a point to reflect upon

[RocketMan]

...I figure now's as good a time as any to bring this up:

I'm not tryin to start a little war here so don't take the following to be in any way malicious.

Isn't the point of a forum to openly discuss topics of interest, debate over topics of controversy or otherwise build enthusiasm with those sharing similar views and ideas to your own?

I could do a search for cold air intakes and i'm sure you'll all agree I'll find 10 billion posts on the topic including countless posts where noobs will ask whether they should put one on and which one to get etc. Some may view this kind of redundancy as wasteful and annoying. Others may take it with a grain of salt as this is typical for a forum acquiring new members all the time. Also at the end of the day there's only so much to be said about everything before we have to inevitably say it all over again.

This brings me to my point. If so many people lately have been talking about electric s/c's why is there a crackdown to snuff out any discussion pertaining to it? I've seen 2 closed threads within only a couple of days of each other. Obviously ppl want to talk about it. And also there's clearly different views about the device, which is excellent cuz who wants a thread full of "yeah i agree", "yeah its awesome" , "yeah do it". As a matter of fact, there's quite a large base for people to diverge from when it comes to the particulars of superchargers of any type. Why discourage healthy conversation when there's so much to consider with a concept that isn't exactly conventional?

Seems to me that there's a few trend setters that are basically subliminally programming everyone else into joining the nominal views that they have. Somehow it just doesn't seem fair that a topic of any kind which is pertenant to the forum be dismissed because a few consider it "unworthy", which may or may not be justified, but either way its opinion which gives a person/persons no authority IMO to decide whether it will live in the forum or not.

Don't hate me or nothing i just think its important to say this.

[skateswitch97]

i think the reason threads get closed is because the debates go nowhere, same thing everytime. it starts out some noob is gonna buy one and asks about it, there is usually a reponse or two just saying they are crap, someone defends the concept and eventually drags up the link to the one that worked but used 4 batteries but
HERE ARE THE FACTS (to me)
it seems the discussions always miss the point, yes the elctric s/c concept is logical and can work but THE $80 EBAY KIT DOES NOT, i have seen the one the works and i know other do but they arent cheap either, looks like anyway you do it you cant add forced induction cheap
Electric Superchargers, thumbs up if its a real one, but ebay dosnt offer them, those are crap and i think we all agree, maybe with your post and this one we can settle the debate down abit because all and all were all pretty much together on this subject i think were just going at it different and maybe and times getting a bit rude, which i may have done myself in the last thread, so good thread chris, and your right we should keep this open for discussion

[99GrandAMSE]

Do it diplomatically, maturely and politely and we don't have a problem with discussing anything (within reason) ... the threads you are referring to were either out of control or going down the road towards eventually being locked anyway ... but, like I said, GAOC's policy is that you are free to talk about whatever you want but it is also our policy that such discussion must adhere to forum rules :)

Carry on!

[RocketMan]

Hope it is known i'm not directing anything at anyone...actually i'm kind of embarassed to discuss something like this in a technical forum but i think skate is right that in the midst of miscommunication, 1 concept can be argued in completely different contexts by different people and that makes it look like there's a conflict when really its not so severe.

For example, and i don't intend to press the point further, I've done next to no looking around on "Ebay" in particular so i can't say anything about those units. From what i've heard they seem to be crap. No arguement over here unless they are clearly superior and someone else wants to challenge that....my views and perhaps others (i can't be certain how many ppl are for electric s/c's) are based on the idea and not bound to an ad or model number.

sorry for the rambling :S

[jayhawk]

Wait, wait wait...let me guess. You are going to school for a degree in engineering, right?

And yes, you should be sorry for your rambling. The topic of electric superchargers ARE an unworthy topic in MY personal opinion. The only worthy electric S/C I have viewed is driven by three starter motors, needs three batteries and adds alot of weight to a vehicle. And it only can be used for 10-15 seconds AND the batteries have to be charged by an external source.

Sticking a small electric fan in a vaccum enviroment only impedes the normal flow of air into the engine. Think about it: in order to have at the bare minimum zero vaccum, the air needs to be compressed from -16.xx inches of vaccum to zero. No little XXX cfm fan will be able to do that. No, instead the air need to be compressed in order to acheive pressure. A fan does not produce atmospheric pressure! Prove me wrong, with substansial proof!

If you actually are going to argue with my logic, go ahead. I wont be reading this again, and have half a mind to just lock this and let this subject die once and for all!

