Electric Supercharger

[Frog2Spider]

Any thoughts (pros and/or cons) on the electric supercharger offered by superchargertuning.com?

Looks neat and inexpensive. Maybe even to good to be true?

Dave.

[garion]

Give this a watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbGWgvJN1_8

[dreavis]

This absolutely seems like something that is too good to be true. How much of a horsepower increase could this possibly provide? Also, can the additional power/force generated through a supercharger damage an engine that wasn't designed for one?

[Frog2Spider]

Can hardly wait to get and install a couple of leaf blowers!

Dave

[ORFORD2004]

Supercharger have to built pressure and it's only a blower to vent the engine compartment of a boat. No pressure at all. If you want power, put a real turbo.

[Frog2Spider]

Agreed!

[131]

Big manufacturers like Mercedes, BMW, Ford etc, spent a lot of time and money engineering a solution for fitting roots blowers to some of their cars, if it was as simple as bolting a fan on the inlet they'd have done it. An Eaton M45 at max revs/ 10psi boost consumes 26hp to simply drive the blower. See if you can track down a 12v/26hp electric motor for your intake, I'd like to see the result. You might have to upgrade your wiring, battery and alternator, as the blower motor would be drawing more than 1600 amps.

http://www.not2fast.com/turbo/maps/M45power.gif

[v6spider]

They're pretty serious about this...
http://www.superchargertuning.com/Fiat/124/

[v6spider]

They're pretty serious about this...not that I agree with them...
http://www.superchargertuning.com/Fiat/124/

[scrapironchef]

"By the time production of the Fiat 124 stopped in 1978," - really?

[DieselSpider]

Only designed to provide a few seconds of boost while at full throttle before it overheats and the smoke leaks out so not something for climbing a long mountain road or touring just something to flip on when the throttle is pegged during a short race. 5 psi of boost and 1,000 cfm so no real screamer. Their documentation mentions similar limitations to how long you would key the starter.

[mpollock]

You could build an electric motor with sufficient speed and power to run a supercharger - but it's not going to be a 12 volt motor. The motor itself would be pretty specialized, with high-speed bearings capable of running over 20k RPM. It would probably be a 3-phase motor driven by an inverter with a DC-DC converter to raise a battery voltage from maybe 60 volts to 600 volts to get the PWM voltage to overcome back EMF at high speeds. The advantage of the electric supercharger versus a belt driven unit is that you can store excess power as electricity when your engine is being under-utilized and release it on demand. A system like this certainly wouldn't be cheap, and it would be highly vehicle-dependent so it wouldn't be a simple bolt-on.

You're approaching the cost and complexity of implementation where you would also look at adding parallel-hybrid capability - where the electric motor works in parallel with the conventional internal combustion engine providing power directly to the wheels. Think of a Tesla P90 that can accelerate from 0 to 60 in 2.4 seconds on just an electric motor - but then you put a 600 Horsepower gasoline engine in parallel with the electric motor. The LaFerrari uses the parallel hybrid model. It can only do 0-60 in 2.5 seconds. Not quite as quick off the line as the Tesla, but still a testament that a Hybrid doesn't need to be a dog!

[mpollock]

I wonder if I can get the Fuel Management Chip for my '79 Spider 124?

[DieselSpider]

Its basically a DC router motor pulling directly off the battery at high amperage far above what the alternator can supply. On my Nissan Leaf the issues of high amperage are resolved for the Electric Air Conditioning and Heat systems by using the 400 Volt 24 kWh drive battery to power them.

On one or two cylinder engines there is another interesting device called a Drum Charger that uses the exhaust pulse from each cylinder to vibrate a drum and provide a synchronized boost pulse to the cylinder its mounted on. You need one drum per cylinder each with its own separate exhaust and intake tube.

For an electric solution some find that a 12 volt furnace draft fan mounted on the exhaust pipe to help scavenge the flow of exhaust gases with negative atmospheric pressure can result in similar boost as a small turbo charger without the complexity and high current draw. These can be mounted near the exhaust tip without performing major re-plumbing of the engine bay and are more easily restored to stock configuration afterwards.

[baltobernie]

A little NOS would achieve better results at far less cost and complexity.

I've often wondered why OEMs don't incorporate NOS in new car designs. For most drivers (NOT high-performance enthusiasts), why lug around extra displacement or the expense of turbos when all you really want is some occasional oomph on short on-ramps or similar conditions? The system would be automatic, with a slight indent on the throttle near WOT. It would be electronically limited to a few seconds to avoid melting the motor or tranny. You could even have a "valet key" for your teenager. A "fuel" gauge and On light would complete the package. CAFE numbers would more easily be met too, without 8-speed transmissions or that goofy stop-start "feature".