hairdryer...lol

[CBFryman]

a turbine un the exaust flow wouldnt give near the reduction in power as turning an altinator with a belt.... why do you think turbos are so more efficent? they run off of wasted energy, exaust pressure and heat... the exaust gasses are still expanding as they leave the cylender. if they arent the engine is already working near 100% efficency and there would be no reason to boost in the first place because exaust tempatures would be near equal to intake tempatures. once the exaust vualve is closed the exaust gasses have something to expand agianst.
if turbos ran purely off of the cylender pushing the turbine turbos as we know them would never spool and the turbos that whould be designed to create boost would be so innefficent you might as well use a belt drive supercharger.

[SaabJohan]

Originally Posted by PeanutM&MsRgood4u

But then insted of drawing power off the engine wouldn't you be increasing the resistance of air flow through the engine, resulting in power loss? I mean no matter how much you want to, power isn't made, its converted. In this case you would be converting the mechanical energy the engine SHOULD be producing into electrical energy. I guess what it really comes down to is if exhaust is more efficient than straight off the block.

Have you never heard about compound machines?
Back in the days of the steam engine the steam was sometimes lead to a second cylinder after it has done its work in the first. Today, look at almost any gas turbine and you will find that it has several turbines in stages. Does the second turbine run off the power of the first turbine? Of course it doesn't, as long the temperature and pressure is higher than atmospheric power can be extracted from it. But as temperature and pressure drop it gets more and more difficult to extract power from it and using a second piston or turbine does cause a slight reduction in power from the first one.

When using engine exhaust to power a turbine you can extract much more power from the turbine than the power the engine is losing. For examples so did studies done by NACA on the late 1940 indicate that turbine power could be 9 to 21% of engine power while the power lost was no more than 1%. This power increase is also without consuming more fuel than earlier which means that mileage increase.

Further I will also add to the pressure vs. flow discussion that the flow always depend on a pressure difference, and a higher pressure means that the air got a higher density and it's the mass flow we are interrested in. But if a compressor are working outside its operating range it can choke, which means that the massflow of air will not increase, just the pressure due to that the temperature of the air are increasing, this also means that the compressor are consuming more power to run but also that the engine might get into trouble with for example detonations. For a turbocharger this also means, especially if the turbine is also outside its operating range that exhaust pressure will become very high, which reduce the flow through the engine but can also give problems with detonations since there can be exhausts left in the cylinder. Pumping losses during the exhaust stroke does also increase.

[PeanutM&MsRgood4u]

@ CBFryman: As I understand it a turbo is parasitic to the power produced by the engine, but its power drain is replaced and exceeded by the increase of air flow into the engine. If you were to stick an alternator in the path of the exhaust flow like you suggested, you would be restricting the exhaust. I can understand however if someone combined a tubro, with an alternator so that the spining turbine also spun the magnets in an alternator around. I might have misunderstood you but it sounded like you were talking about an alternator right in the path of the exhaust. I was just saying that I would think that the power loss from an engine with an exhaust spun turbine before using the turbine to add air to the intake, would be greater than that of a belt driven load equivelent to that of your average alternator.

@ SaabJohan: Im not even gonna pretend to know what your talking about. If you know you sh*t then cool, all I was saying is that an alternator in exhaust flow is a load in 2 ways: the restriction of exhaust, and the load of the alternator itself. I guess at high speeds it wouldn't matter too much, but I would think that at low speeds it would.

[CBFryman]

theo nly real problem with putting an altinator spun but a turbine in the exaust path would be that enigne revs would have to increase if htere was ever a demand for more power as a turbine can never be completely sealed all the way around the turbo housing. so if all of the usdden you needed 80amps and your engine was at idle making minimal exaust flow, then some of the power would have to be sucked from the battery.

what sabb was saying (in normal people terms, damn your colledge degrees) is that a turbine can only extract as much energy as the engine looses from exaust heat. and since all energy is interchangeable (law of concervation of matter and energy) if the engine is loosing say 12kW of power from exaust heat (i dont feel like making up a real world example and then converting BTU's into Joules and Joules/sec into watts etc etc etc) then with a 12v electrical system 1000 amps is the most power the turbine could prodice at and given time at 100% turbine and altinator efficency. but if the turbine and altinator is only 10% efficent then 100amps could be provided and thats right around a high ampere OEM altinator rating. but as i said before, if demaned increased exaust flow would have to increase.

