Electric supercharger turbocharger

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8 April 2017
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Lancaster California
I was impressed by this company https://torqamp.com/faq/.

After watching a YouTube video https://youtu.be/7a_J2X88fSE , I would think this would be easy installation on a nsx although the price is not that bad at 2500. I think for a 3.0L you would need to have twin installation.
i hope in the future the make a bigger electric supercharger. Looks promising, to install I could see using slightly larger injectors and a Vortech boost dependent FMU and a map sensor voltage clamp and your ready to go.

The future does look bright.
 
I too have been following the progress of electric SC/TC options, just in the FT86 forums (https://www.ft86club.com/forums/search.php?searchid=23797602). Seems like there's a lot of potential brewing. I do like the idea of reducing IAT's without scavenging crank HP. That said, I'll let the early adopters pave the way.
Can you link a couple of the threads? vBulletin software outputs a link with a search ID that expires.

Any ideas how tuning will work with these electric turbos? From the video, the operator will need to push a button when they need boost.
You'd tune it like you'd tune any other FI or nitrous setup.
 
You'd tune it like you'd tune any other FI or nitrous setup.

Not quite like any other FI system because the turbo or supercharger is not controlled by the ECU in the majority of systems. The turbo and supercharger are mechanically controlled with sometimes an ECU controlled servo override to limit boost. ECU controlled operation of variable aperture turbos is uncommon on aftermarket systems. The ECU is typically set up to follow by reading the MAP and engine speed and typically operates from a single fuel map tuned for boost operation.

Nitrous is different because operation is typically triggered by the user and requires switching to a different fuel map in the ECU. That fuel map is tuned for nitrous operation and that map is tuned in a more or less conventional manner. The electro compressor operation could be operated and tuned in just about the same manner as a nitrous system where the nitrous map becomes the electro compressor map.

I do like the idea of reducing IAT's without scavenging crank HP.

Its true that the electro compressor does not use up crankshaft power at peak boost like a supercharger does. However, there is no free lunch. The battery pack needs to be recharged so if you are using the boost there is going to be a continuous parasitic drain on the alternator to recharge the system. If you attempt to use the boost a lot you may need a much larger alternator. As to reduced IATs, maybe not so much. The increase in IATs are caused by compression of the air by the compressor side. During operation, the electro compressor will cause IATs to rise just like a more conventional super or turbo charger. The only possible upside is that during operation below atmospheric pressure turbo and supercharger applications do suffer from some small compressor induced temperature rise. The electro compressor does not have that contribution when it is just idling. However, the electro turbo may still need an intercooler if you want to control IATs.

An interesting wrinkle to the electro compressor is that when the compressor is switched off the compressor is static and has to represent an impediment to intake air flow. This potentially means that peak hp is reduced in non boost mode compared to a regular engine because of the reduced volumetric efficiency. Conventional turbo super compressors won't suffer from this problem because they are never static.

A huge hole in the application data for the electro compressor is the stored energy in the battery. With a conventional super or turbo charger you can stay in boosted operation until the cows come home or your pistons melt or you suffer from detonation due to elevated IATs. If you are using this thing in a track application, depending on the stored energy in the batteries and how often you trigger its operation I can see the system working for a couple of laps and then checking out because the batteries are depleted. In that sense it truly is more like a nitrous system when the bottle is empty. This might be a system better suited to stop light racers.
 
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