electric supercharger???? would this work?

[kuroneko_sama]

i ran across this and pondered the practicality :confused:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&category=33741&item=7987461707

itd be cool if it worked, but is seems a little too easy

thoughts anyone?

[mikecg]

Sure it'll work about as good as straping a box fan to your intake. :D

really I have no clue. I know I wouldnt trust it. It falls under the same SCAM catagory as the tornado intake in my book.

[red95svx]

Think about it. Why don't car manufacturers use them? Why put in all that extra exhaust and oil plumbing for a turbo system when they could just stick some electric fan in the intake? They don't do it because you'd never be able to make an electric motor spin fast enough or more enough air to make a difference in performance. Don't waste your time or money. Want a boost in performance? Convert to a 5 speed tranny. Install a nitrous oxide system. Remove excess weight from the car. Or do all three:)




Dave

[SilverSpear]

the most thing you can do to your intake is to try to find a way to cool down the air getting inside the engine. I am working on such a system as we speak.
Pics will be posted as soon as i am done with it.

[awdsvxh6]

you could always just use an electric leaf blower. i think thats like 9lbs of boost.

[red95svx]

you could always just use an electric leaf blower. i think thats like 9lbs of boost.


You're kidding, right? Where exactly are you going to plug it in, because you sure can't run that off of your car's electrical system!





Dave

[awdsvxh6]

it really works though it was in a mustang magazine my friend had and it was talking about a guy who hooked ome up and got 9lbs of boost from a electric leaf blower. but i wouldent exactly suggest to do it but i mean u can always put a few stickers on it and sell it to a kid with a civic.

[MaxImUmZ]

I call bullsh!t, that is going to do you as much good as taking a hair dryer apart and using it as a super charger, have u guys seen the color inverted bilge blowers?

[red95svx]

it really works though it was in a mustang magazine my friend had and it was talking about a guy who hooked ome up and got 9lbs of boost from a electric leaf blower.


Toro's best leaf blower, model 51598, is claimed by them to be the most powerful blower you can buy, gas or electric. It's maximum CFM is 385 in vaccuum mode or 275 in blower mode. That is not going to do anything for you.

http://www.toro.com/home/yardtools/blowervacs/series_compare.pdf
Besides, the blowers plug into 110 volt sockets. I'm sure they don't actually use all 110 volts, but they certainly won't run at top speed off of your car's 12 volt system!

"Our Centrifugal Superchargers Kits Produce 500 cfm of Compressed Air Moving Power"

Sure they do :rolleyes:


Dave

[UberRoo]

I've measured the pressure from a leaf blower. It's less than 1/2 PSI. I hooked three of them up in series to supercharge a lawnmower, but was unable to get more than a pound of boost. A two amp blower fan isn't going to do anything but plug up your intake.

[Chiketkd]

I hooked three of them up in series to supercharge a lawnmower, but was unable to get more than a pound of boost.
A s/c lawnmower?! Nice!!! :cool:

-Chike

[thundering02]

A s/c lawnmower?! Nice!!! :cool:

-Chike

I want pics though

[TomsSVX]

I wonder if a leaf blower would help at all though? Sure it won't give u much if any boost but wouldn't it help move the air along a little better?

Tom

[Beav]

Actually, you'd probably have better luck using the suction side of the leaf blower on the tailpipe... you know, suckercharging.

[kuroneko_sama]

i always wondered why people just dont hook air compressors to the intake? maybe add some refrigerant like hooking a dorm fridge to your intake... only smaller... dont they make coolers and stuff for lighter sockets that chill food.... why not use the guts runn it off the supply and hook the thing into the intake???

considering the drag people get from those direct port hood scoops and blowers.... wouldnt it cut down on drag to just use an air compressor?

[Budfreak]

Actually, you'd probably have better luck using the suction side of the leaf blower on the tailpipe... you know, suckercharging.


that is the funniest damn thing i've ever read in my life!

[Budfreak]

here's an idea. what if you take the cooling element out of one of those coolers you plug into your cigarette lighters and mount it in the intake somewhere?

[UberRoo]

The whole supercharged lawnmower thing was a lame proof-of-concept idea. I had toyed around with the idea of using a gas-powered leaf blower to supercharge a car. There was something comically appealing about pulling alongside some beefed-up muscle car in my POS Honda, and, while he's revving his engine, I'd just yank the pull-starter cord on the dash and start revving my leaf blower. The thought of whooping somebody with a rusty Honda and a leaf blower was enough to inspire me to at least give it a shot.

