Ok, I know this may sound strange maybe even stupid, but here it goes: I was told about this SpiralMax intake kit, and it made me think - if this system could work, like a very small pathetic turbo charger, then maybe a larger system could work. What if an electric leaf blower could be modified and used in the same principle? Could a filter be connected to the electric blower intake, then the blower connected to the throttle body where my old intake used to connect? The blower would have to run through a switch, then through a fuse, and finally to a converter. Could I be forgetting anything bad that could happen? Or have I stumbled on a cheap electric turbo system. Also, since I have EFI, Would the electric blower be sucking to much power from the battery? Thanks for any replies.

 

I addition to the above post, I've thought of some more ideas. For saftey, I figured I should add an additional intake and filter incase the electric blower were to break when driving, the engine could still recieve air. I'm not sure how much pressure would form when the throttle was closed because the blower would be constantly running. I thought of adding some type of blow off valve but figured the air would flow out the second intake port and filter if the pressure increased enough. Below if a rough sketch of what the system could look like. If anyone has any suggestions, comments, or warnings, please post. Thanks.

 

a few years ago, there was something called the "e-ram".. it was a small blower that fit in line with the intake tube. A friend had it on an EFI Prelude. Made 27whp, but after about 30-45 minutes of use, it killed the battery.

I guess if you have one with a decent motor that doesn't hog juice, should be ok. I don't think its gonna be enough of an increase to cause the motor to have an adverse effects... but thats just me.

 

I have heard scary stories about these fragging in the intake and all the little bits have no choice but to go sit on your pistons and valves.

 

its crap... aint going to work..... its the same idea as using a bilge pump from a boat.... it wont flow enough cfm and will cuase otehr problems as well....

 

actually my brother and i are in the middle of planning something like that. however, a leaf blower probably won't work. our plan is to take the roots blower from a real supercharger and then run it with an electric motor. this way we could switch it as necessary, and also have control over how much boost there is. that way you could turn it off when you want to save gas, and turn it on when you want to go really fast.

the reason a leaf blower won't work is that it doesn't pump enough air. let's go with the 3.0 3vze, but all the numbers will be close for other engines.

how much air do we need:
3.0L at 3000 rpm = 9000 liters per minute = 150 liters per second

regular atmosphere (at sea level) is 15psi, let's say we want 8 lbs of boost, so that's an extra 50% more air so we'd really need about 225 liters per second. and that's only at 3000 rpm. double that at redline (450 Lps!)

i doubt you're going to be able to find a leaf blower to pump that much air (if you want to compare specifiactions on leaf blowers, 450 Lps is about 6800 cfm)

 

I think what you're looking for is free horsepower..when you need it...which is pretty much what a turbo gives you. By taking waste gases and using them to power a turbine, which drives a second turbine designed to compress the intake charge.

I say go to the junkyard, get a turbine off of something comparable, do your experimenting, and have a little fun. Ditch the lawnboy.

 

I'm sorry but the whole electric blower sounds a little too "shade tree" to me guys.

 

How about a gas blower? It would not drain the battery. You could also put a bigger engine on it and gear it up to make it move more air.

 

Naw, just use the Turbonator!

 

Isn't that the same thing as using your GAS engine that's already under your hood and running the blower w/ a belt? Step away from the wacky weed and put the blower down, son...

 

I'll second that one.


STEP AWAY FROM THE BONG

 

A leaf blower can't build enough psi to be viable in that application not to mention they are horribly inefficient at pumping air (yes they work but look at the amps they are drawing to do it). The e-ram was the closest to an electrical supercharger that you can get and it only produced a few psi of boost but used so much juice it would roast most batteries and could only be used in short bursts because the alternator can't even get close to keeping up with the current demand.

I am sad to say that even a modified roots or centrifical blower will not be as efficient as a mechanically driven one simply because electrical motor are for the most part very inefficient at doing work. Current AC and DC motor technology and physics are working against you unfortunately.

 

Had a friend in high school try something similar, sounded crazy when he ran his accord with his homemade "blower", like it was really doing some good. Thinking back, the cylinder was sucking air way faster than the fan could push it, causing the fan to spin way faster than the elec motor could push it. Really it was just creating a restriction, and making some noise.

sort of related question that this thread got me to think of... is the air really flowing (being pulled) through the intake at a steady rate? It seems like their will be one cylinder with the intake vale open sucking in air MOST of the time, but not quite all the time. I'm sure the number of cylinders has something to do with this too.

 

with at least 4 cylinders, you'll always have at least one cylinder in the intake stroke (of course this assume equal spacing in the firing). if the air was massless, then you may be able to notice different speeds because the cylinder will suck air in at different rates in the inake stroke (very slow at the ends of the stroke, and fastest in the middle). but since the air has mass, it will be flowing at mostly the same speed all the time. it's interesting to note, that on the 22re all four injectors are fired at the same time and the fuel just 'sits' in the intake until the valves open. (in the 3vze there the 3 injectors on each side are fired at the same time). so this leads me to beleive, that even on the scale of one cylinder, the air in the intake will be flowing at a constant rate (otherwise the fuel would probably fall due to gravity).

here's a quick and dirty calculation to show that the air most likely is moving at a constant speed.

assumptions: 2.4L 22re at 3000 rpm (numbers will be the same order of magnitude for just about any engine running at a normal speed)

2.4L @ 3000 rpm means that the engine is sucking in 120L/s of air.

120L/s of air is 120,000 cm^3 of air. The cross section of the intake is about 100cm^2 so that means that the air is flowing in the intake at about 1200cm/s (27mph!)

lets make the assumption that the air is stopped and then needs to be accelerated to 1200cm/s in the time of 1 intake stroke and calculate the forces required to do that.

3000rpm=50hz or only .02sec per revolution. however, only 1/4 of the time is intake so that's realy .005sec for the whole intake time.

so we need to calculate how much force is required to accelerate 120L of air to 1200cm/s in .005sec

120L of air is about 80g (.080kg)

the acceleration is 1200cm/s/.005s or 24000cm/s^2 or 240m/s^2

F=ma = .080gk*240m/s^2 = 192N or about 43 pounds

what all of this means is that if the air needed to be accelerated all the time that the engine would have apply 43 pounds of force on the air (and then when the air stopped it would put 43 pounds of force on the engine). in my 22re the intake is mounted across the front of the engine, that means that there would be 43 pounds of force going back and forth sideways on the truck. i think you could imagine the kind of violent shaking that would occur if you pushed sideways on the truck with 43 pounds of force 3000 times per minute.

i think that this shows that it's very likely that the air is at a constant flow.

 

Holy smokes I feel like I am back in Fluid Dynamics class again.
Good explanation of the stuff tho!

 

shade tree is one thing, standing under the hemp plant smoking it is another

 

THIS POST WILL NOT DIE!

 

I have a 89 4x4 pickup 3.0L/v6 with t-bird 3.4 super charger.new custom eng $8.000/later Im getting 300/hp on the dyno. super charger and hardware cost me about $ 1.000

 

maybe u could incorperate a gas blower into the throttle so when u gun it, it guns the blower so when u idle it idles?