[lightning]

I had it installed and it just failed. I didnt believe all of the negative comments initially and I learnt my lesson. I did extensive research, months of contemplating and being positive. But what turned me off was not the quality of the product (even though it is not that good) what turned me
Off was the way they handled the whole situation.You can backdate my post to verify my enthusiasm about this kit and trust me, I felt like how u felt. There are also other customers who can't be bothered to come online to share about their bad experiences, I just want justice to be served.

Regarding their reply on their Arma announcement, I have sent them numerous e mails about their claim but they did not reply. And I will also furnish u with all the details about the damage from a certified mechanical engineer. They keep claiming that it is a fod.

they supplied me with a air intake that was too big for my car, so we replaced it with a very credible brand, K&N filter, which fitted perfectly. it ran without problems for a month or two. if there was any problem with the filter, don't you think that it would have immediately get into it? And you are right, there is no way a foreign object could have done such damage.


Based on the arma report, their diagnosis pointed out towards a FOD ingestion. Their assessment does not hold ground as the entire charger assembly was ripped off the steel bracket. Thus any damage to the rest of the remaining blade core cannot be ascertained to FOD ingestion or any post damage spinning. The intake pipe was fairly intact compared to the charger compression housing.

Their report pointed towards damage at 4 points and this is an unsupportable theory as there is no corresponding damage in the sides of the charger support bearing strut. I cannot fathom the possibility of a FOD hitting a blade spinning at 20000rpm and yet still not hit 1 pc of the support struts. The damage shown in the picture could have occurred when large chunks of aluminum flew around in that corner of the car. The chunks could have bounced around the corner and the residual spinning energy of the blades could have hit the blades.

there is no possibility of a FOD entering the charger as the air filter was perfectly intact. The original filter provided by ARMA was too large to fit under the bonnet. The filter is still in the shop and it is still crushed and flattened. That was the reason why we had to change to a smaller filter. K&N is a reasonable brand, don't you think? Both filters are present and can be verified for their integrity.

As for being unable to verify the exact item that hit the blade in the previous set of pictures, we were able to match the screw thread imprint with one of those bolts on the charger housing. So after we disprove that initial hypothesis, another possibility comes out. Now it is the reminder of the turbine core. The entire steel charger frame was bent. Even the charger assembly was ripped off from the frame. Other than a catastrophic failure, how else can such sturdy structures fail too?

So from the looks of it the possibility of the blade failing due to material fatigue is higher than any FOD ingestion. That would lead to a massive imbalance and cause all the components to just wrench itself off.

Not forgetting that it was the ARMA technician that came down to install the entire kit. The workshop just did the air filter.

[lightning]

photo of support bearing strut:


Photo evidence that the supercharger turbine broke into pieces and flew outwards, hitting the screw:






if it was a FOD, do you think the damage will be so crazy?
anyway here is the incident report from our side of the story, you guys can be the judge.

[SavvyByNature]

Ouch... sorry to hear. Sounds like they used less than quality parts in building the supercharger.

[lightning]

Arma Supercharger Incident Report
Background

The incident occurred on 19 Oct 2011 at around 2300hrs in Singapore. The charger kit had been installed for about 3 months prior and the car was always driven around local roads and never raced nor tacked. At the point of failure, the ambient temperature was 28 Degree Celsius. The engine was working at normal operating temperatures and the approximate rpm when the compressor failed was at 3400rpm. The failure was so drastic that the metal shrapnel cut the transmission fluid cooling lines and the radiator heater hoses. The car was towed back to shop.

Facts about the case

Pieces of the broken charger and associated plumbing was recovered and collected. The following series of pictures are of the plumbing and of the compressor blade and housing.







Looking at the compressor wheel closely, you can see the grainy crystaline structure of the turbine blades that indicate a casting process was used to create the blade. The blade pieces in question that the ARMA representative brought up was these 2 photos.


