LATHAM Axial Flow Supercharger - Fascinating History of a Short-Lived Design
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- Опубликовано: 5 июн 2024
- With only 650 units produced, the Latham Axial Flow Supercharger is one of the rarest vintage speed parts out there, but it's also one of the most well documented products I've ever seen. Dozens of magazine articles, brochures and photos exist of these unique supercharger systems, helping us understand the history and scope of the company and its high end blower setup. They were efficient, they were cool and they were highly publicized, but all of that didn't result in great sales. It is estimated that Norman Latham only built about 650 units before stopping operations in 1965.
Latham Manufacturing Company, owned by Norman Latham, began building custom axial flow superchargers in 1956. Latham Superchargers were used at Bonneville Salt Flats and Daytona Beach speed trials with great results. The superchargers were featured in Hot Rod Magazine, Motor Trend Magazine, Car & Driver Magazine as well as MANY other custom car publications.
By the 1960's, Latham Superchargers were available in kits to fit small block Chevy, Ford Y-block, Ford FE and many more applications. With prices nearing $1000 for a kit, Latham Superchargers were high-end speed parts. By 1965, the aftermarket was flooded with speed parts, and the Latham Supercharger was priced out of the market. Norman Latham held on to his patterns and materials, eventually selling the whole operation to Richard Paul.
The Latham Supercharger that started this whole research project is an 11-stage unit, originally built for use on a Ford FE engine. It is serial number 001427. It is complete with four YH Carter side draft carburetors, top and bottom pulleys, as well as the spring loaded tensioner. The most peculiar part of the equation is the Latham intake manifold, as most Latham kits simply used an adapter plate to mount the blower to an existing stock intake. This custom Latham intake is one of just a handful produced. 
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I heard a Latham at full boost at an AHRA-sanctioned drag race at Green Valley Raceway in 1962. A Dallas-area racer, I believe his name was Jack Simon, had stuffed an SBC into a Nash Metropolitan and topped it with a Latham. As an aircraft mechanic, I later became familiar with the sound of all manner of turbine engines, turboprop, jet, and auxiliary power unit, centrifugal compressors and axial and even the axial-centrifugal combination. But I still remember the sound of that Latham from 1962. You have a treasure there. Please, if you plan on spinning it again, clean and lubricate the bearings beforehand. The "will it run" instinct has, unfortunately, irretrievably damaged too many rare pieces of history.
If you were building model cars in the 1960s you knew about the Latham supercharger. AMT model company made a kit 1925 Model T Ford that included a Lincoln engine (MEL) that could be built with a Latham supercharger 4 carb setup.
I have a couple re-releases of that kit,,,, just for the Latham.
Also, the AMT 64 Olds F85 included a dual Judson set up.
That's awesome. These Latham blowers were everywhere...that's what seems so strange about the low production numbers. Lots of publicity, not a lot of production.
@@HotRodHoarder Probably the cost. They were superior to the GMC and McCullough but those were mass produced in the thousands and available in junkyards. With careful rebuilding the GMC could add a lot of hp.
Yeah but like w/ the '65 Riviera, the mounting & induction was laughable. They weren't 6-71s & AMT didn't get it. Same can be said w/ dual Judsons in the '64 Cutlass kits.
Yeah, I built that kit but never used the Latham set up mainly because I thought it was too damn ugly.
You want rare? I had a Mercedes 300SEL 6.3 that had custom-made Latham blower fed by 2 Weber 45DCOE carburetors. Stock, this was the fastest sedan in the world from 1968-72; with the Latham, it would stay neck-and-neck with a Ferrari 365GTB Daytona up to 130mph (after that, the breadbox aerodynamics came into play). Normally, the 6.3 only got about 12 mpg; with your foot in it, the Latham about halved that. But, BOY was it the ultimate sleeper. Big old boxy rich-fart sedan that took off like a Cup car.
That’s dope. A 365GTB is 350hp and 2600lbs. You would have to be making 500hp in that 3800lbs Mercedes to hang with it.
That also kinda tracks with your doubled fuel useage, because it only made like 250hp stock.
Works just like the compressor side of a jet engine.
Yup
a more modern style. in the 50's some jets still had centrifugal compressors on the cold side of the engine. Modern jets have variable guide vanes instead of just a monumental block of stators, but I'm guessing that its incredibly hard to machine and other systems cost up.