I built a primitive pressure tank around the carburetor and gas tank of an old lawnmower (because they're attached together and fairly small) and then literally duct-taped an electric leaf blower to the assembly. I replaced the mower blade with a 25-pound barbell weight and used a heavy leather welding glove and my bare hands to measure torque. Normally aspirated, it was possible for me to roll on the throttle and still stop the spinning barbell with a fair bit of effort. It wasn't easy to stop. I'm pretty sure that with only slightly more power it would have been nearly impossible to manage, so that seemed like a pretty good test to me, even if it's not exactly scientific. If I thought I was having some degree of success I was planning on building an actual band brake and using a fishing scale to measure the braking effort required to control RPM at WOT. ...but it never came to that.

Anyway, by the time I was content that the whole thing was a waste of time, I'd played with the fuel mixture, removed the flywheel key to advance the spark timing, and even with three leaf blowers I didn't notice any real difference other than that it idled a little smoother, but not any faster. The contraption was primarily constructed of duct tape and vacuum cleaner hose.

I measured the pressure by placing a small piece of hardboard over the opening of the vacuum cleaner hose. I added and removed weight until the pressure from the blowers was just barely able to lift the hardboard. Using the area of the opening of the hose and the weight of the hardboard and weights, it's possible to get a reasonably accurate calculation of pressure. ...which wasn't very much. I don't remember exactly how much it was, but it was less than a pound. My leaf blowers were all electric, so it's likely that gas leaf blowers are more powerful, but I don't think it'd be enough to make a substantial difference.

In theory, there must have been a slight increase in power or I somehow failed to get the fuel mixture quite right. I think there was an increase, but it was so small that it was simply imperceptible. I think those motors have either a 7.5:1 or 8:1 compression ratio. (I used to know.) It's pretty low, whatever it is. Perhaps that low ratio is why a small increase wouldn't be noticeable.

Sorry, no pictures. If it had worked, there probably would have been. :)


The "super sucker" idea isn't exactly a new one, but it doesn't make much difference in most engines. There's a similar idea that actually does make a difference though. Off the top of my head I don't remember what it's called, but it's basically a crankcase vacuum pump. (That might be what it's called.) People often knife-edge the crankshaft counterweights and other parts to reduce drag. Another way to reduce drag inside the engine is to remove all the air. It's horribly turbulent inside there, and by removing the air it's supposed to be possible to gain five to twenty horsepower, depending on the engine. The vacuum pumps draw relatively little power, and the power you get by reducing drag is free power. The downside is that the pumps need to be cleaned very often and also suck a lot of oil out of your crankcase too. I would think that perhaps some sort of oil trap and recirculation sump might be able to recover the oil. I think they use some sort of positive displacement gear pump and that's why they need constant cleaning, but I haven't looked into it much, so I don't really know. It's good for drag racing, but not much else.

[kuroneko_sama]

damn...i was half kidding... that story rocks though...i totally dig the mad scientist aspect of car ownership :D

[UberRoo]

...i totally dig the mad scientist aspect of car ownership :DMore like the Red Green aspect.

[kuroneko_sama]

"today we are gonna "suckercharge" our SVX using a belt sander and a leaf blower....*PAFF*... there goes harold" :p

i can change if i have to.... i guess :D

[calisvx]

heres another idea run some duct work from our air conditioners to the intake so the air it sucks is ice cold :D hehehe any theories on that one?

[kuoh]

Awsome idea! Soup up the blower motor and you have a cold air induction electric supercharger with 3 selectable boost levels! ;)

KuoH

heres another idea run some duct work from our air conditioners to the intake so the air it sucks is ice cold :D hehehe any theories on that one?

[94svxred]

Hey that suckercharger things sounds a little X-Rated :D .don't you think :p :p Watch your language there are kids here :eek: :D :D

[red95svx]

heres another idea run some duct work from our air conditioners to the intake so the air it sucks is ice cold :D hehehe any theories on that one?


The problem with this is that it takes power to run the AC compressor. Any advantage the cold air might give you would be offset by the power required to run the compressor.



Dave

[MaxImUmZ]

I kinda get the idea that this post kinda has a 50/50 mix of people posting... half who are messing around with dumb ideas and half who are taking them seriously

[SpoonChucker]

The problem with this is that it takes power to run the AC compressor. Any advantage the cold air might give you would be offset by the power required to run the compressor.



Dave

By the same rational, the most power that you could get from a super charger would be the 1-2 hp parasitic loss required to drive to turbine (because it takes power to run the super charger). What is really happening is that the energy required to increase the amount of oxygen molecules isn’t the same as the energy released when those same molecules combine with more fuel.

I don’t think it would work because the flow rate would not be high enough, but that isn’t to say that a heat exchanger driven by the AC compressor couldn’t be used to cool the air intake. To offset a 1 hp draw from the AC (only an assumption) would require the amount of oxygen to increase by .4%. Without doing the math, it would require cooling the air only 1 or 2 degrees.