Our conclusion


The primary cause of the failure was material fatigue that started from a hairline of fissure crack on the turbine blade. The crack slowly developed until the spinning blade could not hold itself together and thus broke off. This caused the turbine housing to be destroyed. The shrapnel had 2 kinds would of energy levels. The spinning blade pieces would posess the (1) high velocity but low/medium mass projectile while the housing itself would be the (2) low velocity high mass type. These 2 kinds of projectiles would give different kinds of damage as they would be either the “cutting” or “smashing” effects. The evidence of this is seen here. The ATF pipe was severed with a relatively thin 1.4mm cut which indicates that a piece of the turbine blade had stuck the pipe.






Meanwhile at the intake charge pipe, the point of impact suffered a smashing blow as you can see from the cross sectional photo. The outer surface is heavily indented and sunken while the side facing the engine block has torn the welds holding the pieces together.




As for the damage to the 2 pieces of turbine blades that the ARMA representative mentioned, There could not be a foreign object being injested into the intake as the air filter was whole and did not have any holes in the media. The screw indentation in the blade was a result of an impact to the charger housing clamping bolts. As the turbine blades broke off, it shattered the housing into pieces and characteristically, the fault lines occur at the bolt holes.






This breakage tore off some bolts and also left a couple of bolts in place. These bolts are the M4 variety and it perfectly matches the indentation. Thus as the bolts stood out from the flange, they were subsequently struck by the turbine blades and this left the imprint.






To dispute the ARMA hypothesis of a foreign object entering the compressor wheel, the bearing support was very conspicously free of any strike marks as any injested object would be clamped between the spinning blade and one of the 3 outer bearing supporting struts, and there would be visible damage, but there was not.




Thus the point of failure still revolves around material fatigue and that the testing protocols for each piece of turbine blades that leaves the foundry or manufacturing plant is less than satisfactory. The other possibility is a drop in material quality that was changed by the supplier that yielded less than satisfactory strength.

To cope with the immense inertia forces, it is suggested that the material itself be altered and that the 47000rpm design parameter be increased to about 60000rpm to provide about 80% more design headroom to allow for material fatigue and manufacturing tolerances.

[lightning]

As requested by some of you guys out there to see if the air filter is intact or not. here are the photos. this is supplied by ARMA that doesn't fit and it was their "engineer" that came down to install the supercharger. the air intake wouldn't fit my bonnet.


Notice that the air filter is out of shape because the filter wouldn't fit. and after repeated attempts by the "engineer" to force the filter into my car, he succeeded, only to cause the filter to be out of shape as you see it.

Next, here are the photos of the K&N that i have installed. note that this filter ran for months on the supercharger without any mechanical failure. If you owned a K&N air intake before, you would have noticed how solid the build of this filter is.





Honestly. how could a M4 nut have fell into this piece of filter? there was no M4 nut present at all surrounding the whole charger kit except for the fact that the M4 nuts were holding the charger together. So it is pretty obvious isn't it that the charger broke on metal fatigue and couldn't take the stress of the centrifugal forces on it.

[RupertPupkin]

Nice to see actual photos of a product and I do think that sucks for you, but haven't you posted all this somewhere else as well? Didn't ARMA respond there and stuff?

Just curious why you are reposting all this in here again?

[just4kickz]

is ur engine ok?

[darkrom]

Is this the same person or is this a SECOND case of the SC failing and ARMA screaming FOD FOD FOD!

I know one thing, I'm not putting that shitty SC on my car...

[Dr.GumbyM.D.]

Originally Posted by darkrom

Is this the same person or is this a SECOND case of the SC failing and ARMA screaming FOD FOD FOD!

I know one thing, I'm not putting that shitty SC on my car...

Same person.

I hope that the other makers of SCs are watching this explode.. I wonder how many SCs ARMA have sold.. and I wish we had some positive experiences with it. I think the biggest problem is that we're seeing one negative experience out of one experience, so right now they're 100% bad. Hopefully others have experiences to share to broaden out the spread. If not, again hopefully other SC makers have learned a valuable lesson.....

