Leaf Blower

[sracing]

We dyno and flow bench all day long. If you remove a air cleaner and get 20hp, you have one VERY dirty restrictive air cleaner. One might see 4 to 8 HP of gains on a 400 HP engine when removing the air cleaner. That is about it.

Regarding the leaf blower. Sure it will work. Nothing new about that. This is old stuff. I couldn't make out the numbers in the video and have no idea of how powerfull the leaf blower was, but it is highly likely it would increase manifold pressures, thus giving relative boost. Is it practical? Not very. The REAL ultimate gains probably wouldn't be worth the fuel and leaf blower maintenance. But it would technically work.

BTW, it also works at the other end. I.E. We were designing an exhaust collector for a Formula car and wanted to see where the best scavaging would work in reference to the airflow around the body of the car. We used a leaf blower to blow air across the tip of the collector at a 45 deg angle. (Leaf blower air speed was measured at about 60mph.) The engine was held at 6000 RPM under constant eddy current load. As soon as the leaf blower was held at that angle at the tip, we picked up an instant 3% horsepower. At 140mph, I would assume the gains would be even greater. That was a 2HP leaf blower I believe.

(Regarding the post on energy conservation. Nice info, but it don't apply in either of the above cases. The only statement you MIGHT be able to make, is that you would not get more additional HP than the HP of the leaf blower. But that's not even really true.

Jim
SR Racing Inc

[CBFryman]

of all the retarded things.
You dont have to create boost to gain horsepower. an engine is essentially a pump, you remove the air filter you are making the job easier, but there is still a slight vacume in the intake when compared to ambiant air pressure, when gasses flow the pressure drops, nothing amazing.
The gains from that are because the leaf blower is doing exactly what it was designed to do, flow air, its flowing more air than the engine is pulling on its own, therefor you have an over abundance of air, no vacume, noboost, simply more air because you removed the vacume. more air means more power, and because the engine isnt having to pull harder to get this extra air your not loosing power from the sucking action of the downward travleing piston.
there is no boost being created there, the intake was not sealed off to the air exaust of the leaf blower. any excess pressure would have flown right back out of the intake.
so to reidderate what i am saying, you are not creating boost, you are making flow easier.

Electric fans placed inside the intake, however, will not show any performance gains in the long run. they will run off of the alternator, the alternator gets its energy from the engine, at a rather low efficency in most cases.
in order for one to work you would have to have a storage of batteries which would be charged from the alternator. then when you wanted the extra flow the circut of the fan would have to be completely isolated from the alternator, just drawing from the batteries, and would only run untill the batteries voltage began to drop. and the power required to turn the fan to create the desired flow would be quite a bit, meaning if you wanted boost for any legitamit period of time you would need several deep cycle batteries. which is weighing your car down. and when you are finished you wil be loosing power agian because your batteries would go back to being charged from the alternator creating a greater load on the alternator which, in turn, creates a greater load on the engine.

[sracing]

Originally Posted by CBFryman

of all the retarded things....
so to reidderate what i am saying, you are not creating boost, you are making flow easier.

What is so "retarded"...?

To "reiterate ",... what you are saying is somewhat wrong...

Manifold pressures are relative to ambient pressures. "Making flow easier
" IS boost. While the numbers may not read in the positive side (10lbs) etc, it IS boost over normal pressures.

In regards to electric fans you are correct. There are no free lunches. The energy it takes from the battery would be greater than what is created via boost.
However most all out performance 1/4 mile vehicles would simply not use an alternator. The battery(s) are fully charged and then the run is made. Thus, you are using energy that was stored prior to the run, NOT during the run. So there can be some gains when needed. However, getting any significant air boost from an electric motor takes a lot of energy.

Jim
SR Racing

[CBFryman]

i wasnt calling you retarded, i was calling the idea of using a leaf blower to gain power retarded.
Pressure build up is because of excess gases being built up with no where do go, your average engine will have a manifold pressure less than the ambient air pressure if it has to pull its air on its own. all i was saying is the leaf blower was doing nothing more than removieng this vacume.

[sracing]

Yep. Using a leaf blower isn't a great idea.

[Schister66]

I really don't think that the air filter is going to free up that much power....20hp to the wheels is a pretty big gain for just taking off the filter! Otherwise CAI and short rams would make a lot more power than they do.

[CBFryman]

did you not read my post?

[justav6]

is this a gas or electric blower? i find this amusing, but im interested none the less. what does a blower flow? i would imagine it does help some, but its still silly. a decent turbo flows at least 800 cfm. if it were helpful, there would be a market of kits like this. there may be, i really dont know. who in the hell would be proud showing off a car with a friggin leaf blower hooked up to it!!!!? why not duct tape a few hundred bottle rockets to your trunk !!

[morphus]

I have added a petrol leaf blower Mccullock to my intake and run a cable to my foot accelerator. I start engine and let idle until I start car engine and use blower at full revs wth car engine at full revs. I have noticed some quicker responses. Car is a chopped Hyundai excel 1.5ltr 94model. At the bottom line, I am assisting the ecar engine by providing excess air rather than the car engine trying hard to suck it. This has to be benefitial. I wonder if a blower vace could be rigged up to the exaust to suck hot exaust gasses and assist the out put end? For those who hate the first concept, dont bother replying. Sick of people who don't dream or ALLOW themselves to explore ideas.

[haiderk]

D'you know, BMW is considering adding electric superchargers to counter turbo-lag? True story
An electric supercharger should get you better economy and bottom end torque. It should'nt be too hard to find an electric blower to flow enough to boost your motor from idle to 3-4000rpm, even if top-end gains are minimal. You should have pretty good response and good part-throttle economy, and not lose power at the crank. Have the throttle of the electric leaf blower hooked to the throttle cable/butterfly?
Just an idea