@@TheGimpy117variable guide vanes?
Some, but not a lot of aircraft are straight axial flow (B52),turbo prop etc. A lot are high bypass turbo fan engines which get a good bit of their thrust from the fan.
I'm not an expert, but I did work in aerospace and installed nacelles and components onto engines.
Very cool. This was what was under the hood of the crazy ‘Tobacco King’ Ford Galaxie - the one with a Turbonique rocket drag axle!
Yes! I almost made a segment of this video specifically about some of the notable cars that had Latham superchargers. The Tobacco King Galaxie is at the top of that list.
@@HotRodHoarder a followup video featuring cars of the day with the Latham and a little more history of the 80s 'Paul' units would be super interesting.
1976 my sr yr I traded my motorcycle to a friend for a 67 Cuda 4spb with a 70 340. His next car was a 66 Ford Fairlane 390. He got a Latham Supercharger from another friend whos dad use to drag race. That Latham really brought the 390 alive!
This is the first time I've ever heard of this design of supercharger, let alone this particular design builder
..Brown Baveri Systems (Swiss Heavy Industrial Company) and Junkers Jumo Motoren were both working on multistage compressor superchargerd in mid to late 1940s, for tank & heavy vehicle engines, partially derived from 1st generation jet engines ..
I love the picture at 0:47 of the hot v nail head with the crank driven blower. That right there is the true spirit of innovation in hot rodding at the time
I went to high school with Richard Paul son, he showed me his dad's shop Westlake CA,1986, I saw lamborghini Coutash, he let me sit in it,cool guy
There was one of these with the 4 carbies last year at the Bendigo swap meet in Australia
Hey, big thanks for these awesome videos. The pacing, the deep research, the old mags... Let's all give a big hand to this content.
I bet that thing sounds absolutely glorious at full rip!
In Southern California, the Sherrifs department in Palos Verdes had a Pontiac with a Latham on it. Four carters. As kids we had the guys open the hood a show us the setup. It ended up and a highway pursuit vehicle.
Fascinating. Never knew these were made for cars
"Wow" a very sweet bolt on accessory. Too cool champion. 🇦🇺👍
Very cool setup
It might fit on your new project...
I’ve been around drag racing a good long time but I must have just missed the publicity era of this. I love learning about something old, but new to me
Absolutely gorgeous. Standing ovation on the fine whine and rollout.
The engineering and manufacturing prowess, especially when you are talking 1950's technologies, is astounding! The development and manufacturing process must've been quite expensive using 50's machinery and basically slide rules, hence the high cost. BTW, the pic of Norm Latham from the magazine article, priceless...lol...thanks so much for sharing!
Another timeless artifact thrown into the RUclips algorithm causing everyone and their MOM to find one of these now outta 600+ like whenever I find something cool... I keep it to myself and let people do their finding when on their own 👌
History dies with men like you
Never heard of them, but i want one now.
Great video, it was very interesting but when I heard you owned it that increased the excitement and when you demonstrated it turning my smile was huge. Thanks 😎
Thanks for watching Steve!
Today I learned... and today I want.
I bought one of the Richard Paul versions from Richard back in 2010. Never used it but it made for an amazing wall hanger for about a decade until someone found out I had it. It used the dual Webers and was originally designed as an underhood unit for the new body style 82 Camaro.
Very Kool Stuff
Thanks for posting this
Awesome history !
Thanks for watching!
That’s nice billet work for back then
I worked at a parts store near WPB, and we always had some interesting stuff drop by. I saw one of these superchargers, like yours with the four side draft carbs mounted on a SBC. I can tell you that even at idle there is no mistaking that sound. I had no idea that this was produced locally.
Super cool. Thanks for taking the time to show it.
Love that sound--great video and find.
I imagine that made a lot of noise (awesome noise!) At the race track as it was spooling down from a run. If you watch NHRA today you can hear them, not as prominent though, spooling down at the end of the track. Very interesting history and a very cool performance mod! Thanks for sharing!!
Thanks for watching, it was a lot of fun researching this stuff.
That thing is sick. Screams 427 cobra kit car. Appreciate you sharing this sir.
