I bought a blower, and im reading like 50 different books on street supercharging, and blah blah blah then I come across this guy who hooks a 671 GMC Blower on top of a Metal Box with a hole in the bottom and spins it to see how much Horsepower it takes to turn it and at what Boost pressure. Well he starts with a dinky electric motor to turn the blower, and it wouldn't budge much at all. So he gets a whole engine in there, a Ford 302 (nothing special... 320~ Ft. Lbs.) ooks it up via-crank pulley (the blower mounted on this box, and the engine is turning it) Well it turns out this engine will barelly turn this 671 over 1500 RPMS and it puts out like 3~4 Lbs of boost through this little Box. So he gets another engine, A Ford 351 this time, adds headers and all the good stuff. 390~ 400~ Torque. This engine can only spin the blower to like 3500 RPMS and it puts out like 9 Lbs. of boost through this box. A total of 350~ Horsepower was being Eaten up by the blower just to spin it! SO the guy gets pissed and goes all out. He gets a 455 Chevy Big Block, Cranking Seriousness well over 700 Horsepower In this room right... Spins the Blower to a MAXIMUM of 6700 RPMS and like 22 LBs. of boost... Requires over 750 HORSEPOWER to drive that thing! Can you beleive it! The book is called "Street Supercharging" I read it while in a Library when I go back Im going to find the author and stuff so you can all go look. I mean, if its taking 750 horsepower just to drive the blower, and the engine its sitting on is making 1000 horsepower, technically its actually making like 1700 but the blower is robbing it blind! Whew a good excuse for a Turbo huh? Now, He also tested a few other blowers, like the B&M (holley) 144 which only required like 45 Horsepower to drive at 12000 Rpms and 10 Lbs. of boost. (Those blowers are 200% overdriven apparently)
Crazy stuff huh.

 

Bolting a 6-71 on a motor is not the same as bolting it on a little box with a hole in it.

The guy's test was "Junk Science"

Try blowing through a straw with the end plugged.

 

well he explained why he did what he did, it confused me a little but made sense i think... that is the box was 450 cubic inches, and had 3 holes, each to simulate different head/engine flow number. the first hole was like a stock head, the second was modified and the third was like full race. in order to produce boost there has to be some restriction, and thats where the size of the hole (head / intake) comes in. even the blower companies that he tested for supported his numbers, so there is no doubt he was really close. The only thing not accounted for was engine heat, so the boost numbers would probably be higher on a hotter engine, I think somwhere of like 15% higher or somthing. this was because of the expansion of the hot air. Ill have to get more information on this stuff, I cant remember enough of it.

 

I have this book "street supercharging", I read through some of it quickly, and did not find all the details you did like "700hp" and the word "ford". Whats on the cover of your book?
I will look it over again though. I rember seeing losses of 200-400 hp listed in the big test.

I think a much better test to do, rather it be turbo or blower, build 2 identical engines. Hopefully they dyno the same numbers or this wont work. And try and get the throttles to be syncronized so they climb in RPM's at the same rate. (I know, really hard to do)

Put both of those engines on a dyno's at the same time, engine 1 gets the supercharger/turbo on it, engine 2 drives the turbo or supercharger that is on engine 1.

Now you can see how much power the engine lost to the power adder with engine 2.
And you could see how much it would gain if it was not driving the power adder on engine 1 .

then of course you can have engine 1 drive the power adder and see how much power you get in the real world.

I think this would be really interesting to see the results.
Using an identical engine would give you real world results vs putting a roots type blower on a box with some holes in it, IMHO. Seems the guy doing all those tests went all out of his way, I wonder why he did not try this out.

 

Not an apples to apples comparison because turbochargers pull power from the exhaust. This changes cam profile for a turbo engine. So you can't have identical engines.

Look what Monty has done. He is close to his 1200 HP goal after two dyno runs. I could see running a blower on Monty's engine would significantly reduce HP because power needed to drive the supercharger.