[matts]

what's up your ass? he asked why it couldn't be discussed and said he liked the idea.

it might be a unworthy topic in YOUR personal OPINION, but opinions are like *******s......everyone has one and they usually stink. he didn't say you had to like his ideas, just listen to and discuss. personally i dont think they work, but hey, if he wants to waste his time and money on a product that he thinks will do good then go for it, be my guest. it's his money, his time, and his car

you didn't have to rip his head off and piss down his throat.

[loud2kse]

Originally posted by jayhawk
Sticking a small electric fan in a vaccum enviroment only impedes the normal flow of air into the engine. Think about it: in order to have at the bare minimum zero vaccum, the air needs to be compressed from -16.xx inches of vaccum to zero. No little XXX cfm fan will be able to do that. No, instead the air need to be compressed in order to acheive pressure. A fan does not produce atmospheric pressure! Prove me wrong, with substansial proof!

X2

Get a real s/c :P

[Mike94SE]

Or a turbo. Besides, eBay has turbos that you can score for a similar price on the "fochargers"

Oh and Electric superchargers pwn when the Turbonator is used, you have crossdrilled brake lines, new muffler bearings, topped off blinker fluid, are lubricated with Slick 50, and filtered with Fram. You guys just don't know it :D

[gicts]

Originally posted by RocketMan
....This brings me to my point. If so many people lately have been talking about electric s/c's why is there a crackdown to snuff out any discussion pertaining to it? I've seen 2 closed threads within only a couple of days of each other. Obviously ppl want to talk about it. And also there's clearly different views about the device, which is excellent cuz who wants a thread full of "yeah i agree", "yeah its awesome" , "yeah do it". As a matter of fact, there's quite a large base for people to diverge from when it comes to the particulars of superchargers of any type. Why discourage healthy conversation when there's so much to consider with a concept that isn't exactly conventional?.....
Mainly they don't let us talk about it b/c they're jealous that I am going to take my pc fan and be able to run a 6 sec in the 1/4. Ya terds!:mad:

[tejohnson]

Cute. Unfortunately it is honestly a sucker topic. Imagine, if electric superchargers were of any effectiveness, why don't you see them on any cars at a track? Even a leaf blower has little output, runs on 120v, at about 12 Amps. Feel free to give it a try if you really think it will work out. It's your $

[RocketMan]

I imagine you don't see them on cars very often for the same reasons you don't see overclocked graphing calculators (though people do these things anyway). Its not a typical consumer level mod and hasn't been around long enough to be available as a practical solution. The fact that something isn't common doesn't make it useless. How often do you use relativity when you check your wristwatch in the car?

I may put together a practical implementation of an electric s/c with real calculations to see what's actually possible for comparison's sake. In the mean time I'd suggest staying away from measures of CFM to compare flow as an equivalent to power. Q = vA which is a measure of volumetric flow (CFM) is applicable for incompressible fluids only so using it for air requires extra information about the density of the air etc. In other words mass flow is more appropriate. I'm fairly confident (though not certain until I look into some numbers) that just about any leaf blower would be able to add head to the flow in a grand am's intake...and of course a leaf blower isn't the only solution but just the best example of something we can relate to. I'll get back to you on that though.

[Mike94SE]

Do it and prove us wrong.

[RocketMan]

So many doubt vibes floating around :)

[Matt95GT]

OK, I'll bite.

Originally posted by RocketMan
This brings me to my point. If so many people lately have been talking about electric s/c's why is there a crackdown to snuff out any discussion pertaining to it? I've seen 2 closed threads within only a couple of days of each other. Obviously ppl want to talk about it. And also there's clearly different views about the device, which is excellent cuz who wants a thread full of "yeah i agree", "yeah its awesome" , "yeah do it". As a matter of fact, there's quite a large base for people to diverge from when it comes to the particulars of superchargers of any type. Why discourage healthy conversation when there's so much to consider with a concept that isn't exactly conventional?


There's no "crackdown" involved. Just like any controversial topic, if things get out of hand with name calling/random postwhoring/etc, a thread will get closed. And just like any other thread topic that was recently closed for such reasons, if someone else re-starts the flamage in a new thread, it will likely get closed.

I always encourage (and I suspect the other mods/admins do too) healthy conversation and even friendly debate... but so far all of electric supercharger threads have proven not to be "healthy" conversation.

Originally posted by RocketMan
Seems to me that there's a few trend setters that are basically subliminally programming everyone else into joining the nominal views that they have. Somehow it just doesn't seem fair that a topic of any kind which is pertenant to the forum be dismissed because a few consider it "unworthy", which may or may not be justified, but either way its opinion which gives a person/persons no authority IMO to decide whether it will live in the forum or not.


