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

This isn't a Vortech thread. I'm just curious if anyone knows anything about taking half of the turbo and spinning it to make boost. Just interested in the theory behind it.

Well yeah, that's what a vortech is essentially.

Or the old Paxton ones, or the pro-chargers.

I'd guess that it would not be impossible for the DIY'r but probably unobtainable for most people.

Aside from that, you are back to the point that it is the wasted exhaust energy that spins the turbo so it is very efficient whereas the supercharger uses engine power to do it.
On top of that the centrifugal compressor types don't make good power until the engine rev's are up there.

That one company spun it with compressed Co2...supposed be able to sustain about 4-5 psi at higher rpm

Really? Seems interesting, but instead wouldn't it be smarter to get compressed N2O and save the added weight and drop in efficiency?

Nitrous rules if you set it up right!

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.

Well, sounds like fun. However remember, nothing is free. That turbo must be spun by something.

The exhaust is wasted energy but that is why they use it to push a turbo.

There are people thinking of a hydraulic driven compressor, or course the electric. Both add just as much complexity as exhaust driven though.

Come to think of it, you could use a little collar around the exhaust pipes with water in it, turn it to steam and let the steam push a turbine. I mean steam engines are very efficient anyway.

You could have a resevior, route the steam, drive the turbine, then collect the cooled water and feed it right back to the boiler.
It would be just as complicated as any of the other designs but you would save exhaust restriction. Of course you'd have no boost until your water was boiling but you could meter the amount of water into the pipes slowly.

I mean if you have nothing but time and want a hobby....

Originally posted by warmonger:

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However remember, nothing is free

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Very true. Energy just doesn't come out of thin air. I've talked about the electrical supercharger with some of my collogues back in school and we basically came to the same conclusion, the amount of energy needed to provide a sufficent amount of boost would need to come from somewhere and it would take horsepower to get horsepower. This comes back to your quote 'nothing is free'. The steam power is interesting, but you would have the same lag you would with the turbocharger. Although I think it would be worse. To build that kind of pressure I would think it would take quite a bit of driving. One would have to do some analysis to see what the rate of heat transfer would be and what kind of time would be needed to get where you would have to be. The more I think about it this is looking like the stuff I saw back when I was studying the Carnot and Rankine vapor power cycles.

How about an onboard air compressor and tank?

This is getting ridiculous.

How do you plan to run that air compressor? It's the same as an electric supercharger! You still need azz loads of power to run the thing.