 

Hmm,
I am not trying to compare the supercharger to the turbo in this topic.

I am trying to say I think it would be a better way to find the amount of power lost on one engine with the power adder by having it blow into another identical engine, opposed to a box with holes to get somewhat closer to reality with the results on another identical engine.

I am not really clear as to how you dont see it apples to apples though...

Are you talking about the back pressure of the turbos when you mentioned cam profile?

Do you mean change the cam profile by swapping cams? Put the same cam in both engines.... I guess I am not getting what you are saying.

 

well im glad somone else has seen this book. I was going off of memory but i was close, as you said 200-400 horsepower just to drive these blowers. just imagine if they spun themselves :-)
but anyways the point i was trying to make is they add so much but other systems (turbos, centrifugal stuff) apparently make more power because of less parasitic losses... or somthing. I have a mini-roots blower it works great and im happy... for now.

 

Just as a side note, NHRA Top Fuel blowers use over 1000 HP to drive them.

 

thats incredible.

 

john force has a blower dyno room that has a high rpm several hundred horsepower electric motor for testing blowers. he tests all the blowers of a certain manufacturer. i mean he tests all the best ones that come off the assembly line then he buys the best testers and sends the rest back for sale to his competition. it is deals like this that keep him on top. roots blowers are nice and all, but even the military (the first roots blower users) also started the research into the centrifugal blower as a way to boost military power plants without such parasitic losses. one of the most guarded military secrets was the supercharger on P-38 lightning which was of centrifugal design. we wouldnt even put it on the P-38 we sent to the Brits during WWII for fear of compromising the technology. I have been seriously impressed by the technology of centrifugal blowers. I watched jim somers beat billy gliddens car at a match race at bandemere speedway a week ago. they both went 7's at 6000 feet both with small blocks! sure they are fords but they are about as close to the regular ford as the regular chevy is. it is a technology prover. I wonder howlong it will be before we see our first turbocharged NHRA top fueler, I used to think "it wont happen" but after seing the turbonetics IHBA top drag boat (which usually use top fuel setups) whuppin the competition, I am now having other thoughts.

 

Well it is not like most of the Top Fuelers are horsepower limited. If you need more horsepower you just put on a slightly smaller pulley and run more nitro through the thing. Horsepower is not really the problem at all on those cars.

 

I heard that if they lose 1 piston from somthing, like fouled plug<b>s</b> and it doesnt fire, those engines lose more horsepower than in an entire nascar engine.

 

yeah making power for thoes things isent the issue. friend told me that the clutches in thoes things slip so much that if they fully locked down they would flip over if the wheels hooked up.:hail:

 

i wanna see a turbo deisel out of a catapillar excavator go into a cavalier

 

I dont know about that but I have been hearing alot of crazy talk from guys about a powerstroke in a mustang, and with like 500 hp and 1000 ftlb torque on some of these modified powerstrokes it might be kind of interesting. someone wrote into the car magazine about it, and it was suggested against, but these guys would address the gearing and weight issues. they are just the kind of idiots that would try it and are capable of it.

 

As the resident powerstroke expert, that engine weighs almost 1100 lbs, and barely fits in an F-250. It'll make gobs of power, but I don't think a dinky little mustang is going to be able to hold that.

 

define powerstroke expert

 

Websters Dictionary, Pg.3,324,535 of Volume entitled "Special Future edition" Number 448 Section B12 Area 51:


Powerstroke Expert;n; = To be ATOMonkey

 

"...thats a negative ghost rider, the pattern is full..." (don't agree) except on the weight part, definitely heavy, but that has about as much chance of stopping anyone from doing the swap as putting a big block chevy in the front of a fiero, or in the rear for that matter. I figure we will have the first pictures of such a powerstroke swap on the internet or in a magazine by the beginning of next year. just because there is a sickness we all have called hotrodding, I dont think I am sick enough to take part in such a project. I am still wondering what a powerstoke expert is. Do you work on them at the ford dealership? Have you rebuilt one? Do you work on other turbo diesels at a shop? Have you just been fiddling around modifying some of them? I am curious as to how many others have been fidding around with them too. I have a little bit of stroke experience as well in the "makin' about 500 hp and 1000 ft/lbs tq" department.

