Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Forced Induction Convert a turbo to a supercharger?

I'm actually looking into buying a turbocharger from a junkyard for cheap just to play with the idea of spinning the turbo off of something other then exhaust. It won't be a turbocharger anymore, but it will be some type of charger for sure. The idea is to have the extra boost at a flip of a switch rather then running it all of the time. I'll have to figure out how to make that work with the ECU, but that will come in time.

I've had the idea of an electric supercharger since my Sophomore year in highschool (long time ago) since then the idea has taken off. I'm not talking about the crap you find on eBay either. In my automotive engineering magazine a while back I read about how companies are looking into electric turbochargers for semi's. Theres already a number of prototypes out.

But to create any worthy amount of boost you need an awful lot of energy and it has to come from somewhere. So you almost end up running another alternator, which you might as well be running a supercharger at that point. Theres more to it then just that, but theres some food for thought.