Thanks for watching! It would be wild in a Cobra!
It would be interesting to make an axial-flow unit using modern airflow technology. Our jet engines have computer controlled stator vanes which can tailor the compressor to whatever situation is needed. More than likely an active stator supercharger would make lots more torque down low then flatten out for good high rpm airflow. That would be a fun project.
Dunno. VNT turbos died off almost as quick as they arrived. 😐
An internal gearset to overdrive it would probably also be better than having to run such a big crank pulley to spin it fast enough.
@@michaelgautreaux3168 Variable geometry turbo's are in use on diesel's by the millions and work pretty well considering they're dealing with dirty exhaust. A variable vane axial flow compressor would be completely different in that only clean air would be directed by the vanes and would stay clean.
A modern larger version of this would have to make more power.
@@jackass72 I had a McCulloch Studebaker centrifugal single stage supercharger that I took apart one time in the 1960's to see the internals. The impeller was driven by about 5 large ball bearings to increase the speed. However, the crank pully was large and the nose pully of the supercharger was fairly small giving substantial overdrive to the unit. The ball drive eliminated the terrible impact loading of overdriven gear teeth when large or severe changes in engine RPM occurred. The ball drive was in an oil bath and apparently slipped enough when the throttle was blipped so it would not self destruct like gears would.
I've been looking for one of these for years. I read about them in the 1990's, and have always been interested.
Great video!
Dude those chain driven units are crazy 😮.
Cool piece of history.
The sound of the wind makes my dogs go crazy 😂
My next supercharger design idea .
What a cool find 👍
Enjoy your video and content, good presentation..
Great work researching this supercharger. I own #614 and run it on a 32 Ford Hi Boy. I have a couple of you-tube videos of it running on a test stand and in the finished car. It’s a great 60’s period hot rod part and it runs well on the street and the strip. Sounds more like a turbo because of the high rpm. Puts out 6psi so it will definitely wake up my 327! Thanks for posting this. Did my own research but obviously missed much of what you presented here.
U r very very fortunate 2 have come across this Latham Supercharger.
A fella in California apparently bought the rights 2 them & if reports r correct improved them .
Trying 2 purchase one is almost impossible. These Blowers don't Rob massive power from the engine like other blowers especially the Roots Blower 😅
It's a once in a lifetime chance...so we jumped on it pretty quick.
I have one of Richard Paul's Latham Superchargers. I tried it on a SBF application with the Weber 48 DCOE carb in the late 1980's. Also tried direct port injection with it. I can tell you the Latham did not like running dry with no fuel going through the supercharger. Had all sorts of problems with sheared case bolts. Tried cro-moly case bolts and that did not help. The intake tract was way too long with the Weber 48 DCOE, I drag raced with it on the car and hit 114mph in the 1/4 mile but it took a long time to get there. I still have the whole set-up and Richard Paul wanted me to send the unit down to be put together again. I have all the parts and drive pulleys. It went to a knurled 3 rib drive pulley and a 3 rib Kevlar belt. I can post pics of everything if anyone is interested. On a SBF, the distributor gets in the way, so a better application is a SBC or something without a distributor in the way.
I had a Latham on a 1956 Ford in the early 1960’s. Belt alignment was critical. If the belt rubbed on the pulley flange, it would rapidly become narrower, and would quickly fail. At that time, they ran about $22.00 plus shipping. They would rub one flange during acceleration and the other when you let up on the throttle. At a steady rpm they didn’t rub.
Hell yea that's BADASS
Thanks man, it's a once in a lifetime chance to buy something like this.
@@HotRodHoarder FACTS 💯
Wow I’ve lived for 68 years and been into cars since I can remember and I’ve never seen or heard about this supercharger ! This reminds me of a turbine or some kind of aviation system, very complicated and I assume very difficult to fabricate, thus the cost. I’d love to see this disassembled and cleaned up, perhaps a future video idea.
I wonder what the power/boost curve would look like. I would imagine it’s more like the centrifugal where it’d make low boost at low rpm and then build as rpm goes up.
sounds sooo good.
Nice find .. and real old school aero sound , It would look cool on a display block ..engineering art 👍
We're thinking about adapting it to our 409 engine...it's been sitting on the engine stand for a while and would look good with some jewelry.