[PeanutM&MsRgood4u]

@ CBFryman: Ok so why don't car makers use intake altinators? There has to be SOME reason right? I mean if it was so efficiant I would figure someone would have done it by now. Other than maybe cost, but even then if its more efficient you would think it would be on all those 70+ mpg highway cars.

[Snow93]

car manufactorershave a tendancy to do whats cheap... then do whats effective..

[SaabJohan]

Originally Posted by PeanutM&MsRgood4u

@ CBFryman: Ok so why don't car makers use intake altinators? There has to be SOME reason right? I mean if it was so efficiant I would figure someone would have done it by now. Other than maybe cost, but even then if its more efficient you would think it would be on all those 70+ mpg highway cars.

A few engines does however have a turbine hooked up to the crankshaft which do increase the power somewhat without increase fuel consumption.

For example Scania and Volvo uses it on their truck diesels, but it was tested already back at the WW2 airplane engines, but they didn't have materials which where good enough to survive the exhaust heat without risking a failure over time.

[CBFryman]

Originally Posted by PeanutM&MsRgood4u

@ CBFryman: Ok so why don't car makers use intake altinators? There has to be SOME reason right? I mean if it was so efficiant I would figure someone would have done it by now. Other than maybe cost, but even then if its more efficient you would think it would be on all those 70+ mpg highway cars.

intake altinator, who said anything about intake altinators, all tat would do is starve the engine of air. we are talking about a turbine in the exaust, where there is heat and expanding gasses to extract energy from...geez

[PeanutM&MsRgood4u]

Originally Posted by CBFryman

intake altinator, who said anything about intake altinators, all tat would do is starve the engine of air. we are talking about a turbine in the exaust, where there is heat and expanding gasses to extract energy from...geez

Ok, Ok I meant EXHAUST altinator, and I still don't buy the "cause its cheep" explination. I have never even heard of an exhaust altinator before and with all those rice burners running around and companies like Scion trying to mass produce "custom" cars to the point that everyone looks like they are right outta 2 Fast 2 Furious, you would think it would have popped up SOMEWHERE.

[CBFryman]

it wouldnt be for performance, it would be for efficency. reasons why it hasnt hapened? well here are a few:
-Cost, parts for something like this do not exist to my knowledge, therefor everything would have to be machiened specifically for one car. to add 20hp to the fly would add $1000 to the cost of the car.
-Reliability Issues, yes these can be over come with proper engineering but still....electronics donot like heat jsut as engines do not like heat. putting the altinator close to the exaust could cause premature failure.
-the idea hasnt come to mind, I CALL PATENT RIGHTS!!!
-the altinators they have now are working perfectly fine, and untill there is a popular demand for higher efficency no auto manufactuer is going to put man hours into designing and building one of these things... it was just an idea i threw out there. get over it.

[Snow93]

give me a junked turbo and ill give anything a shot once.. lol. simple idea realy.. just use the turbine that usualy forces a greater amount of air into the engine to spin an electromagnet..(alls you do is replace the belt with a shaft leading to the turbine mounted into the exuast) onlything you gotta deal with-as pointed out- is heat transfer.

[CBFryman]

there is an old beater for sale donw the street for 400, i can prolly get it for 300. it has a blown head gasket.

Old Beater with Blwon head gaket: $300
Replacing a blown Head Gaket: $130
Junk Yard Turbo off of an old Mercedes Diesel or Toyota MR-2: $150
Junk Yard Altinator: $30
Fabricating a Turbo Exaust: $200
All the fixens to attach altinator to Turbo Turbine: $40
Running an altinator off of the exaust: Priceless

[Zgringo]

I though the hairdryer idea fell in line with some blowers sold on eBay and did some research and here's a response I got:



Hello Albert,

Thank you for your understanding response.

Actually, there are three electric boost devices available that are "real."

1) Thomas Knight Supercharger: (Roots blower belt driven with three 5hp starter motors, utilizing a 75lb battery supply to provide 15,000 Watts of energy to provide short bursts of boost for drag racing applications). Costly, heavy, and not useful for daily driving... great idea, just reaches the cost point (including ECU and fuel system changes) and weight penalty that makes one think that a traditional belt driven compressor would be the better choice.