 

top gun quotes kick ***

 

I engineer them.

 

I thought you meant powerstroke expert as in "hands on knew what you are talking about", not "I worked it out on paper and best guess estimates say...". Now I'm curious, as an "expert" you are definitely the person that can tell me at what point we will mechanically "fail" a 99.5- and later stroke motor as far as HP and torque go? we were just wondering because basically that is what we are trying to do without letting EGT's get out of range.

 

I take offense to the statement about being a pencil pushing best guess estimator. I do a significant amount of hands on work, and I know exactly where and how a power stroke engine will fail. My question to you is what application you are running this engine in? Is it marine or truck use? What kind of truck? Do you have the proper electronic tools to recalibrate the engine? Do you want to keep the stock turbo and redline? How long do you want it to last before it fails (hours please)? I hope you don't plan on any kind of warrenty or dealer assistance after you crack open this engine.

 

the kind of people I deal with either dont care about the warranty, or the dealer gets on his hands and knees begging them to let them fix it because of the sheer volume of business (and $) involved with pleasing the customer. these are simple pickups. as for hours, hard to measure it is only a 1/4 mile at a time (trying to win the stroke class at fun ford weekend or WFC). with multiple programs for both driving towing and racing. Its not so much a slight on you, I am just gunshy about people that call themselves "experts" at anything. I have found that as soon as a person thinks they are the expert at anything, life throws them a curve like a giant fly swatter saying "take that Mr. Expert". To be honest I never really considered a "durational" figure for how long the engine would withstand the abuse I always figured that when we go "too far" HP/TQ wise, we will need a broom and some floordry at the track or on our dyno.

 

Well now I dont wana be the resident post expert. Ill just be a resident post master, plus it sounds better.

 

Ok, just general statements here. The rotating assebly is good to 6000 RPM easy, however the valvetrain isn't. 2000 HP in tractor pulling isn't uncommon. That's the "sport" that most of us flatlanders get involved in with the strokes. Marine injectors are a real good off the shelf upgrade for a stock engine, however if you have a dyno I'm sure you're way ahead of the game there. The local guy around here who is really into pushing the limits of these things in an aftermarket application is Jerry Lagod (sp?) I'll try and get some more info about him. He's the guy we have do all of our one off stuff. He just bought a CNC machine a couple of years ago to cut his own compressor/turbine wheels. How much boost do you run? With the right machining I've seen these things run 120-160 psi, that's about as close to the ragged *** edge as you can get. Those engines last for a couple of passes before grenading or losing a turbo. That's quad turbo applications too, so I dont' think you're going to get that wild.

Our failures around here have been around 50 or so engine hours pushing 500-600 hp. That pretty much so maxes out the stock injectors. When they go there's nothing left worth saving. You can fail a marine engine around 100 hours just by moving the EOT sensor to ambient air. The pistons start to crack. When you start making insane power like that it gets hard to measure and control, just like any other engine. Most of the time it's a turbo that fails. At those powers they can see 200,000 RPM pretty easy. They just don't like to spin that fast for that long.

 

no quad turbo setups here just standard layout with upgraded turbo and other stuff, but that is extremely nice to know, thanks

 

could you post a couple pics of some quad turbo setups... i am kindof interested in seeing that. ive heard of it but never seen it.

 

yeah pics would be nice

 

The next time I make it out to an NTPA event I'll snap some pics. They're pretty crazy. They only run at one RPM, but man will it run there. Shooting black smoke 30-40ft into the air AFTER it goes through 4 turbines sequentially. That's a lot of pressure. Some of the turbos they use are absolutely huge, about a foot and a half in diameter.