Wow thats pretty cool, definite SCORE!!!👍 Hope ya'all use it on something so we can see n hear it in action.
Well, the Lathams were a brilliant idea because besides being VERY effective power boost they Also FIT Under the Hoods of an average late 50's to late 60's car. A major marketing
advantage. And they produced INSTANTANEOUS
Acceleration!!!. The BIG LIMITATION with The Lathams was SIZE or CAPASITY of the units.
Lathams were best used in that mid size V8's of that era;
e.g. 280 to 380 cubic inch engines. Sure, you could put it a larger engine like a Pontiac Super Duty 421 but it was really out of its league.
The real limit was a 389 or so. And when the GTO's came along in '65 the Latham era was ending and the mustle car buyers were never build your own/modify you ride types. But while it lasted those 389 Grand Prix's with a better cam and
good headers were dynamite
Incredible!!!! I would love to see that built into an awesome engine and an even cooler old drag car. I would even more love to take it down the track a couple times...Keep up the great work. A great piece of racing history!!!
We definitely want to find a way to use this thing on one of our drag car projects. One thought is to make an adapter plate for our 409 engine. That would make a real cool piece.
@@HotRodHoarder Absolutely! You can cast an adapter out of aluminum very easily/ You could contact that guy who makes adapters on RUclips. I will see if I can find him for you.
@@HotRodHoarder His name is Kelly Coffield and he can make an adapter that will work very easily. that is what he does for a living.
Awesome!!
Awesome 👍
the stories that you come up with these superchargers and other parts that they use back in the day.Can't wait to see more moper though 😮
I couldn't believe how much information was out there on these superchargers. The deeper I dug, the more I found.
@12:37... That my friend is a thing of beauty ;)
I am so in love with that blower whine. I have a hot rod of my own and I'm saving up my pennies....
Man that is a very interesting video, I'f never seen a LATHAM supercharger before, Will be interesting if You could make a video about a historic hot rod (Or dragster) with a LATHAM supercharger.
Thanks for your Channel, I'm a Big Fan 😁👍
A small version of this on a motorcycle, would be amazing.
It's a axial flow jet engine compressor design. That's why it sounds like one when you spin it up.
an axial. Get with it.
@@amsterob what is the role of the stator in respect of the interstage flow of air in such a machine?
Early version of a whippel
@@Freedomishere-im6ug no not exactly a Whipple supercharger - while the charge flows in an axial direction Whipple are a twin screw positive displacement. The Latham supercharger is a multi stage axle compressor where the air flows from one point to another stage to stage gaining a little bit of pressure at each stage very similar to how a modern gas turbine engine works. If you look at schematics of the two you’ll see what I mean the only similarity is that the flow is end to end rather than top to bottom so to speak but the operating principles other than that are quite different.
@@malcolmwhite6588 whippel start compsion at one end and blows out the other end like your Latham
Both Latham-whippel gain power with (length)and girth of housing
Both Latham-whippel probably lower charge air temps because they compress slower over the length vs a roots style
Whippel is cost effective over Latham
But I will the Latham is a cool design
Very cool 🤙 I need one
One cool Piece of history for hot rod's
Thanks for watching!
@@HotRodHoarder Your welcome
That thing is wild
That's rad!
Here I wondered if this was an idea someone was going to try in the future. The idea surely is more feasible now given the improvements in design and manufacturing.
There is a '56 Packard Patrician here in my town with a Latham and it is a torque monster.
Its really the compressor section of a jet engine . Good design .
Really cool piece of history, similar to the the compressor stage of a jet engine which is where i would guess he got the idea from as it was the Jet Age :)
Sounds awesome too, even at low revs.
This video reminded me of Ollie Olsen and Don Gist from W.P.B. Florida. Ollies 41 Willy' coupe was at the time the best built high quality, aircraft quality. I went to a AACA antique car meet, in the flea market there was Latham laying on the ground , I should have bought it but hindsight is 20 /20.
That's so cool
Latham was a smart man. Its actually a design from a compressor on a jet engine.
I've been obsessed with Latham superchargers for years. Extremely interesting blowers. My lottery dream would be one on a 64 Riviera. FWIW, there's several videos on youtube of them running, if anyone wants to hear what they sound like. Very industrial sounding, not at all annoying or obnoxious.
