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I have the c30-94 track dog racing kit. i knew these things were fragile, But i never expected it to fail like this. I was driving to work and about 5 mins into the drive oil started pouring from my super charger. Had to get it towed home. At first i thought it might be a oil line that burst so i added some uv dye to find the leak. turns out that wasn't necessary as it started pouring out from behind the pulley as soon as the rotrex got up to temp. it looks like the pulley somehow was making contact with the supercharger housing causing the leak. That gunk you see in the pulley are metal shavings. I dont understand how this could happen. I doubt user error here, i installed and torqued to spec the pulley to the SC, and i dont see how i possibly could of torqued it to the point of bending to contact. I also thought belt tension but i measured the belt deflection every install. My only idea is the pulley must of been machined to the wrong specs, causing interference.
Any thoughts to the cause of failure?
Important to note this isn't the first issue ive had with this kit,
For the first 3 months of ownership i went through 5 belts, turns out they sent me a super charger bracket that was out of spec by a few mm. Perhaps that misalignment started this wear? I also had a bear failure on my idle pulley, had to get that replaced too. Seems like i cant catch a break with this.
sucks this happened to you
sure looks like way more material shaved off than user error could have caused. probably contributed to the belts breaking too if its been rubbing a while.
I have heard of him and it is on my mind. If track dog wont warranty my supercharger i will be reaching out to him to see what a rebuild looks like. Honestly thinking of just cutting my losses and switching to a kraken setup.
Interesting you just posted this... my C30-74 seized up at the track on Saturday. I installed it in May of 2015. It had ~53,000 miles and 150 track days on it. I just ordered its replacement.
I would like to ask, wasn't there some kind of questionable noise that would make you check for something amiss?
Maybe? I had so many issues with belts slipping off during the first few months of ownership that any noise that could of been heard didnt register with me. After the fixed bracket was installed it really was nearly silent during operation besides a little belt noise. Less then 30 mins before it broke i had it running idling with the hood up and i didnt hear anything then.
I'm not an expert, but I believe the C30-XX family share similar hardware. I could be completely wrong here, but your pulley doesn't look like my pulleys.
The inside of all my pulleys are flat.
Here's a pic of my 90mm, looking at it from the front.
The nose of my C30-74 looks the same as yours.
If your pulley is as dished as it appears in the pictures, that might be the culprit. It also appears your belt fills the whole width of the pulley. How many ribs on that pulley? Mine have six, not counting the inner most rib.
BTW, I do not have a/c or p/s.
Follow up--I see that's a four-rib pulley, but it still looks from the pic that the inside is not flat. Do you have a cleaned up pic of the pulley?
Last edited by poormxdad; 09-13-2022 at 04:34 PM.
Reason: Knowledge
I can really see no way of this happening other than the main shaft of the rotrex unit breaking, allowing axial play. Otherwise, it would have been touching since day 1.
FWIW I also have a brand new 90mm pulley and a c30-94 sitting here and verified no contact between the nose and the back of the pulley. I'm also thinking a broken shaft or something of that sort.
Could just be perspective, but as a repeat DIY SC person, the tracking on that tensioner would be the first place I looked. If it is bad as it appears, that has fast fail written all over it.
If your prior bracket wasn’t right, the pulleys weren’t right, might check the depth on that 6-bolt spacer on the nose. That is also made and pre-installed by TDR.
Once the pulley was ground, it went off plane and gave play - leaving the bearing to see unexpected forces. The ground case probably cooked the bearing like a deep fried turkey.
I think you are on point, found some significant wear difference between the front and back side of the pulley.
i reached out to tdr and they will be selling me a new supercharger at cost and sending it to rotrex for warranty. If rotrex accepts the warranty i get my money back. Also opened up the oil filter and found tons of metal unsurprisingly. Bought a whole new oil cooler, reservoir and oil lines. They are also sending a new pulley. Hopefully this resolves the issue Back side Front side
late follow up but i think this story needs a conclusion,
Sent the Rotrex back to TDR to send to Rotrex for a warranty claim. They got back to me about 5 weeks later and it turns out it was a manufacturing defect. Something about the main bearing that holds the pulley failing and that it was a known issue with that batch of superchargers. may of been kick started by the bad supercharger bracket but thats speculation. Rotrex claims that current c30-94's dont have the same weak bearing design. frustratingly though Rotrex denied the warranty claim since I was 2 months out of warranty. TDR felt for my case and sold me a new unit with the fixed bearing design at cost. overall i think this was all a string of bad luck. I dont suspect this new charger to give me any issues. Ive had it installed for the past month and ive put around 300 miles on it. its substantially quieter and hasnt popped a belt. Really on me for not recognizing the belts popping off and louder then usual noise as unusual.
09-11-2022, 01:06 PM
Rotrex failure
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