An Electric Supercharger that works

[grounded1]

I know the Subaru bunch are mostly diehard turbocharger guys but this is really cool. http://www.boosthead.com/product.php

[meep]

...and a web page that doesn't...

 

Mike

[cookie]

and it could work. I will let you guys spend the money to test it however.

[1 Lucky Texan]

operates in 15 second bursts. adds over 90 pounds of weight. 11 pounds equals about 1 hp so subtract about 8 or so from the 38 or whatever the claim is. Still, maybe some lighter batteries will come along in the future. Wonder how many 15 second bursts at 6 psi a 90lb tank of compressed air would give you?

[grounded1]

If I drop a turbo kit or supercharger kit in my Sube I guess the same rule applies. I guess its out of the question to do any fast moves with a 180 pound buddy in the passenger seat. Depends how you look at it I guess. Its all fun and games until one of these electric things proves it works. This might be the one. Wait and see. It wasn't that long a go that 4 bangers were a joke and look at them now!

 

P

[blitz]

Isn't this the one that was being tested on NASIOC? I wonder how that turned out.

 

I was a sucker and bought an e-ram a couple years back. That piece of crap didn't do a damn thing. In fact I think it actually made my car a bit slower, my butt dyno's pretty good.

 

I was tempted to take a dump in it, wrap it up, and send it back.

[blitz]

Just did a search, it was rs25.com

 

Apparently the vendor chickened out on submitting a unit for testing:

 

http://www.rs25.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=13198&highlight=electric+supercharger

 

I'll try to dig up the original thread, it got a little wild.

[blitz]

Here it is: Very long thread.

 

http://www.rs25.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=9816&perpage=15&highlight=electric%20supercharger&pagenumber=1

 

Apparently this is not the same product that you were referring to Grounded1.

[grounded1]

No, that wasn't the one at the sight I went to. If you blow up the pictures on the sight you can see that the supercharger is definitely a roots type. Its driven by three motors that resemble three chevy starter motors. No doubt that it draws a lot of power. The question is does it really put out the boost numbers it claims. Thats all that really matters. If it can move 400cfm at 7 to 20 psi then at least the claim is true. Whether someone wants to put a row of batteries in their trunk to support it is another story. As for the 15 sec duration and battery recovery, heck..I only have to kick another cars rump roast once to prove a point in a race. Knight has a full page add in Sport Compact Car for the elec. superchr. Lets see how the mainstream reacts to it. There may even be an article about it. I don't remember seeing the ol' bilge fan in a full page add in SCC. Time will tell if its a hoax or real. The numbers won't lie when a third party evals it. We'll see...

 

Pat

[JonOfScio]

yeah, bursts of "up to" 20PSI, didn't say for how long though.

 

15 seconds of about 6.5PSI I think I remember the article saying. 15 seconds use for every twenty minutes of charging doesn't sound like it's really all that great to me (IMO)

 

Sounds like it would work, and I'm pretty sure from what I've read and the pictures I've looked at that it would, but it's more cost efficient AND the weight issue is better with a turbo setup.

[grounded1]

First, nothing will beat the turbo in efficiency and power output. Thats a given. But how many hits does a ten pound nos bottle give. At least the batteries will taper of if held on. Nos for long durations will definitey break something. Unles you've spent thousands beefing up the engine and in that case you probably went turbo (who wouldn't). I don't know... I like the concept of it I guess. Its basic, you don't screw with the exhaust, an extra 50-75 hp at a push of a button(if it works), no nitrous fills, its generic so if I get another car it transfers over. I hope they get it right. I would like something thats push button (and different). Imagine, there will be a day when we see electric funny cars at the track, its coming. Then we can laugh at all the bilge fans, ducted fans and starter motors.

 

Pat

[99obw]

To me this is a perfect illustration of the law of diminishing returns. Look how complex, heavy, and expensive they had to make this thing in order to get the electrical supercharger idea to work, assuming is does work. 15 seconds of boost every twenty minutes? IMHO this is a street racing gimmick designed for the kiddies.

[grounded1]

All right, I'll crawl out of my coffin now and expose my age with this statement. "street racing gimmick designed for the kiddies" is exactly what they said about NOS in the seventies when it first reared its gimmicky head. Then again gimmick status disappears when it blows by you. Just like NOS did back in the late seventies. I'm just saying watch this technology closley, its not going away. When NOS first came out there were people blowing their induction manifolds literally through their hoods. Sticking relays, dirty nos injectors, ect. It was the most inefficient and unreliable HP gain you could think of. And now look at it. When they start offering the hydraulic driven supercharger in a kit form watch out. These things run off a power steering pump for hydraulic pressure and have no lag. I forget which car manuf. is developing this for a production car but it works and with very little HP stolen to drive it.

 

P

[99obw]

Well, now that you mention it, NOS is a gimmick too. It's cheap HP at the expense of engine longevity and reliability. NONE of my engine builder friends use NOS. They build engines that make huge HP without it and last. A lot of engine building purists consider NOS cheating. It's a cheap way for someone that doesn't necessarily know what they are doing to build HP that would otherwise cost a lot of money and require a lot of expertise.

 

Temporary HP doesn't impress me I guess. A 2.5l engine that can make 300 HP all day long and last for years, that impresses me.

[JonOfScio]

NOS isn't *bad*, normal engines are bad *for* NOS.

 

Some engines have to be built around it to provide the right platform for that use (just like high Hp NA engines and turbo engines need to be built around the NA or Turbo theory)

 

I have a friend with a pretty stock VW Scirocco that has run over $500 of 50cc of nitrous. Some engines are way underpowered and unexplored territory (scirocco) and some engines are running stock, pretty high in the maximum efficiency area (Honda) and so therefore those engines die from a serious (or a couple) hits of NOS.

 

an engine that is at 10% of it's max efficiency that runs NOS and doubles it's efficiency is still 80% underpowered. If you have a car that is 65% out of a 100% efficient and you put NOS on it, you cannot run your engine to be 130% efficient, the engine will die.

 

Talking to the Scirocco dude seriously taught me some stuff about the older, cooler, VWs and how NOS works in them.

[blitz]

Originally posted by grounded1

SNIP{

When they start offering the hydraulic driven supercharger in a kit form watch out.

SHNIP

That's pretty good. Another scenario I keep envisioning is a hi-helix type roots (ala whipple) driven via a miniature CVT tranny to provide variable speed. Man, if they could combine this together with a variable compression engine it would be awsome!

 

Steady-state cruising at 15:1 compression and no blower.

 

As throttle is opened, the compression would vary down to about 10:1 still with no blower boost up to about 1/2 throttle opening.

 

Then from there up to WOT, compression would vary down to 7:1 as blower boost variably builds to a max of 20 psi.

 

It would be the best of power under acceleration with incredible economy for cruise.