence until I actually try it for myself. I'm thinking I'll love the power, its an addictive thing... At the end of the day its a bolt on upgrade so if you don't like it you can always spend a weekend removing it and volia.. back to normal!
Well if you think about the fact it uses some of the engine power to compress the air then at the higher the rpm you feel much more of the effect, so at low rev's its doing little but as you keen on up the rev range its building like a steam train.
Here are the graphs of the two systems they offered Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I agree people have their own standards as to what they find acceptable but changing engine characteristics is not really a debate. Low end response/power feels softer due to parasitics and really no boost at that point, mid range actually can feel soft because the extreme upper end of the rpm range is so strong (as boost builds with rpm). On an engine like this, peak power comes at or nearly at the rev limiter. When driving you can hear and feel the bypass valve(s) closing and opening during transitions because there is so much airflow being circulated even when not in boost. Also, if road raced, how long before the liquid intercoolers are overwhelmed and the engine is dropping power due to high intake air temperatures and if tuned correctly, reduction in timing. I doubt there is sufficient room for heat exchangers big enough to efficiently manage the heat on a road course but with no data that is just speculation. You may love it. I do on certain types of cars, just not ones like this.
