Educate me please about electric turbochargers.

[bobbywalter]

You're right! I'm going to investigate that turbo charger too. Do you have one?

i have a few turbos in the garage. but i am currently running a detroit diesel 660 humvee block in my ranger. until there is a double diamond navistar 506 engine compete on the floor waiting, there wont be no turbo on that 660 block.

young bob though.....i suspect if he gets his welding skills up....that thing that identifies as a ranger he drives....(shoestring budget 5.3 350Z) .....it will probably have a hx35 pushing air through it.

he has grown tolerant of my ranger though. though i fear if he ever figures out there is a bolt on turbo setup out there that is a 1/4 turn fuel screw away from halving the 0-60 time.....my 660 humvee engine will die a glorious death.


i dont think i would live with a 3.0 very long unless it was from out of an explorer st or gm diesel.

 

[stmitch]

With a light foot, forced induction can have almost no negative impact on fuel economy. With a heavy foot, it's going to drink fuel like a fish. You're also going to have to run Premium instead of Regular Unleaded, so be sure to budget for that as well.

Any aftermarket forced induction setup is going to cost thousands of dollars to make it actually work. Maybe exceptions for people using cheap used parts and doing tons of fabrication themselves. They tend to have a bunch of smaller things that add up until they're not cheap.

 

[Lefty]

i have a few turbos in the garage. but i am currently running a detroit diesel 660 humvee block in my ranger. until there is a double diamond navistar 506 engine compete on the floor waiting, there wont be no turbo on that 660 block.

young bob though.....i suspect if he gets his welding skills up....that thing that identifies as a ranger he drives....(shoestring budget 5.3 350Z) .....it will probably have a hx35 pushing air through it.

he has grown tolerant of my ranger though. though i fear if he ever figures out there is a bolt on turbo setup out there that is a 1/4 turn fuel screw away from halving the 0-60 time.....my 660 humvee engine will die a glorious death.


i dont think i would live with a 3.0 very long unless it was from out of an explorer st or gm diesel.

I don't have the need for speed, not in the same way that you do, but I share your passion. I would think that a turbo charged Vulcan might just run a little better with a 60 mm throttle body too.

 

[don4331]

Yeah I didn't want to open that can of worms. There definitely are a lot of people out there trying to sell "electric turbochargers"... Maybe that's a good way to determine how real their product is.

What they are selling is electric centrifugal supercharger. Analogus to the Vortech supercharger which is also a centrifugal supercharger.

The confusion is a exhaust driven turbine operates at high speeds, so is almost always connected to a centrifugal supercharger. But we don't refer to them as exhaust driven turbine centrifugal superchargers, we shorten to turbocharger.

Positive displacement supercharger move air at rpm, 1,000 rpms they move e.g 100CFM, at 2,000 rpm they move e.g 200CFM, at 3,000 rpm they move e.g 300CFM
Now, centrifugal superchargers move air at square of rpm i.e. at 10,000 rpms they move e.g 100CFM, at 20,000 rpm they move e.g 400CFM, at 30,000 rpm they move e.g 900CFM!

If the engine can't use all the CFM being delivered, air 'stacks up' i.e. cmpresses
becomes boost. (When you want to get really technical, when you compress air, it heats up...the more you compress it, the hotter it gets; if you are really interested, I can give you the engineering formulas).

Now the formula 1 guys have this down to a science. Mercedes was the leader; they stuck a very high speed electric motor on the shaft between the intake centrifugal compressor and the exhaust turbine. So, they use electric power to spin the compressor up to speed when there isn't enough exhaust energy, and they extract electric power when there is too much exhaust energy. And they have some very fancy capacitors/batteries to store/release the energy.

So, in you want to have a electric centrifugal supercharger making 15psi boost on a 3.0 at 4k rpm (assuming temp of 68F/14.7psi day aka std day), you need a 10kW electric motor (~800 Amps at 12v)

 

[Lefty]

What they are selling is electric centrifugal supercharger. Analogus to the Vortech supercharger which is also a centrifugal supercharger.

The confusion is a exhaust driven turbine operates at high speeds, so is almost always connected to a centrifugal supercharger. But we don't refer to them as exhaust driven turbine centrifugal superchargers, we shorten to turbocharger.

Positive displacement supercharger move air at rpm, 1,000 rpms they move e.g 100CFM, at 2,000 rpm they move e.g 200CFM, at 3,000 rpm they move e.g 300CFM
Now, centrifugal superchargers move air at square of rpm i.e. at 10,000 rpms they move e.g 100CFM, at 20,000 rpm they move e.g 400CFM, at 30,000 rpm they move e.g 900CFM!

If the engine can't use all the CFM being delivered, air 'stacks up' i.e. cmpresses
becomes boost. (When you want to get really technical, when you compress air, it heats up...the more you compress it, the hotter it gets; if you are really interested, I can give you the engineering formulas).

Now the formula 1 guys have this down to a science. Mercedes was the leader; they stuck a very high speed electric motor on the shaft between the intake centrifugal compressor and the exhaust turbine. So, they use electric power to spin the compressor up to speed when there isn't enough exhaust energy, and they extract electric power when there is too much exhaust energy. And they have some very fancy capacitors/batteries to store/release the energy.

So, in you want to have a electric centrifugal supercharger making 15psi boost on a 3.0 at 4k rpm (assuming temp of 68F/14.7psi day aka std day), you need a 10kW electric motor (~800 Amps at 12v)

 

[Lefty]

Yes. Exactly. Thanks.

 

[Lefty]

Thanks for all of your comments. I'm beginning to believe that an electric turbocharger is not really practical for an every day driver like me. Thanks also for suggesting that a conventional turbocharger may suit my own needs better, especially if done with the right kit.

I've got a buddy who will help me. I'm going to look into this.