 

Jerry's company is named Hypermax. Do a search on that with the word diesel and you'll get a ton of stuff. Another good 7.3 paged is Forddiesel.com

Check out the 14 sec Excursion at http://my.ais.net/~hypermax/

How cool is that

 

really? do you work for ford? and how do you engineer something? i have heard of designing some thing but not engineering some thing. Also are you a licensed engineer through your state? I hold a degree in mechanical enginnering and i have a job with an engineering consulting firm where i design massive HVAC systems but i am not an engineer untill i am licensed by the state. Hands on work and engineering??? they just don't go hand in hand. sure an engineer might get his or her hands dirty to get a job done but that is not the job of an engineer. yea i am a pencil pusher it is work too. i still know my way arround under the hood of a car and i like what i do. only a person will critisize you for being a pencil pusher if they are jellose of your job.

 

I work in development. I'm not a PE, but I do have my B.S., so call it whatever you want. I've had to assist on last minute builds to get engines shipped on time. I don't do design, I calibrate, test, and evaluate designs. Then I make suggestions for redesign. I also make suggestions for software implementation strategy. I work at Navistar-International which is the company that supplies Ford with the Storke. If an engineer isn't getting his hands dirty installing or actually using the part that he designed then he's not going to be as effective as the guy who is. A good design engineer will spend as much time in the lab and in the shop as he does behind his desk IMO.

 

An engineer can be just as effective by reading reports of the test if he has good techs under him or her. However if the techs do not give acurate and complete reports about the design in question then you are correct the engineer will not be very effective. See i have the luxury of being a consulting engineer. i am called out if there is a problem with my design but for the vast majority of my projects i do not have to leave my desk other than going to meetings. This does not mean i am not just as effective as the next guy it just means that i make more efficiant use of my time in my field. i do see your point if your company is unwilling to hire and retain good techs then you will have to get your hands dirty. wich is not really a bad thing it is just not a good use of your skils. BTW what CFD package did you guys use to model the combustion in the chamber? and can you pass it along to ford so they can finaly make an engine worth a darn. I mean the modular engine has the worst designed combustion chambers since the flat head. They still havent figured out what chevy had in 92.

 

I guess it's just different approaches to the same goal. If you get good reports and have good common sense then you can get some good work done. There are just a lot of designers here working with solid modeling that work 9-5 in their Ivory tower and have no idea what the part they are working on actually does, or where it goes on the engine. I guess what I'm saying is there are a lot of really dumb smart people. Just me venting about the impossibly retard stuff I see sometimes. Anyway, I don't know what software we use. It's probably proprietary anway. I know what you're saying about the 4.6 SOHC head. That thing is terrible. They purposefully shrouded about half of the intake valve to increase swirl in the cylinder. So dumb. We buy all of the competition and them tear it apart and cut it up, so I get to see the Jag 4.0 and the LS1 and the new Duramax, the caddy 4.6 DOHC. Pretty cool stuff out there.

The best combustion research I've seen has come out of Sandia Labs. Cummins hires them to do a lot of research.

 

They do their combustion analysisy with CFD type package there? I did not know they had that kind of stuff out there. I know they do some pretty cool stuff out there but up untill a 2 years ago their computers they were useing for their CFD analysis were pretty old and it took them a week to come up with an answer. They were doing it on regular old PC's with 100 mhz prosessors 2 years ago. One of my professors worked out there in the summers. Their projects were classified so they could not tell me about them they just said that the machines they had to use were very old.

 

horsepower has nothing to do with it....its TORQUE that gets the blower spinnin....

Physics people...physics...

DABE

 

yeah, but this aint the; "roots blower eats 500 ft lb torque" post

 

The last I heard at Sandia they were using acrylic cylinder heads and strobe cameras to photograph the combustion event with different bowl designs. Pretty cool pictures. I know the software is better than it used to be. Has something to do with the computer industry antiquating itself every 6 months I think. The laptop I got when I was a freshman is a 5 grand paper weight now.

