Electric supercharger

[jordansportsfan76]

I have gotten an e-mail response from North End Tuning regarding a supercharger for my bimmer . They want to sell me a custom kit for it. Have you heared anything about this company? http://www.electricchargers.com

[shogun]

Cannot believe that, up to 30 HP for $ 99.95 with that simple mod.

[BillionPa]

on engines under 2L they might provide a bit of improvement, but on cars that suck airs like ours, they are like sticking a sock in the intake.

[CharlesAFerg]

I have gotten an e-mail response from North End Tuning regarding a supercharger for my bimmer . They want to sell me a custom kit for it. Have you heared anything about this company? http://www.electricchargers.com

Not only 1 post, but it's an advertisement...
Also, a completely random username....
More obvious plz. :D

[BillionPa]

at least it was worded like an actual question, well enough to get actual answers.

[Ross]

There was a video on streetfire with some clowns using a leaf blower on a dyno run. It made a significant difference. Guess you'd need a pretty long cord though.

[winfred]

just about any 12v dc motor that has enough ass to produce decent boost will be drawing enough power that the alternator will be sucking back most of the gains in drag, unless you are buying one of the many boat bilge ventalator blowers off ebay, then it's just a minor intake restriction

[Macv]

I'm buying four.

[Dash01]

Over the years, electric superchargers have been discussed and dissed extensively on the Porsche boards. Nobody has much if any faith in the concept, which is considered bogus and pitched to naive ricer types.

That said, various monster machines such as TRAINS that pull hundreds of freight cars are driven by electric motors fed by diesel generators. Electric motors do, after all, get max torque from standstill. Surely a small permanent magnet motor could produce equivalent torque to that of typical automotive turbocharger shaft. In other words, a motor should be able to produce as much torque as that made by the spend exhaust gases passing through a turbine, but do so without the lag. Anyone?

[Ross]

Seems to me it would take a reasonably serious electric motor to actually produce boost and that motor will require energy to run it.
The loss encountered converting the mechanical energy of the engine to electricity then back to mechanical energy I think would outweigh any gains.
Trains have no choice but to deal with the loss. Can you imagine trying to couple a combustion engine to that sort of load?

[winfred]

yes but these trains you speak of are usually equipped with a 12 cylinder diesel averaging 4300hp driving a generator to power these electric motors, a powerful electric motor is not the issue it's supplying the power for that motor, till we have a good sized fuel cell or small nuke under the hood to generate the power independantly of the engine the electric motor will drag most of the power it can add back due to power consumpsion


That said, various monster machines such as TRAINS that pull hundreds of freight cars are driven by electric motors fed by diesel generators. Electric motors do, after all, get max torque from standstill. Surely a small permanent magnet motor could produce equivalent torque to that of typical automotive turbocharger shaft.

[Dash01]

yes but these trains you speak of are usually equipped with a 12 cylinder diesel averaging 4300hp driving a generator to power these electric motors, a powerful electric motor is not the issue it's supplying the power for that motor, till we have a good sized fuel cell or small nuke under the hood to generate the power independantly of the engine the electric motor will drag most of the power it can add back due to power consumpsion

That's probably why nobody has come up with any sort of decent electrical supercharger, despite the fact that the idea has been hyped amongst the riceboys for years. Nitrous seems to work, though.

Or, the Mercedes superchargers show up on eBay from time to time, are belt driven, and presumably well designed.

So, if I were inclined in the supercharger direction, I'd probably start there.

As it is, I have my hands full messing with oil/coolant mix problems.

[Dash01]

'Nother thought:

If the battery can power the starter motor with sufficient torque to start the car on cold mornings, why would it not have sufficient juice to quickly spin up an electric supercharger, say, one with permanent magnets?

[gmannino]

What if a car already had an upgraded electrical system due to audio system upgrades; would adding a high thrust DC motor actually boost induction = HP? I imagine increasing fuel input would be a must also. I was thinking of the inline 6 motor, with a heavy duty motor, forcing air into the intake tract. Since its powered with electricity, it would be horsepower at the flick of a switch. Any comment on this reasoning?

[The Bigfella]

Any comment on this reasoning?