I've read they were so expensive, because they were machined to aerospace spec, and then hand assembled. So very labor intensive to build. Richard Paul made a version that looked similar but are constructed differently. They have the angled air intake, usually for a remote mounted carb I believe. There's a couple of videos of that style on here too.
That's cool af! It's essentially the compressor side of a gas turbine or jet engine. It would be really cool to use a gearbox like on a centrifugal blower to get rid of that monster pulley and increase reliability. You could really test the capabilities of that thing. Congratulations on an amazing find!
I have one of these that I bought new in 1984. I do not know how many were made when they tried to resurrect the company. Mine was run on a 85 5.0 mustang.
So cool.
This really cool! I saw at least 4 of these in the 80s with my dad! To me the internals look like an early jet engine built in the 40s and 50s. Any chance thats where he got the idea?? With modern machines and 3d computer models I bet these would way better!!
I can’t imagine using that on any street application. You wouldn’t be able hear anything over the awesome whine.
🗿💨up till early 70s i built model cars and didn't care for the 671 sticking thru the hood so the Latham was the only supercharged model i had. Thinking it was with a 63chev kit but that's been a long time ago.
Late 70s in Hamilton OH, Edgewater dragstrip had someone running a Latham and sounded like a jet running the strip. Edgewater was about 3mi from me and after asking, rumor was it was in a chevy that kept cleaning second gear from four speeds.
Thanks for sharing 👍 nice 👍💯
That's the.coolest sounding blower there is!
That is a huge undertaking for one guy with a small company. It had to be designed, proto typed and tested and then made to be produced all with slide rules, and manual machines. I see the axial design all the time in either rocket, jet or the modern bypass engines. I'll bet that guy did something interesting during the war to come up with the idea. It would be great to see it produced with modern techniques. The "Pro-Charger" type of blowers zap 50 hp from the engine.
20 years ago a guy was telling me he had one on a 354 hemi .nice info
given it functions similar to a jet turbine suggests it would sound similar.
I've never heard of a Latham axial flow supercharger before. Thanks for the history.
My stepfather worked for Lanham 1959,60 as an accountant. The fabrication of these was at Larham's grass sod farm, which I believe was the main business. I visited the farm, probably in 1959,60. They were installing one at the time there at the sod farm. I'm suspicious that there's a military background to this design and perhaps to Norm Latham. He made one for his son Rocky. I think it went into a 49 Ford. I think Rocky would have graduated in 62 or 63.
Subscribed!
I'd love to hear the sound of it!
-I operate turbine engines for a living, specifically GE CF6-80 engines. I'm not an engineer, but I had a turbine engines class in college at Embry-Riddle and they discussed that while the titanium rotating vanes are important, the stationary STATORS behind each row of rotating vanes are far more important. The way this works is that the rotating vane imparts acceleration to a package of air. That lowers its pressure, as per the Bernoulli effect. But the stators are arranged so that they cause the rapidly moving air to slow down, thus INCREASING pressure. The stator blades are close at the front where the air enters, but much wider at the back; This increases volume and thus slows the air and increases compression. There are 14 stages of this going on in the engine that I fly, and the angles of the blades are very carefully designed in order to create the most efficient engine possible.
I look at the internals of this Latham blower and while I think it is utterly cool, I suspect that it was designed by a man who "Just made it look right", not a team of engineers with wind tunnels that could perfect the design.
-If Pratt & Whitney or GE tried designing one of these things you would probably see way more boost from the same RPM with lower temperatures! I think that these are really efficient at high speeds, but they need extreme speeds and as such they are very expensive to produce. That is why you see centrifugal compressors for most superchargers instead of these, which probably have more potential.
Again, great video!
You got this kind of right, but not perfectly. I also think you are underestimating the obvious engineering that went into this. The guy was in west palm beach. P&W had a huge millitary jet engineering facility there in the late 50s. I don't think that's a coincidence. There were almost certainly involvement of jet engine engineers in this thing.
@@cyndideweygary I'm well aware of the P&W facility out on Bee Line Hwy. I used to live in West Palm Beach, and was friends with a guy who worked there, Bill Hebden. Now let me poke some holes in your post:
-Can you tell me definitively that Norman Latham worked at Pratt & Whitney? Just because a person lived in West Palm Beach doesn't necessarily mean that he worked at or had P&W design this. Jimmy Buffett and Donald Trump lived/live in Palm Beach; Does that every person from there is a amazing music talent? Or a former president/convicted felon? I think not.