[TomsSVX]

The only A/c cooling advantage to the intake system is on turbo/supercharged cars. My brother is still in College to be a mechanical enigineer and this was going to be part of his thesis project on his z. it was too bad that ford beat him to the punch by doing it on their 2005 prototype of the Lightning. Iteresting setup though, the freon was run through their custom intercooler for a quick 30 second blast. it ended up giving the car an extra 50hp at the wheels but the problem is, You don't want to run the A/C while racing so it is to charge it up and then have it released to the intercooler to cool it down. I thought it was really smart idea but I don't think they are going to put it into production. A naturally aspirated car is not afected by heat differences as much as a forced induction car is. Thats why I beat Tom at the track on a 100degree day.

Tom

[Earthworm]

Now you could have the intake A/C charge only under braking so that not only will it slightly help slow you down but also be ready to go when you step on the gas.

(think regenerative braking on electric cars)

[red95svx]

By the same rational, the most power that you could get from a super charger would be the 1-2 hp parasitic loss required to drive to turbine (because it takes power to run the super charger).


A supercharger is much more effiecient than a compressor is, so this does not hold true for superchargers:)

Dave

[spinn360]

You're kidding, right? Where exactly are you going to plug it in, because you sure can't run that off of your car's electrical system!





Dave
I dont think he was serious but you could get a dc to Ac power converter. But I dont think either thing would really do jack.

[red95svx]

I dont think he was serious but you could get a dc to Ac power converter. But I dont think either thing would really do jack.



Try running an electric leaf blower from a DC/AC converter and see what happens.



Dave

[UberRoo]

I dont think he was serious but you could get a dc to Ac power converter. But I dont think either thing would really do jack.For argument's sake, let's presume that your "average" supercharger requires ten horsepower to drive it. That's probably on the low end of the scale, as only ten horsepower wouldn't get you much boost - probably not enough for even 40 HP out of 3.3 litres - but since we're talking about small blowers, it's a good comparison. You can convert horsepower into other measures of energy, and since we're talking about electric leaf blowers, watts is a good unit of measure. One horsepower equals 746 watts, so ten horsepower would equal 7460 watts. At 115 volts, that's about 65 amps. Your standard wall outlet is rated for only fifteen amps, and I doubt many leaf blowers draw very much more than ten. ...but let's just say you're getting all fifteen amps out of it, that's 1725 watts. If 7460 watts is good for maybe 40 horsepower if you're lucky, then in theory, 1725 watts is good for almost ten horsepower.

Of course, I'm using only the most favorable figures. If the leaf blower was extremely efficient and powerful, and all the stars aligned just right, ten horsepower is the most you could ever get. In reality, that generous 10 horsepower consumption netting you 40 horsepower figure is probably closer to 20 horses netting you 40 on a good day. The leaf blower probably only draws 1000 watts, about half of the 1725 it might draw if lightening strikes. So basically cut both the efficiency and the power in half. That leaves you with about three horsepower out of the optimistic ten possible. Still, three ponies isn't completely pathetic. It's not worth the trouble or all the laughs you'd get, but a 233 horsepower SVX is faster than a 230 horse SVX.

...so, how much boost on an SVX is required to get three horsepower?

Watts x 0.00134 = Horsepower
Horsepower x 746 = Watts

[spinn360]

Wow you guys have to much time on your hands. Also I think someone needs to stop taking things so seriously. Like anyone (I HOPE) would ever hook a leaf blower to there engine for extra horse power.

[GreenMarine]

I can't believe that we are tackling this AGAIN..... Here is what was found from the threads about this over the past few years....

1. it does work (someone posted about trying it on a honda once and actually saw about 1 or 2 tenths of his 1/4 mile time....

2. it is pointless because you would have to have an external battery to run it off of and you could only use it about one or two times before your battery was drained..... So ya would have to wait for it to charge up again...

3. RICER MOD..... People looking to cut corners inorder to get straight line speed...


I have decided that with the help of Boxer4Racing (www.boxer4racing.com) I am going to have a 300hp (crank hp) N/A engine within the next year or two... Depending on school and work situations... I have talked to Dale Teague about it and we will be building up a plan of attack for the project within the next month or two... He believes it is MORE than possible with the SVX engine... Not only will I do the above, but I will do it on an engine with 100,000 miles on it.... Just wait.... It's coming....

Besides, I need alittle more power to be really competative since I am stuck in SM in AutoX.... :rolleyes:

[Beav]

The entire discussion is really moot anyway. Even if one could supply enough electrical power a fan is a fan and not a positive displacement pump.