Yep. Its no good. IIRC a supercharger takes a LOT of horsepower to drive. So to replace it with an electric fan, you'd need say a 15hp electric engine. That's a big electric motor.

[Blitzkrieg Bob]

it's multi speed

[632 Regal]

Delete or leave as humor?

[Blitzkrieg Bob]

Delete or leave as humor?

you da boss

[The Bigfella]

Leave as humour - but wait till we get the flux capacitors coming in - they help reduce the power drain on the electrical system you know

[winfred]

we still come back to where the electricity comes from, it would need to be powered from a source that doesn't draw against the alternator for a useful net gain in hp, lets say our hair drier gives enough boost for 20 hp but it sucks 30-40 amps to do it, that puts a strain on the alternator which sucks power from the engine to make that power, that's why it's not a good design because it's horribly inefficient as it eats up most of the power it produces just to power itself and not be a drain on power, turbos are 70% or better efficiency, roots type superchargers are between 40 and 50% screw type and centrifugal type (what i am installing on my e30) superchargers are around 60%, what this crap means is if something is 50% efficient and it adds 50hp it takes 25hp to make that 50hp or in other words if the same device was 100% efficient you'd have 75hp, if i had to pull a number outta my ass for a hair drier it'd probably be 25% or less which sucks bad


'Nother thought:

If the battery can power the starter motor with sufficient torque to start the car on cold mornings, why would it not have sufficient juice to quickly spin up an electric supercharger, say, one with permanent magnets?

[BillionPa]

hmmm, would the use of an electric motor be a consideration to spooling up a turbo at low RPMS?

[The Bigfella]

no

[colo525i]

Billion, Bigfella.

Saw that saab did this with some of their 2.0L 4cyls as a test. Small motor to give it a punch of turbine speed off idle. Was only a test, and did help kill lag but i don't think it was very reliable. I can't see why you wouldn't just use variable geometry or a smaller ballbearing turbo. There is a mention of such technology in the "turbocharger" article on wikipedia (take with usual grain of salt). On that note, if you do need a cheap s/c a wrecked mercedes is a good source. They're usually eaton M90 blowers which are pretty reliable and push good boost.

[Ross]

This is the reason for bi-turbo applications. Two small easily accelerated turbos have less lag and ultimately equal flow to a larger unit.

[mikell]

Does it come in a cardboard version?

[Robert K]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe an alternator only draws the engine horsepower required to turn it. It doesn't matter whether there's a light electical load or a heavy one on the alternator, the horsepower drawn from the engine to run the alternator is the same at all times. The alternator always provides the same amount of electrical output at all times. It is the job of the voltage regulator to determine how much of that charge makes it to the battery to keep it charged. I'm guessing that most of the time, the alternator is making more electricity than is required to keep the battery charged and the electrical accessories in the car happy. The only time you'll hear of anyone needing a bigger alternator is when they have accessories needing lots of juice, such as mega-watt car stereos.

My point in all of this is this...If you hook up an electrical blower in your intake system that doesn't require a bigger alternator to run it, then you're really not drawing any more horsepower off of the engine to run it. The same horsepower required to turn the alternator without the electrical blower is the same as the horsepower required to turn the alternator with the electrical blower. It doesn't cost any additional horsepower. The real question is whether you can find an electical blower powerful enough to create an increase in intake manifold boost while not screwing up your intake flow when the blower's not operating. Personally, I bet it can be done. It's a matter of the right motor and the right fan assembly.

Grace and peace,

Robert K
1991 535i

[Blitzkrieg Bob]

The HP draw is due to the electromagnetic energy between the sator and the field coil.

[indierthanthou]

will this work with my nos and my groundfxz?

[DaveVoorhis]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe an alternator only draws the engine horsepower required to turn it.
You're wrong. The mechanical load created by the alternator increases in proportion to the electrical load on the alternator.

[winfred]

ditto, wanna see a good example of this watch a old car with V belts and a alternator belt that's just tight enough to not squeal at idle, turn on everything in the car and watch the belt start slipping, another example would be a older car with out a active idle control system, you can drop the idle with the electrical system


You're wrong. The mechanical load created by the alternator increases in proportion to the electrical load on the alternator.