OK, and power is the amount of torque needed at a specific speed, so they're really the same thing. For instance 40 ft-lbs at 2 rpm doesn't get a lot done. 40 ft-lbs applied 16,000 + times a minute can motivate a F-1 car around a race track pretty dang fast.

 

I'm gonna be goin up for the PE here after I graduate in may. My majors actually an MET degree but I took ME math classes. (Wasn't impressed w/ the ME program at purdue. Too many profs that speak russian and not english and pathetic hands on training. so i went w/ MET) My counselor said w/ my math experience that I could have a good chance w/ the PE. It doesn't really matter to me I have a job lined up (via a friend of mine) after I graduate that I will probably stay at (i'm also going to farm on the side) nevertheless, I want to keep my options open and I just wanted to know if it was worth it? Thanks

 

i am studying to be a mechanical engineer at michigan tech as you must know by now atomonkey.

quote:
A good design engineer will spend as much time in the lab and in the shop as he does behind his desk IMO.

my dad is a EE and i would have to agree with you ATO that the really good engineers design and build the thing. I guess if you designed the part you know what you are looking for.

the solid modeling program you speak of is it IDEAS? i had to use that program in one of my classes. fun little program. if i wanted to, this one time i could have designed a little piece of thing, and the ME department has this 3d wax printer thingy. the professor of my class said that he saw the printer thingy turn out a caged roller bearing that actually turned. it works by dropping tiny little drops of wax in the right spot or something. i saw some of the final results, pretty cool.

 

As far as getting your PE, I'd say go for it. The first test is 8 hours long, in two 4 hour blocks and costs $50 which the school generally reimbursses(sp?). Then you take a second test 4 years later. After you pass both you get a PE. Then you can be a pro witness and work for the state. It also reduces your liability if you want to go into business.

I don't know what the program is called, but it's really cool. I'm in complete awe around it even when they just have something silly like a bracket on the screen. I could just imagine how cool it would be to have a cylinder head or something on there.

Good luck with school this fall guys.

 

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it to happen

 

I remember people telling me the same about EFI in prostock.

 

There are rules for it, but they are so restrictive, it's not worth it. I think you have to run an engine half as big if you turbo or efi. That's the way it was last time I looked. It's like running OHC in Nascar. You have to take such a loss in volume that the efficiency doesn't make up for it.

 

FWIW, I just recieved a catalog from ATI that has an aritcle in it about the new F3 & F4 Superchargers.

ATI's Dan Jones said "Though it takes upward of 300 HP to turn an F-3SC on a pro 5.0 car & a turbo only sees about a 100 HP loss from Exhaust restriction......................."

I thought this interesting. I did not figure that a centrifugal would draw that much HP, but if you have ever turned one by hand, they dont spin that easily.

Makes me wonder if the F3 takes 300 HP, how much does the F4 take? I dont suppose it really matters if you are making 2200 HP.


BW

 

<b>It's like running OHC in Nascar. You have to take such a loss in volume that the efficiency doesn't make up for it.</b>

I thought Nascar banned Over-Head-Cammed Engines bcause they were so powerfull? I heard in the 70's GM came out with a "3XX CAMMER" It had some funky looking timing chain to turn the camshafts but it put out so much power than ford and pontiac followed through with the design and made their own... and soon they had DOHC Hemis making insane power so Nascar Banned it...

Or are we talking about somthing else entirelly? I have been away for a while :-) Still am, just using a friends computer...
Oh and by the way, I took some pics of my car ffinnaly tonight with my friends camera so everyone can see what it took me 1.5 years to accomplish.

 

I have a book called the pros & cons of power adders, it has info on all kinds of blowers and all the info supports the massive power loss of blowers, it says a 8-71 blower will consume up to 900hp on a race application but explains all the benifets.... next page has a pic of a vette thats twin turbo, twin supercharged making 4700hp!!!

 

I've been on a few excavators (I work at CAT). You might be able to drop the Cavalier in the engine bay.