-I kind of doubt that any aeronautical engineer worked on this blower. These designs are very efficient at very high speeds, far more efficient than a centrifugal compressor overall. One thing in aviation that is true is that if an airplane "looks right", then it will fly right. That's what I think about this supercharger; This guy tooled this in his garage and used pictures of the compressor sections of contemporary turbojets to create his design. It obviously works, but my point is that it could be built better. With modern materials these could be real winners.
Thanx!
Awesome didn't know much about these. The cost isn't too much crazier then now. Shelby super snake set up is 10k just for the supercharger kit.
Dragboss has a video with a old time who has a 327 with a Latham SC on a run stand and that thing sound crazy
Met a guy whose dad put one on a Chevy Bel Aire with an inline six. Beautiful car, and sounded great! (Wasn't for sale, though....) :(
Yup! , been there, done that.😊
I read an article on the Latham in probably Hot Rod. For some reason, i thought they were still making them at that time. A few years ago, i did a search.. I do not remember what turned up.
There was one of these on EBay not too long ago I remember seeing. The price is really what got my attention 😂
Good video. You might want to do one on the GM "RamAire" Compressed Air/Entrainment supercharger (powered from a compressed air reservoir). I vaguely recall it installed on a GM V-8's. Was featured on the front-cover of "Science and Mechanics" magazine in the early 1960's, reviewed by Joe Gutts.
Do you have any higher resolution photos of that 409 with a Latham? Great video, enjoyed it.
Such a cool piece!!...
I can see why it never took off, though.
It was NEVER going to be cheap enough to manufacture to justify the extra cost when you could just use a turbo.
Odd. I was looking at purchasing a Latham super charger back in the mid 80's, brand new from Latham. Due to the design, the Latham required much less hp to push the same amount of boost. I never realized it was only run back in the 50's and 60's.
When planning for a 409 adapter might it be worth thinking about an intercooler as an integral part of it, say like a heater core concept dumping heat into the engine coolant? Great video.
Super cool video. Thanks!
Back in 1966 at the Double Eagle Drag Strip there was a yellow T-bucket with a 4-pot side draft Latham blown Studebaker V8 that showed up as a spectator a time or two. I don't believe he raced it there any time I was there. Would be great to find out who that might have been with such a rare combination.
The San Antonio Drag Strip (A.K.A. Double Eagle) was on the north side of Gibbs Sprawl Rd about 5 miles SW of the Randolph AFB Main Gate. Races that might stir memories were things like Doug Cook's original Darkhorse II funny Mustang match racing Arnie Beswick's funny Pontiac, and Bob Tatroe going off the end in a Walt Arfons jet car
Interesting super charger/blower I would love to see one on a car. I would be very interested in seeing what the profile of the pulleys are because the property shaped pulley will keep a flat belt tracking straight. Think of all the equipment that ran using flat leather belts starting with a factory, machine shop, or mill that used line shaft belt systems to power all there equipment and machines via water or steam power. Additionally in the era before electricity was wide spread farms or people living out side a city would use portable a hit and miss engine with a flat belt to power the well, washing machine, and even run a dynamo to allow the house to have electric lights, lastly many farm tractors prior to 1930’ had an exposed flywheel/pulley to power a large variety of equipment. Yes I know those examples all are running at much slower speeds than a hot rod engine but the engineering principle is still the same.
Lastly you can take the belt off a roots style blower and rotate the rotors of the blower and pin /lock the pulley/rotors in place and run rhe engine. Roots blowers require a certain amount of space between the rotors and case of the blower to allow/account for expansion and contraction of the case and rotors which is one of the reasons that high performance roots blowers have a replacable Teflon wear strip on the rotors.
Get the feeling someone was into Jet engines or an aircraft engineer as really sounds like a turbine spinning up and kinda looks like one to..such and awesome design. The cool thing is with tech now you could put a small gearbox on the front and be able to run a small crank pulley without having any issues.
The age were things were all about innovation :)
Reminds me of the ol' Potvin blowers...😎