[Martin in Bellevue]

Here's some evidence of the load needed to power a blower to any marginal effect:
notice that dynan uses a 6 rib belt with varly taught pulleys to turn the vortech supacharger to just under 6psi of boost.
http://www.bimmer.info/bmw/martin/M3.jpg

[winfred]

they have guys with mustangs going to 8 and 10 rib belts because slip, i am planning a 6 rib for the e30 but i am going to get as much contact on the pulley as i can when i design the belt drive, boost? as much as i can get without over speeding the blower, i am hoping for 7-8# with the stock unit, then get the upgraded impeller and run that for a while, if that's not enough and i get board get the blower upgraded to the vr4 spec, i think 5.0 mustangs get 14 odd psi outta a vr4


Here's some evidence of the load needed to power a blower to any marginal effect:
notice that dinan uses a 6 rib belt with fairly taught pulleys to turn the vortech supercharger to just under 6psi of boost.
http://www.bimmer.info/bmw/martin/M3.jpg

[Robert K]

To be honest, I was going on what I thought I knew, not what I knew for certain.

So you're saying that running high electrical loads in your car can actually decrease your gas mileage?

Grace and peace,

Robert K
1991 535i

[AutoXr]

Yup. As a rule, I seem to remember that any time you convert energy from one form into another, there are efficiency losses. So take internal combustion driven rotating energy, convert it into electricity, and then convert that back into rotating motion again. You *never* get more energy out than you put in...laws of physics and all.

What we need to a way to convert already spent energy into rotating motion. Too bad there wasn't some way to capture the waste energy, like from exhaust gases, to ......oh wait. Never mind. :p

BTW, in order to keep the Greenpeace type people happy, I'm currently developing a Solar powered supercharger. Should go a long way toward saving our mother Earth. :D

[Ferret]

So you're saying that running high electrical loads in your car can actually decrease your gas mileage?


For sure, it's the same effect as switching your aircon on...

Unneccessary electrical loads will shave off 1-3mpg at a time, and with the size of the beemers alternators, you've got the potential to kill off your mpg really badly.

Electric motors are like 95% efficient at max rpm unloaded, but once you start loading them, hysterisis losses start to drop them down to something like 40% iirc?

Christ I only finished my degree last year and I'm forgetting these things already.

[Martin in Bellevue]

There are 2 smaller pulleys available from Vortech for the m3's blower. There is pretty good belt wrap around the supacharger pulley, so it might take it. The more I read, the less inclined I am to swapping the pulleys; sounds like R & R'ing the pulley can be hard on the bearings. Dynan also has some goop on the locking bolt. I've heard of a pulley bolt failing on a Powerdyne m3, but those have other problems too.

[Blitzkrieg Bob]

This is what I think of when I hear "supercharger".

[Podmore]

Here's a link to an article which discusses a few alternative electric supercharger concepts.
http://autospeed.drive.com.au/cms/A_2063/article.html
Personally, I'm sceptical. Read the analysis of the TurboZET linked within the above article.
http://autospeed.drive.com.au/cms/article.html?&A=0237

[ttsalo]

Yep. Its no good. IIRC a supercharger takes a LOT of horsepower to drive. So to replace it with an electric fan, you'd need say a 15hp electric engine. That's a big electric motor.

Right. It's not realistic to get that kind of power from 12 volt electric system in a car.
You'd have to install a much beefier high voltage alternator to power the electric blower. That would work... but it would also be more expensive, take more room and suck more power than just running the blower with a belt.

[AutoXr]

I've read that a modern day supercharger sitting atop a top fuel dragster requires over 500 hp to operate. Most V8 engines can't even turn it.

[winfred]

i think the 15-71 blowers are actually sucking more like 900 hp at the speed they are running them, the lyshom screw type compressor before they outlawed them were in the 500 range, which was one of the things that made them popular, that and less heat. the blower doesn't automaticly requier that much power to turn at all speeds, they are just running them at 50+ psi which is a huge load with all of the fuel they are dumping in too, a top fuel car is on the verge of hydro lock theres so much fuel in the chambers at tdc


I've read that a modern day supercharger sitting atop a top fuel dragster requires over 500 hp to operate. Most V8 engines can't even turn it.