$50 Super Charger (the strange red button explained)

[phabib]

Sort of on topic, I saw something in a car magazine a few months back where they took a couple of leaf blowers and used them to turbo charge a car. I don't recall all the details, but it was not impressive.

[brushcutter]

I ran across a 26.4 hp cat turbo diesel some time back, it weighed comparable to some of the big block mower engines and was listed for a tad under $2300 and... it's a CAT

[Tomo]

hi
The bilge fan or similar will only be promoting additional fuel metering from carburetor and promote better cylinder filling eg normal engine operates around 80-85 %VE. Adding a fan may well take this a little higher 90-95% A turbo and super charger operate at 90-120% VE .
The moral of the story even if there is a gain some where, all be it minor ,the most likely miniumn is better throttle response from improved carby metering of fuel .

The big question is will this only work on an engine that is not metering fuel properly to start with eg worn honing marks in cylinder [causes lack of vacumn therefor less sucking on carb ,less fuel]
The majority of mower carburettors are not suitable for constantly repeated, accelerating operation eg no accelerator pump
Mower engines only have to travel across the mid range when u first start up or at the end of day when powering down
Also Compared to 2 stroke a 4 stroke is a lot slower reving and typically fitted to a heavier and or higher loaded machine

The main point is to fit a carb that is suitable for application eg with an accel pump
This may well give the same results as the blower bilge fan ??
Remember by using the bilge fan that a lean or rich condition may be occurring neither is good for an engine in the long term .

tomo

[Noel Woods]

I've thought about mounting a gas powered leaf blower on the back of a machine and route a hose to the front of my Argo, at the firewall it will Y off, one tube will go to the fresh air intake on the motor, the other pipe will go to the brakes and will cool them and help the warm air flow out the top of the hood better. This should help the Briggs 23 considerably, since they were designed to run very lean and it has a tendency to evaporate the fuel in the carb when its being pushed.

[brushcutter]

Drew, you are right, I have a patent on a v-blade brush cutter and when I began building it I was told by a man who should know "it will never work, a four wheeler isn't powerful enough to push it and cut brush". He changed his mind when he watched me cut a 5" pine tree with it hooked to a 350 Rancher! Things always work better for me when kept to their simplest form. When I started playing with this idea my thinking was along the lines of even if the fan only helps to move air through the carb more efficiently there should be some gain. The main reason for building it was curiosity to see if it would do anything at all, kind of like the hydrogen "run your car on water" thing, it was a fun project. BTW the water thing is another cool idea, along with steam injection...

[eddieb1965]

k&n air filters are highly overrated,they flow better because they dont filter the air near as well.They are serviceable ,so that is an advanage.

[thebuggyman1]

I'm currently making my own perpetual motion machine.....and when done I'll make enough money to buy every lottery # so I can win for sure.......then I'll be rich

[amphibious drew]

Ok I am no engineer or mechanic, but here is my thought on the fan trick. Every air filter has a resistance to airflow. The first thing I do with most of my cars is put a k&n air filter on. Now I have seen measurable difference in fuel economy and "felt" a better throttle response. A little fan will not create a noticeable draw on engine power, but what it can do is reduce the amount of resistance of air flow through the air filter which should give better throttle response. Is it a turbo...no, nor is it a supercharger. It is a neat little trick that should not be passed off as snake oil though. I remember when I was little and just learned about electricity. I actually asked my dad why we didn't have generators on car wheels. He laughed and dismissed the idea telling me it wouldn't work or have any benefit. Obviously I wasn't the only little boy who thought like that and the idea was simple and feasible. it would be nice if we all had dyno's and experience working with fancy equipment, but sometimes it takes someone who hasn't been told he is doing it wrong to find a better way about doing things.

[brushcutter]

Well, I could rob the fan, rig it to a weed eater motor, dual it's throttle to the throttle on a volunteered machine, then crank it up and there ya go... get that fan spinning at about 10 to 12 grand and it should put out... hey... math guy, what's that work out to? nah, scratch that that's just plain stupid... but it would be a fun project.

I wanted to spend some time looking for small squirrel cage blower I have around here somewhere, but used the evening changing a severely bent blade on the mower, then raking and chopping a mountain of sycamore leaves. The blower is like 3 to 4 inches in diameter and about 2 inches wide. I don't know what cfm it would put out, but I would have to get it hooked to a 12 volt motor. I've also got a new briggs starter motor that was bought for a different project years ago, not sure what rpm it turns. The kids gladly volunteered their go kart as a test subject... come to think of it, almost too gladly... maybe I should first make sure our health insurance is good to go.

[wfo]

maybe this if you can get one that produces about 2 k cfm

[brushcutter]

Holy Cow now we're having some fun! You guys just made my day, I'm gonna have to read this all over again, and watch the videos. I have a question though, er is it just me or is that max missing something. One point that really caught my attention and is directly in line with something I've been wondering about, the compressed air thing... Sucks that I don't have a machine to experiment on right now.

I gotta agree with Stonewall when I started tinkering with all this, my main intent was to play around with something that any member on this forum could throw together and play around with. But that the "hardcore" power fanatics could possibly play with also. I do agree what I "feel" is definitely not grounds for irrefutable proof,(nor arguing either, apologies for the rant WFO and Southpaw) it never even crossed my mind to record barometric pressure or relative humidity.

You guys are just more proof of why this is the greatest Forum on the web!!! By all means PLEASE continue!

[kghills]

For me there is a difference between moving air and compressing air. I tend to think of any sort of supercharger as something that will compress air and create a positive charge in the intake manifold. In any build if the customer is running a supercharger I need to know how much boost he plans to run. Anything else is just moving air along and naturally aspirated. So when I read $50.00 supercharger I think to myself "not likely", more like a $50.00 fan. Hens the discussion.

Keith.

[Stonewall]

Here's something to think about, remember the title of this thread? It's "The $50 Supercharger", I think your going the wrong way with this idea. We're not trying to get the maximum performance out of the engine, we're just trying to have some fun with a cheap project that anybody can put together, and seeing if we can get a little bit of gain from it.

[wfo]

remember a natually asperated engine will only take so much air into the combustion chamber, if adding a fan to drive as much flow as possable to the intake will only make it run efficient and not any better than if the engine was running at sea level, thats the whole point of forcing the air and pressure at the same time to increase pressure and voluum in the chamber
thus supper charged, another efficient way to run one of these engines is to make it fuel injected, that alone would be worth the money, another noval idea is to cool the fuel before entering float bowl, that also helps but still every bit counts if you decide not to supercharge, if your looking to gain everybit of ponies from a small engine, basics like engine ballencing, carburation , oil weight, intake flow and valve timing and clearences are a must...............just my .02

[Stonewall]

This is so cool, it looks like we've got some real experts now!! I smell some math coming up... I love math, this should be fun!

So are y'all saying that the advantage that Brushcutter was feeling was just because the carb was designed for idle to WOT? I also experience some throttle lag on my Vanguard, would a rig like this solve that problem? I think it would be cheaper than converting to a different carb.

Since y'all clearly know quite a bit on the subject, maybe it would be a good time to take another look at putting a turbo on a Vanguard? I'd really like to give this a try.