[beef_bourito]

I got back to thinking about the problem with the output shaft and was wondering if i could use engine thrust to turn the turbine of a turbocharger and use that output shaft to turn the generator. would this be less efficient than hooking up a generator to the front or hooking up a gearbox to the front with some reduction gears or cvt? I plan on running this on diesel fuel, higher btu's than gasoline and should yield better mileage. also, how many joules of energy are in one gallon of diesel, this could allow me to calculate how much fuel i would need to burn at 100% efficiency and then I could adjust it from there, it would just help me with my starting point.

One more thing, there are turbochargers with variable vanes, how are these controled, would it be possible to control them from an external source? I'd like to be able to control the thrust without revving the engine higher, this would be for a thrust oriented project, or for a car/bike for more torque.

I'd like to make a few projects with turbine engines, they interest me, I'd like to make a boat as well and use a cvt to control the speed before the gearbox, this would allow me to run the turbine at high revolutions in neutral without destroying the gearbox. That wouldn't be for a while because of the cost of parts, I'd start off with something small and cheap, like a small propane turbocharger turbine engine, then move on to diesel, then move on to a straight-through turbine engine, with funding from something of course i can't afford the stuff required.

I am planning on doing this in university with the help of other engineering students, such as electrical engineering students, software engineering students for the programming of various components, there might be more but these are the ones i see as necessary.