After reading another post on bilge fans or what ever they are, trying to be passed off on e-bay as electric superchargers I thought I would dig out this old brochure I got back in 97 from GRAND Technologies Inc. I have a feeling they are out of buisness now as I have never seen anything from them since.Simply a turbo with an electric motor.The hard part is the motor I bet. Click on the thumb for larger image

Aparantly they got in some kind of legal dispute with Turbodyne Technologies, and I guess Turbodyne Technologies must have come out on top because they're still here.

http://www.turbodyne.com/

I see a huge problem in that they don't describe how it works, which to me means it doesn't work, least very well. If they're trying to run the thing off a normal 12V charging system I can see why it probably wouldn't work.

At least they got the other end of the design right in that they just took a turbo compressor side and mounted it up, heh. I see this as a more legitimate idea than the stupid ebay fan types. They just need to give it some real power, maybe a triple battery pack like that roots style electric supercharger.

I'll just stick with my ancient exhaust driven impeller models, thank you.

I have built a prototype electic supercharger (also based on a turbo compressor- a T-73). It's in my basement, has been for 5 years and yes, it works. It'll probably push about 3 PSI into a small displacement V8. Many people who have been over my house for a carb rebuild or other work have seen it.

There is one main problem with the whole concept: it takes TONS AND TONS AND TONS of electrical energy to move enough air at a high enough boost pressure to make any kind of serious real-world performance improvement.

My system started out at 24V and then quickly jumped to 36V. Even then we're talking about pulling HUNDREDS of amps continuously at full song. There isn't enough energy in the entire car's electrical system to run it. You can use the alternator to recharge the batteries between blasts @ 12V but when it comes time to let 'er rip you have to hook them all up in series for 36V and then it'll drain them flat in no time when you fire it up.

There just isn't enough energy in a vehicle's electrical system to run such a supercharger for very long. Such a system would basically be like a nitrous system that never needs to have the bottle refilled. Short-burst use only.

Exactly.

Have you actually tested it? Was that 36V just three 12V batteries in series? Just curious.

Yeah, 3 big, fresh car batteries linked together with HUGE cables. I never put it on the car but did some testing through some cheap flow meters and using standard aftermarket boost gagues. While that doesn't necessarily correspond to what you'll see in the real world it was obvious that there was just no way to get such a setup to shove 6-8 PSI into a 350, let alone for any more than a handfull of seconds at a time.

Here's an idea....why not take a hint from Jeep owners?

personally im rather amazed this has never been attempted by a turbo companies R&D. There is a Jeep trick where they get larger AC compressors and through a few routes/tricks they turn it into an Air compressor that can refill large 4x4 tires.

Most can be run through the stock electrical system too. IMHO id think that would be a great place to start for *free* power.

if i had access to the resources id screw around with the idea myself...but i dont.

An air compressor supplies relatively little air, there is no getting around how much energy it takes to move a specific amount of air at a certain pressure.

what if you had that air compressor that moved air in to a holding tank, and then triggered it like a nitrous setup? Do the plumbing and then you would kind of have boost only when you wanted it, then the compressor would recharge the holding tank as the car is driven...

Probably take some R&D to do that, as I highly doubt it would be an efficient setup, the compressor wouldn't be able to fill the tank fast enough if you wanted to make repetetive passes.


Haha sorry that thought just came to mind

Skipping the math, for an engine making 500hp at the crank (about 400 at the wheels) will need a tank 2’ in diameter x 8’ long pressurized to 100psi to make a single dragstrip pass in a fairly light car.

So how much is a 2x8’ tank that will hold 100psi + compressor, plumbing, regulator and valves that will flow enough going to weigh? Any ideas of where to package it and how to keep something like that light?

FWIW, this is almost EXACLY the same as a large, upright industrial shop compressor with a 60-80gallon tank, but with much larger plumbing/valves. Ever try to move one of those? How long do you think it will take to fill with the compressor that you're thinking about using?

http://www.turbomagazine.com/tech/0406tur_knight/

A real electric supercharger. I know Ive seen this sold in sport comp mags for a few years at least. Pretty pricey!!

That thing costs around 1300$ for 5 pounds of boost. You could build your own turbo kit for less than that and be able to use it all the time.

People really need to put the crack pipe down and get off the electric supercharger/use an A/C compressor/leaf blower/etc kick. Compressing air requires energy, as any physics book will tell you. Superchargers get it from the crank, turbos get it from wasted exhaust energy. In order to get that energy from electricity, you're going to need to put it into the car first in the form of batteries to make it worth your while. And where is the energy going to come from? The alternator, which is run off the crank. So you're changing the energy from mechanical to electrical (losing efficiency and some energy), storing it (losing a little more energy), converting it *back* to mechanical (losing more efficiency and more energy) and you can only use it for a few minutes.

(End rant)

I'd give up both of my testicles if somebody invents free horsepower.




If I lose my testicles the apocalypse is upon us!

On an L03, simply take the stock air silencer off of the car, BLAM, free power.

Now hand 'em over

From the looks of that it eats up batteries like crazy. Course that's not a bad thing if you can zap them back using a deep cycle over 350 times (optima yellow) before they go bad.

Another point is:
"T: What size engine will this work on?
TK: Testing has shown the smaller the engine, the higher the sustainable boost. If a 3.5-liter engine is running 24v, boost will peak at 10 psi at 2000 rpm and then drop off to 3 psi at 6500 rpm. "

So if it only makes 10 psi at 2k on a 3.5L, just imagine how much lower it would make on a 5.0L, 5.7L, or a 6.2L. LOL, it would be putting off no air fairly soon on our motors too. So you would end up with tons of added weight without gains.

Might be an interesting idea on smaller motors, but I see it working about the same as a leaf blower on ours since it won't be spinning fast enough to provide boost. Let alone if it's the roots type model, you would be choking the motor.

No NO NO! That is just unleashing potential horsepower, thats a difference. So you cannot have my jewels

I don't understand why anyone would want an electric forced induction system. A turbo is using exhaust energy that is normally wasted. It really is the best horsepower/weight ratio power adder.

Electric means more batteries and weight. It also requires charging from a big source like a household plug.
Exhaust driven Turbos have been around for years because they are a good design. Better than a supercharger.....that is why they are used more on vehicles.

Assuming the same VE, 7 psi on a 5.0. the real problem is if can’t give it more V at highr rpm’s, for example, even the 3.5 will only see about 3.3psi at 6000rpm at that same airflow….

Exhaust turbine driven superchargers (turbine + supercharger = turbocharger) do draw the same amount of power, and it is lost in the form of an exhaust restriction that hurts the engine’s VE. And yes, you can compensate for that a little by changing cam timing, but that also hurts total power without boost VS the optimized cam for the NA package. There is no free lunch, it’s just a matter of where/how you want to pay for it.