2) Turbodyne Electric Turbocharger: Turbodyne uses a true turbocharger driven by a high power electric motor that produces 3psi, but only up to a flow rate of 100 cfm. After that, the pressure drops off dramatically. By 200 CFM, the total pressure is 1PSI... By 300 CFM, virtually no pressure is generated. Again, air-flow becomes the limiting factor. This electric Turbo requires additional batteries as a power-supply, and costs over $2000 as well.

3) The e-RAM Electric Supercharger: 791 Watts of electrical energy driving an axial-flow blower at 25,300 rpm producing 1psi of NET boost to an intake (offsetting intake vacuum and adding pressure). At 3.6" ID, even with the motor in the center, the resulting flow when not activated is equal to a 3" diameter intake tube, so no restriction is created at part throttle conditions.

We welcome the opportunity to add another positive dyno result to our record. We want nothing but the truth, as we want to make sure that our customer base continues to be satisfied with results that are based on realistic expectations. We make every effort to separate ourselves from the countless companies that promise ridiculous results from ridiculous products.

We did have a dyno on a 90's 300zx several years ago (the one on our site with one e-RAM on each intake tube leading to each throttle-body), and got around 8HP through the rpm range.

FYI: From our experience, there are several things that can negatively effect performance gains realized from the e-RAM.

1) Most importantly is the mounting configuration. For Nissans that use Mass-Air-Flow (MAF) sensors on the intake, we have found that mounting the e-RAM-INLINE unit between the MAF and the throttle-body keeps the MAF from being adversely effected by the thrust and turbulence generated by the e-RAM unit. Older Nissans with Air-Flow-Meters (AFM) do not have this issue, and the e-RAM can be mounted directly on the AFM with no issues.
2) The crankcase breather tube connection on the intake must be plugged, as this is a vent which will allow all pressure generated to escape. The remaining breather tube from the crankcase should have a mini air-filter mounted to it to keep the oil fumes from getting all over the engine compartment.
3) The battery and charging system must be in good condition, as the e-RAM draws all of its high current directly from the battery, and a weak battery will experience a larger voltage drop when a heavy load is placed upon it, lowering the speed of the e-RAM unit, and thus reducing effective boost from the unit. The alternator only charges the battery based on voltage drop, so as long as the battery is healthy, and the alternator provides the usual 14+V to the battery, the e-RAM will perform fine.
4) Incorrect installations

The only thing that seems to be an issue on the 90s 300ZX is finding a way to fit the e-RAM on the intake in a way that will allow for good results without having to place one on each intake tube (cost vs. HP issue).

Please let us know if the 90s 300zx uses an MAF or AFM. As this will make a big difference on how we approach mounting an e-RAM to the intake.

Thanks again,

Regards,

Mike Kibort
e-Racing Motorsports, LLC.
www.electricsupercharger.com/

"Prove it at the track"

[Zgringo]

As for the turbo being used for driving the alternator it would work fine except below 3,000 or under no load conditions. How about using the powersteering pump which is only used 40% time to drive a hydralic motor driving the alternator all the time the motor is running?

Mr. SaabJohan your right about the compounded engines. Pratt & Whitney built a compounded R3350 engine that was both turbocharged and had a turbine power recovery system hooked up on it. The biggest problem was keeping the exhaust gases hot till they went through the turbines. This was handled by wraping the pipes running from the engine to the turbines with installation. It worked fine till the development of the R4360 engine which replaced it.
As for the turbine engines or turbo jets some have 3 turbines driving 3 different axiel flow compressors at different power ranges. As air is compressed it requires more power to increase the flow along with the increase in pressure. On these engines 3 turbines drive 3 compressors with 13 stages of compression. The 9th stage is used for cabin heat and A/C plus de-iceing with the balance used for combustion to drive the turbines. Very efficient. The J33 was the only jet engine with 1 turbine and 1 compressor section. From the J47 on all had multi stage compressors.

[Reed]

actually there have been many (very many) turbine engines both for propulsion and as APUs that only have one compressor and one turbine section. i have had the privelage (ha) of rebuilding 2. i think one was a german or maybe russian engine MK5 Viper maybe i dont really rembember.
this is irrelevant. sorry