I know you're including me as one of those people... which is fine (I take zero offense to it). I don't care if people won't be "programmed" by me, I don't build my car for peer respect (hell, it prolly wouldn't be a GA then)... I build it to please and challenge me. Others will do things differently than me... which is fine. With virtually unlimited ways to spend money on cars, it's hard for some people to sit back and watch others in the community get ripped off.

Perhaps we can have a better understanding if give you the perspective from the other side...
Most of the "trend setters" (applicable to any other forum or car as well) have invested thousands of dollars and countless months/years/decades of time brainstorming, researching, testing, tuning, and re-testing. Once one has done so, that person knows what works, what doesn't, and why. They often learn many costly lessons the hard way... after all, there's always some trial-and-error involved. Because of that, most don't make the same or similar mistakes twice. You also reach a point where you see right through all the scammers that have infiltrated the auto industry, just like anywhere else where there's potential for them to make a living off your stupidity.

Edit/add: One also gains respect for certain others in hobby... often those that were a step ahead of you cutting through the BS and getting results. (essentially those who already made mistakes and learned for you) For example... I have been reading countless posts and data from people I consider mod pioneers for my engine for years. Rex Weatherford, Tyler Grant (both Beretta.net guys, or berettanet.com for you visitors back in 98-99), Scott "F-bod", "Killerquad" and many others come to mind. Some were turning out solid results from Quad 4's back in the mid-late 90's - a time when you had to learn what works and why, then build it. Nobody was building anything that was not solidly proven to work on both paper and in real life. Meanwhile, these electric S/C's have been proven NOT to work in both.


Originally posted by RocketMan
Its not a typical consumer level mod and hasn't been around long enough to be available as a practical solution. The fact that something isn't common doesn't make it useless.

Yes it has. Many (the "eRam" for example) have been around at least since 2000. Proof? Here:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.electricsupercharger.com/

They are common... among the uneducated that will try anything to get cheap performance gains. If it is that useful, why have we never seen any on a vehicle pumping out respectable numbers? Nearly every other real working modification on the market has doubled or tripled (at least) in both availability and use in that same amount of time since the whole "sport compact" modification hobby took off.

Originally posted by RocketMan
So many doubt vibes floating around :)

Why don't you have one then?

[RocketMan]

K let me try to diffuse this cuz i don't want any hostility between anyone. First Matt, when i said "some people" that was not synonymous with "Matt". In fact your name wasn't in my head when i wrote that sentence. I don't want to point fingers anyway that's not the point.

As far as the popularity of electric supers, you may be right...I certainly thought they were atypical when i first found out about them whereas I always knew about regular superchargers. But I could just be sheltered from what other people already know so that's fine. I still don't think its something most people would spout off the top of their heads when you ask them about mods though.

As far as reputation and experience....I do think they come to bear and that's why I'm all ears when a veteran says something about a car. However, if something they say is at odds with what I think and I feel strongly enough about it, I have to believe its possible that something's wrong and maybe it would be worth looking into. That's why i've been defending electric s/c's because to me, despite the opinions presented so far, I still think they can provide decent gains for a decent price. I wouldn't persist if I was kind of shaky about it. No disrespect intended, its just a matter of trust due to experience vs. personal knowledge and reasoning.

Once more, I do not intend to say at all that any commercial units sold by anyone are good because I know far less about them than everyone else and its quite possible they are garbage. To be very clear I envision my own configuration. If I were the inventor myself, I would build the unit a certain way. With such freedoms of design I defend the concept of electric supercharging because I don't have to be constrained by making profit, etc. How does this mean anything to the community? Well if I can prove that electric supercharging works, then maybe its possible for people to retrofit their own designs, hopefully with a minimum of effort such that the device works well. It wouldn't be rocket science either so i think its just as worthy a project as anything else that takes hours or a couple days to do. When I get home tonight I'll try to throw something numerical together, mostly because i'm curious if all the stuff i've been saying jibes with formula.

[tejohnson]

Buy a Rotrex and adapt an electrical powerplant to it where the current draw is acceptable. Remember, you only have 12vdc to work with ;)

http://www.w2wpowertrain.com/c-64-rotrex-units-and-pullies.aspx

[99GrandAMSE]

WOW ... lot of "words" in this thread :lol:

[RocketMan]

very true...and here's some more

[RocketMan]

K, so I decided to do a bit of a rough simulation of an electric supercharger setup that I would do to my car.

