power research

[James68352]

I am curious about all the talk of adding on a turbo or nitro or propane. I first would like to make sure I understand the reasoning behind this.

A turbo and supercharger are basically the same animal. The major difference being the method of powering them. They both push more air into the cylinders to increase the air/fuel ratio to maximize fuel burn effiecency thereby increasing power. This can be made even better by using an intercooler because colder air compresses more allowing an even greater air/fuel ratio. These are set with a clutch to kick in at certain engine RPMs.

Nitro and propane work more on the aspect of cooling the air and adding an extra catalyst to make the air/fuel ratio even more volatile. These are meant more as a short shot power increase and not intended for full time use.

I would appreciate hearing if this is a correct basic understanding of these systems.

Jim

[arveetek]

You've got it pretty good. There is no 'clutch', though, to control when a turbo or supercharger operates.

A supercharger is belt-driven off the crankshaft. It will make a certain amount of boost at any given rpm, regardless of how much throttle is given or fuel is injected. It's basically a simple mechanical means of forcing air into the intake tract. The pros of a supercharger include quicker boost and low exhaust backpressure (you can use headers). The cons include taking a tremendous amount of engine power just to drive the charger.

A turbocharger is mounted in the exhaust system, and basically uses free, formerly wasted engergy to drive a turbine, which in turn drives another turbine, forcing air into the intake tract. The nice thing about a turbo is that it will vary the boost, depending on the amount of heat being given off by the engine, which is the result of how much fuel you burn. So, heavy throttle, heavy amount of fuel means more boost. Light throttle, little fuel means less boost. The turbo responds to the load. However, higher rpm with more fuel will of course build more boost. But you can also have no boost at 3200 rpm if you let off the throttle and are coming down a mountain. A supercharger will still be giving it's constant boost at 3200 rpm in the same situation.

A wastegate is used on some turbos to control the amount of boost being made. Once a certain PSI is reached, a valve opens in the exhaust system, allowing the exhaust out of the engine to bypass the turbo and go directly into the exhaust system. Some turbos, like mine, are non-wastegated, meaning that all the exhaust gasses go through the turbo all the time, so all the boost I can make goes into the engine. The size of the turbines limit the amount of boost I can make. (I still have seen boost psi as high as 18 on my engine, though).

Nitrous is like chemically supercharging an engine, and propane helps to burn the present oxygen a little better as well as add more fuel.

Typically, nitrous and superchargers are used where quick, instant throttle response is needed for short periods of time, such as in drag racing.

Turbos and somtimes propane are used for long distance use, such as towing heavy trailers up steep grades.

Hope this helps.

Casey

[CleviteKid]

The goal of all power increase modifications is to burn more FUEL. To do that requires more oxidizer, usually the oxygen in air (about 21% of air is oxygen).

Supercharging and turbocharging can put more air, and hence more oxygen in the cylinder, so you can then burn more fuel (less of it coming out only partially burned as black smoke), and make more power.

Nitrous oxide is about 36% oxygen, and is introduced as a liquid that vaporizes and cools the intake charge. So, extra oxygen from the nitrous, and extra oxygen in the denser cool air mean that more fuel can be burned, making more power. Nitrous can be made to work with either N/A diesels or turbocharged diesels.

Propane is a hydrocarbon fuel, like No. 2 diesel, and requires oxygen to burn. Many turbocharged diesels have some extra oxygen available, so they can burn a little propane and make a little more power.

Propane is not effective in an N/A diesel. It just displaces air, that is at a premium in an N/A diesel. However, the hard-core types can inject both nitrous and propane (at a 10:1 ratio, based on weight) and thus add both oxygen and fuel to make more power.

All it takes is time and money.

Dr. Lee :cool:

[James68352]

ok, then my reasoning is right that all these systems do or are meant to do is push more air/oxygen into the engine to better burn the fuel. None of these are full time systems, meaning from start up to shut down.

Ok now my second question on my reasoning. Why not place a collar of sorts between the air cleaner and intake, put a hose nipple through it and connect a bottle of welding oxygen to it. Control it with a switch in the cab, like the nitro or propane, have a regulator in the cab to control the flow like a turbo. This would do what the others do and on a full time basis with out expensive hardware.

Fuel for thought?

Jim

[wthif]

You are not the first one with this thought, but feel free to pioneer it. General thought is too dangerous to carefully regulate oxygen flow into with out burning it up. Pure oxygen has a way of making things burn much better. :eek:


I also prefer the one time expense of the turbo and the many extra expenses of diesel. :D