[C ///M]

For those curious, I think the OP is just cross-posting this story and images across multiple forums/communities as his way of providing a "public service announcement" and as pay-back for what he thinks is ARMA's complete lack of customer service and standing behind their product.

The idea is that if he posts this everywhere, then people won't buy the ARMA kit and it will hurt them financially in opportunity cost to the point where it would have been in their best interest to help him.

This is just my analysis of his posting; I have no opinion of the situation itself.

[Mark06]

OP is just following up on his first thread which outlined what Arma did customer service wise (blame FOD). I don't necessarily think that the OP is posting for the single purpose of dragging Arma's name through the mud or getting even with them. Instead, he is just updating the forum with what he has found that contradicts Arma's claim.

[darkrom]

From what I've been hearing this SC requires lots of maintenance that other superchargers with a much more modern design do not require. That alone makes it a less reliable product IMO and I'll be avoiding it personally.

[kudos]

Isn't this made in China also?

[Beemw335]

What did you expect, you had a cheap supercharger put on your car.
Going forced induction isnt cheap, you should always go with well known and experienced companies.
Good luck with everything OP

[willbowe]

holy fock thats crazy thanks for the all the info i was just looking into a arma supercharger myself but after seeing your post i will be putting that money to better use now

[mapleridge]

Originally Posted by Beemw335

What did you expect, you had a cheap supercharger put on your car.
Going forced induction isnt cheap, you should always go with well known and experienced companies.
Good luck with everything OP

What is cheap about a $7000 supercharger? Do you mean a poor design or manufacturer?

[Beemw335]

Originally Posted by mapleridge

What is cheap about a $7000 supercharger? Do you mean a poor design or manufacturer?

^ by cheap I mean they use low quality material and obviously didnt take the time to properly test this kit.
Theyre a shady company, and you shouldnt be putting this kit on your 45k cars...

[lightning]

Originally Posted by jimmydever

Nice to see actual photos of a product and I do think that sucks for you, but haven't you posted all this somewhere else as well? Didn't ARMA respond there and stuff?

Just curious why you are reposting all this in here again?

sorry for not explaining. this is because there are a lot of people who ask me to set up this thread so that they do not need to go back and forth different threads to follow the story.

[lightning]

Originally Posted by C ///M

For those curious, I think the OP is just cross-posting this story and images across multiple forums/communities as his way of providing a "public service announcement" and as pay-back for what he thinks is ARMA's complete lack of customer service and standing behind their product.

The idea is that if he posts this everywhere, then people won't buy the ARMA kit and it will hurt them financially in opportunity cost to the point where it would have been in their best interest to help him.

This is just my analysis of his posting; I have no opinion of the situation itself.

sorry this is no public service announcement. it's just to consolidate all the posts as requested by one of the members..

Lightning in recent post about your
fail'd super charger - can u create
a new thread in the NA section and paste
all ur info bout ur incident.

It'll be helpful to keep it separate and so that
the forum can follow it properly instead between
3-4 threads.

A clear title so that we know where to go.
Suggestion "FAILED NA SuperCharger ARMA"
or "ARMA broke/destroyed Super Charger for my NA" whatever u want to title it - something clear.

[RupertPupkin]

Gotcha. Thanks for the info on the charger. Sorry you had to be the guinea pig.

Originally Posted by lightning

sorry for not explaining. this is because there are a lot of people who ask me to set up this thread so that they do not need to go back and forth different threads to follow the story.

[scedbimmertoy]

A handcrafted S/C housing which made of recycled metal. Cracked into fragments caused what they called FOD. Sorry for your loss, bro.

[Fundahl]

Very good investigation! I hope this issue is resolved correctly, with the party at fault accepting responsibility and fixing the situation.