Check this out. Guy is making air bearing turbo's that are at full boost soon as the engine fires. Would be great for a stick car where its hard to load it up.


http://www.nastyz28.com/forum/showthread.php?t=115883

 

I really don't see this going anywhere. More parts to support the use of this idea (compressor, tank(s), etc). From what I can see, the wheels wouldn't have a very defined location in the CHRA, and could cause interferance problems or just the ability for the compressor wheel to stay very close to the housing to keep steady amount of boost pressure.

I didn't see a comparison to ball bearings, well I didn't see any real comparison as it is, other than a couple sentances indicating a partial comparison, with no information as to how he measured and recorded the RPMs.

I also haven't seen any information about how heat from the engine will effect the "bearings" or how to keep the exhaust, from mixing into the CHRA that NEEDS clean and filtered air. The exhaust pressure pre-turbine, can reach many 10s of PSIG, usually at times twice to 2.5 times that of the intake pressure. So that would mean that the air bearings would require at least twice that, to keep the exhaust from mixing into the CHRA, maybe more. Also at shut off, the remainging exhaust particles will then have a way into the CHRA making that air bearing dirty, so now it requires a tear-down and cleaning everytime the car is shut off.

It's a neat idea, but doesn't seem to be thought out well.

 

Interesting. He says the bearings need about 100 psi @ 100 cfh to run properly, which he could get from a small electric pump... exhaust leaks wouldn't be a problem. Looks like he's using ceramics so heat would'nt be much of a problem. Shutdown would be questionable though. Instant boost sounds like an awesome idea, I'd like to see this project go somewhere if he can get the bugs worked out.

 

Turns out this was all done for a top secret air powered car.

Uses magnets to power the engine that only runs on compressed air.
And the turbo was designed to use the waste air to boost things even more.

Already been in testing and it works, they are stuck on the investment side of things.

 

Woah.