Electric Supercharge

[zeushell]

Hi people, I drive a '97 SEAT Ibiza 1.4 (Identical to '97 VW Polo) and recently viewed an article for DIY electric air chargers. My question is, if it is worth it making and installing that charger in my car? Will I benefit some power if I change my exhaust with a bigger one after installing the charger (or just removing the catalytic converter)? The charger won't cost me more than 20$...

Here is the link I looked at: http://www.gaprojects.com/supercharger/performance.htm

[SaabJohan]

No, they won't give you any power. In best case they doesn't cost you power.

There are some real electric superchargers but they are expensive, they also consume a lot of electrcity meaning that the alternator might not be enough.

These real electric superchargers have a centrifugal compressor similar to the one found on a turbo, the difference being that it is connected to a powerful high speed electric motor providing at least a few kilowatts of power instead of a turbine. Still, these are usually designed to work at low speeds or during transients to help the ordinary turbocharger.

[UncleBob]

this has been beaten to death, but just to sum it up: power enhancement requires some form of energy to create the extra energy. Turbo's use exhaust heat and restriction, which robs some power. Superchargers use a belt off the crank, which robs power.

You could calculate all of these things into electricity figures if you cared to, and you would find that the numbers are big. KW's would be the range.

So any time you see a tiny little computer fan such as in the ad you posted, and it looks like it might suck a massive 10W worth of power to run, you can be quite safe in assuming its will do absolutely nothing.

Any real electric supercharger will list amp draw or watts, and it will be extremely high. The one's I've seen literally used a starter motor, and drew over 1000 amps. Even with several extra batteries, you couldn't run it for more than 30 seconds or so before you'd have to let off and let the batteries recharge.

This is why electric SC's just aren't very practical. They are like a shot of NOS. Not sustainable, realistically. I like to have my power adder availible at all times, so I stick with a traditional turbo.....honestly, they are usually cheaper anyway, so its a win/win.

[curtis73]

You have several options. Either read the stickies, scroll down a few pages, or do a search. This has been beaten to death on a daily basis.

[zeushell]

Thanks a lot for the info! I thought of searching for such a thing, because a friend of mine told me that he had installed an opel's internal heater fan before the air filter of his car. He said he felt his Golf a bit more powerful and it had some better times. I thought he's gone nuts and it couldn't be real until I googled that and found these electric superchargers... Anyway, I know he's just imagining now

Sorry for my bad english, I hope you guessed what's 'internal heater fan', I just don't know the word