Technical The Supercharger Thread To End All Supercharger Threads

This morning i was reading @Ryan 's thread about CAR SPEED and STYLE 1959 and in it was an add for OBERHAUSEN superchargers which i'd never heard of before, and i thought. How many super charger manufactures have there been since let's say 1800 to the 1960's. Let's try to keep it period correct, but one's i can think of are.
GMC
S.C.o.T ( Italmecnicca)
Oberhausen
Latham
McCulloch
Wade
What others am i missing?

 

Thanls @Moriarity i didn't know how old Paxton's were. Didn't they come stock on Studebakers?

 

Early Paxton blowers were McCulloch superchargers, they developed their dedicated supercharger division in 1956 and sold it off in 1958.

 

Shorrocks and Marshall

 

How's about one of these?????.....
Sorry... These are the only pictures I have......

 

From Ryan's article.

 

The VW boys like these old Pepco blowers

 

Frenzel also produced a very limited number of superchargers for the flathead Ford.

 

How about Potvin?

 

I can't remember if this is a WADE or Judson.

 

It’s a Wade RO34. The angled outlet at the bottom in the pics is actually the inlet in the stock setup, most people machine this bit off and bolt a carb adapter in its place. The blower in the pics is actually set up upside down. It also says Wade on the case.

 

I guess if you are starting in the 1800’s then we can include the original rotor type designed and patented by the Roots brothers. Not designed as a supercharger, but rather a blower, it was produced to ventilate mines. The Roots led to other industrial blowers such as the Melee-Dexter that was tried on the Offy four cylinder at Indy, the Schwitzer-Cummins and Gardner-Denver. Some of the industrial blowers were built from cast iron rather than aluminum and were made to move air or even powders, such as flour. In the early days of forced induction hot rodders tried them all at one time or another.

 

Here’s a smaller Wade RO20 blower on my son,s Anglia.

 

This is a GMC 4-51 on a 283 in a Corvette, the 4-51 diesels had problems and were soon replaced by the 4-53 series. Chevrolet dyno tested engines set up with these blowers and AFAIK this was the only one installed in an automobile. This is a very nice, clean installation and it wouldn’t surprise me if Duntov was behind this project.

 

Wade used the angled inlet to smooth out the air flow pulsing caused by the straight rotors, as compared to the helical rotors in the GMC. The GMC rotors were more costly and complex to machine, but the angled inlet was an ingenious solution to the pulsing problem.

 

@Fordors That's why i said 1800 because i know Roots style blowers were designed for ventilating mine shafts back in the day. (Kinda like a Potvin set up) I was also thinking of spliting this topic in two with the two basic types, like the centrifugal (MacCulloch) and Roots (GMC) style. But not the more modern Whipple (screw) type that you'd see on a Top Fuel car.

 

AFAIK Potvin did not make blowers, just the hardware to mount them.

Roo

 

You can add Norman from Australia as Eldred Norman built sliding vane type superchargers for various applications from the mid 60's through the early 70's. A friend of mine had one on his six cylinder Holden and also had the optional clutch that allowed him to drive the car normally aspirated and then turn the blower on when he needed extra power--Yep, just like Mad Max (but for real)
http://sahistoryhub.com.au/people/eldred-norman
This article does not touch much on the superchargers but give a good idea of how smart the man was:
https://www.whichcar.com.au/features/legendary-australian-inventor-and-racer-eldred-norman

Roo

 

Gary Dyers ended up making blowers, and still does today. Possibly newer than what the OP is looking for.

 

The first Dyer sales brochure.

Gary Dyer introduced his street blower kits in the mid-’70’s initially with 2” Gilmer belt drives and for less common combinations he was modifying aluminum four barrel manifolds.
His early drives used an aluminum hub for the blower pulley with a saw cut and two 5/16-18 pinch bolts (no key way!) and the snout was a sheet metal fabrication. Connecting the shaft to the blower gear was an OEM forging.

 

That's what i thought too. That's why i didn't include them in my list.

 

Graham-Paige was supercharged, as was Duesenberg,( & Miller on his "91"motors)

 

Interesting topic. If everyone can leave the drives for GMC style units out or the various clones all based on the GMC design, whether 6.71 or 6v71 or their derivatives and just keep to unique superchargers, this will be very informative.

 

Mark Danekas built some in the GMC style.

 

Someone should add the history Of Robert P. McCulloch. He is famous for superchargers, land develpement and Lake Havasu Az.

 

Some history here:
http://www.superchevy.com/how-to/engines-drivetrain/0510sc-principles

 

Dude! Is that Mr. Norm sweeping in the rosin???