Bear in mind that even though my particular solution may not be practical for others, its only meant to

demonstrate what is possible and nothing more. The basic setup includes a 150 dollar canadian tire leaf

blower found here:

http://www.canadiantire.ca/assortments/product_detail.jsp?FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=140847439 6669508&ASSORTMENT%3C%3East_id=1408474396670271&bmUID=1140905380120&PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=845524442133341&assortment=primary&fromSearch=true
Other parts needed are a power inverter than can convert up to 1.5 kW but I think its cheaper to use 2 800W

inverters in parallel cuz they are smaller and lighter. When I worked at canadian tire there were sales on

these things where 2 would go for 150. By the way this is all in CDN currency. Anyway the other thing you

need is a deep cycle battery with at least 200 CCA. The one I looked at is this one:
http://www.canadiantire.ca/assortments/product_detail.jsp?FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=140847439 6670207&ASSORTMENT%3C%3East_id=1408474396670271&bmUID=1140893877183&PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=845524443271697&assortment=primary&fromSearch=true
I'm sure the above stuff could be substituted for cheaper equivalents if you looked hard enough but so far

we're up to about 450 CDN for the most essential hardware. K, time for the calculations. Let me know if you

catch any errors in the math and also let me know if anything is ambiguous and I'll try to elaborate:

Lets start on the electrical side, and lets look at "IDEAL" case only. Later on I'll discuss losses but for

now i don't have the time to conduct a full study inclusive of losses. It will give you a taste of what's

possible anyway.

The leaf blower operates on 120 V RMS and draws 12 A for a power consumption rate of 1.44 kW. This is the

same as 12 V and 120 A, which is a load the battery can sustain continuously for roughly half an hour based on

its Ah capacity. This electrical energy is converted into mechanical energy of two forms. Kinetic energy is

added in the form of air velocity and potential energy is added in the form of increased air pressure but for

an open air situation the energy is all kinetic until we hook it up to the car (a closed system). The leaf

blower air flow has a velocity of 265 km/h or 73.6 m/s. The flow rate is 424 CFM at 14.7 psi (since the duct

is open to the atmosphere and not a closed system) and therefore the mass flow rate converted to metric is

0.249426 kg/s. This is found using m = PV/(RT) for air where P is pressure in Pa, V is volume rate in m^3/s, R

is the gas constant for air and T is the absolute temperature which I take to be 300 K, or 27 C, an extremely

common "room temperature" so to speak and if anything it is generous because hotter air is going to be

shittier. This wouldn't apply in canada anyway :) lol. So now we know the mass flow rate. This is going to

be invaluable considering the CFM figure is useless for compressible fluids such as air. Now at this point

I'd like to leave this path and start working backwards from the mechanical side.

[RocketMan]

The 3400 engine achieves maximum horsepower at WOT at 4800 RPM. 4800 RPM is 80 revs per second and for each

rev there are 2 strokes so lets use a displacement of 1.7 L per rev which is half of what is used in 2

revs. This is equal to 0.0017m^3. We'll keep this handy. For now lets think about the energy conversion

again. The leaf blower hooked up is going to need to convert its electrical work into mechanical work

(kinetic + potential). We don't really care what goes on at the fan blades as much as we care about what

happens at the cylinder cuz that's where the car gets its kick. The velocity of the air as it fills the

cylinder is going to be limited by the linear velocity of the falling piston, which unfortunately due to the

sinusoidal behaviour of the crankshaft as it sweeps 360 degrees, is not constant. The stroke of each cylinder

is 88 mm so if 80 revs are occuring in 1 sec that means 1 rev occurs in 0.0125 seconds but since we are going

to use an average velocity for half a cycle (ie when the piston sucks the air in), this is half of that or

0.00625 sec. So this is the time it takes for a piston to fall 88 mm meaning the "average" velocity of the

piston by s=vt is v = 14.08 m/s. Ok now as we all know, the intake stroke is one of 4 strokes and its the

only stroke that lets air in so this means that at any given time there are 6/4 or 1.5 cylinders letting air

in. I know you can't have half a cylinder but I just mean that 2 cyls are in their intake strokes at diffent

stages, equivalent to 1.5 cylinders being at the end of their intake strokes. Notice however that since 2

pistons are drawing air in, the velocity of total air entering these 2 simultaneously is not 1.5 the vel of

one but 2x the vel of one since a valve can either be open or shut but not half way open or half way shut.

Therefore the velocity of air entering these 2 cyls is 28.16 m/s.

