Just a little blurb for the historical record on Powerdyne. As you might know, Floyd James Wheeler's (James Wheeler) company WheelerCo Products, Inc - aka Powerdyne Automotive sold out to O2 Force back sometime in 2010 or earlier. Some of the story of O2 Force is discussed earlier in another post I made. This blurb is from the old Performance Supply Innovations website that talked about their association with O2 Force before the company went belly up and sold all of their rights and inventory to the Manness Brothers (Supercharger Rebuilds)
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Powerdyne
The Powerdyne Story....
You may or may not have heard about the Powerdyne Supercharger company, but for many years they were a dominant force in the performance automotive world.
They brought the belt-drive supercharger into the mainstream. Thousands of supercharger kits were sold around the world to car enthusiasts looking for the most bang-for-their-performance-dollar. A supercharger can easily add 35-60% more power, depending on application.
Anyway, as many companies did during the recent economic crunch, Powerdyne was forced to close its doors.
Not wanting to see an awesome product line go to waste, O2-Force stepped in and assumed control of the company.
As demand started to rise again, O2-Force started looking for a manufacturing and engineering firm to design and build all of the new model superchargers and components. That would be where we come in!
Performance Supply Innovations, in conjunction with O2-Force, is happy to announce that manufacturing and production is now underway for all existing Powerdyne kits, as well as new model cars (2010 Mustang, 2010 Camaro, 2010 Taurus, and much more)
Some products are being redesigned and rebuilt from the ground up. We are taking a quality-first approach to everything we do!
We are currently expanding our facilities, updating our website, and hiring staff to accommodate this incredible new product line. Please bear with us while the dust settles.
ARE YOU LOOKING FOR POWERDYNE REPLACEMENT PARTS?
We have EVERYTHING, including:
-All previously existing Powerdyne components
-Brand new superchargers (head units)
-Mounting brackets for all existing kits, and new ones on the way
-Bearings
-Impellers
-Pulleys
-Belts
-Induction Tubes
New PSI Supercharger Kits are planned for the following cars:
2010 Camaro (v6 and v8)
2010 Mustang (4.0L and 4.6L)
2011 Mustang (5.0L)
2010 Taurus (non-SHO)
2008-Present Dodge Challenger
LX Platform Cars: Charger, Magnum, 300C
...and Many Many More!
Our website does not currently reflect all of the above items, so please CONTACT US for specific information for your needs.
Thank You,
-PSI
May 28, 2010
It also seems somewhere during this time, O2 Force or Powerdyne also was attempting to do some work with a company called Accelerated Tooling LLC who eventually became Torqstorm Superchargers. According to Torqstorm - approached to help redesign the case of the Powerdyne supercharger that had gone out of business. According to them, the Powerdyne BD-Series Supercharger had a lot of issues with bearings, heat, and belts that broke when going over 6 psi. The re- design had to fix all of these issues plus incorporate a self- contained oiling system, eliminate the belt, look better than the original, and be a direct bolt- on for the original. It also had to integrate all the old parts that the company had: bearings and scrolls etc. Powerdyne or O2 Force (?) didn’t like the cost involved with the re- designed supercharger using a billet case that Accelerated Tooling made for them. The serious problem with the old castings, which they wanted to continue to use, was that the location of the bearing was not controlled well, causing premature bearing failure. Accelerated Tooling LLC absorbed these redesign costs - having never received compensation from Powerdyne or O2-Force (?)
A year later, Accelerated Racing Product LLC was formed, and development started on the TorqStorm® supercharger.
As I dig into this, there seems to be quite an interesting story of the origins of Powerdyne and possible beef/rift between James Middlebrook of Vortech and James Wheeler. Both Middlebrook and Wheeler left Paxon and started Vortech. It is said that Middlebrook was more the engineer and Middlebrook was more sales related and in some way was forced out of Vortech by Middlebrook (some claims that MIddlebrook wanted to keep it all for himself?)
Researching the early Vortech and Powerdyne patents some info came out that the early Vortech designs came either from rejected Paxton designs that either of them had access to and some others from some unnamed overseas supercharger design that one or the other came across.. The belt driven Powerdyne seems to have been a rejected Paxton design (it was referred to as the Ninja Blower at Paxon during those days) that Wheeler took and used to start up his own company (WheelerCo Products / Powerdyne Automotive).
More interesting is when Wheeler started to offer the XB-9000 Race Blower / XB-1A Blower (both gear driven) they are very similar to the early Vortech design and maybe even infringed on James Middlebrooks patents for the Vortech V1. It will be interesting to know what sort of behind the scenes disputes this caused between Middlebrook and Wheeler as well.
Another patent by Wheeler (it seems that maybe both James Wheeler and his father were involved in the designs) was for a throttle body spacer. Reading through the patent description is interesting and maybe could be funny for a more engineer minded person. Was James Wheeler just more sales oriented (similar to Steve Saleen) and his father more the engineer or was there something more interesting that was going on?
I also found there was a lawsuit between K&N and James Wheeler/Powerdyne/WheelerCo but it currently is unclear what the dispute was about.
There is surely a very interesting and perhaps dramatic story here involving Paxton, James Middlebrook, Floyd James Wheeler (Father and Son - one was a Nevada Congressman later on), Vortech Engineering, WheelerCo Products, Powerdyne Automotive, O2-Force. Maybe one day later there will be enough information to share it.
10 years after starting Vortech, James Middlebrook aquired Paxton and last year the Vortech Paxton company was aquired bu Taglich Private Equity, the group that owns Air Flow Research, Scat Crankshafts, RaceTec Pistons and Procar seating.
Scat recently moved into the Vortech facility.