At this point we can use this velocity along with the mass flow rate we have from before to find the kinetic

energy of the air being added. It is mv^2 or 197.8 watts. Since our leaf blower produces 1.44 kW, that

leaves a difference of 1242.2 W, which must be all potential (pressure) since it cannot be anything else. Now

watts and potential energy and all that are all a measure of energy. Energy and heat are the same thing so

for this last part i'm going to use thermodynamics to figure out the pressure.

In 1 second the mass of air flow is 0.249426 kg and 1242.2 joules of heat (potential energy) are available to

it in that second. This is basically like adding enthalpy to a fixed mass of air, which in a particular

volume will increase its pressure. The particular volume in question is 0.0017 m^3 x 80 revs = 0.136 m^3. So

for the energy equation, dT = Q/(mc) = 1242.2/(0.249426 x 718) = 6.94 K and to calculate pressure increase, P

= mRT/V = 3653 Pa = 0.53 psi boost.

I'm really tired from this so i'm just going to mention some of the errors. Outside temp may not be 27 C. If

its lower the gains will go up. The motor isn't 100% efficient (but pretty close to it) so this makes gains

go down. The vacuum in the induction system is not what a leaf blower usually experiences so the load torque

on the motor will be lower and the motor performance curve will be different such that the fan specs will be

higher than what i used. This increases performance. Thermodynamically the engine is roughly adiabatic but

there are heat losses as well so performance down. Finally (or what i can think of finally), the operating

point of the car chosen was 4800 RPM. This is at max horsepower rated though WOT can happen at any RPM so if

the RPM is higher performance goes down but if its any lower, performance goes up.

I'm skeptical about a few calculations I made so don't take the number as scripture. Personally I think it

should be higher (and i'm wondering about the math that would describe that video with the guys and the leaf

blower) but i'm an honest guy so I'm putting this down for your criticisms and comments.

[Mike94SE]

What does $152.08 convert to "Eh?" dollars? :lol:

(Garrett T3 .42/.48)

[Tebore]

Interesting set of calculations. Where are you studying and what field of engineering are you studying?

Say How did the brain Storming the RamAir turn out?

You're studying to be an engineer, you should know this Energy is neither created nor destroyed. What you can do it convert it from one form to another with higher efficiency.

What you did in your calculation was prove that with a strong enough motor you could blow enough air to cause some level of boost. However you didn't factor in the energy to create the electric potential to power the motor.

An alt takes a good deal of power to turn it, most alts are 90-110 amps, most batteries are about 200amps. If you were to constantly use the blower you'd drain the bat and overheat the alt.

Why this doesn't work is because you're suggesting a form of perpetual motion machine. Also there is quite a loss of power converting anything in to kinetic energy.

This is your process, Convert chemical energy> kinetic (most car engines are what 30% efficient? Tonnes of heat is lost)>electical>kinetic>chemical. If that doesn't sound like a perpetual motion machine I don't know what is.

Note, you also proved in your calculation why it's not practical to run this long term. Nitrous is bad enough that most people don't want to use it, this is worse.

[RocketMan]

Your point is a valid one, the electro mechanical as well as chemical energy conversions are sources of inefficiencies....plus I know my post is way too long to read properly but if you go back to the very beginning you'll notice I said I would not use the alternator in any way to power this unit....if i didn't say that i apologize. I referenced a battery though, which when fully charged at home or with a solar panel or whatever, and stored in the trunk, could supply temporary power for about 30 minutes or so and would have no effect whatsoever on the car's electrical system. As you mentioned it would be impossible to produce a gain using energy robbed from the car. That's why you need a completely separate battery that you charge from something other than your car.

Working at magna, studied at Uni of Toronto for in mechanical eng. The ram air thing is still something i have to do calculations on and model before i bother making anything...real life has slowed that effort a bit but i'm still thinking about it and plan to work on it in the near future.

[PontiacGA]

Originally posted by gicts
Mainly they don't let us talk about it b/c they're jealous that I am going to take my pc fan and be able to run a 6 sec in the 1/4. Ya terds!:mad:

Damn! you took my idea!!:mad: I'll just have to use two...with NEONS. Ha! :P

[Tebore]

Yeh I'm just restating why this idea isn't practical. It can't be sustained by the onboard charging system which is why people don't like it. Look at the amount of energy you put in to make less than 1lbs of boost.

[RocketMan]

I know...its quite a bit...more than most aftermarket sound systems usually use. But another thing i forgot to mention is that that's the energy used for the air only. Once the computer figures out there's extra air available it puts in more gas and that gas has several kilowatts of potential within it so really you're getting multiples of what you put in, back.