Hi guys,

I'm currently studying for a BEng in motorsport engineering at a non-descript college just outside Brighton and we are tasked with doing a year long project, a lot of people did paper based projects like looking into wheel design and designing one, basic aerodynamics etc. some of us did practical based projects (still have to do a large report on it though ) there was an air jack system that mounts into the boot of a nissan silvia to enable quick changing of the tyres at drift events, an electrically adjustable rear wing( next he is working on integrating it with pitch, roll and yaw sensors and GPS to have it adjust to optimum downforce autonomously), someone building a race engine and finally my project, an electric turbo.

I had decided to make an electric turbo because I see those crappy computer fan attached to a cone filter jobbies and thought well they aint no good but is the concept of an electric turbo able to be used with a Normally aspirated engine to provide extra torque in the flat spots in the rev range? (this was the wider goal, our actual project was to see if it could create noticeable pressure) so I collared in a mate from the course to work on it with (it was allowed to be a team project or a solo one) and we set about making one.

seeing as neither me or my mate wanted to sacrifice our cars for the purpose of this project we decided to make it a bench model, this also freed up lots more possible motors to use to power it and was also safer in the event of something going wrong (very possible).

We started off looking for a Donor Turbo and we to Bridges Scrapyard in Crawley and after trawling 4x4's and vans we saw this beauty.

Was literally laying like that in a Ford Probe obviously didn't belong there. so we set about dismantling it and that proved difficult because it was a bit crusty. but with the application of some fire and modifying spanners to fit etc we were left with this.

we then set about finding a motor, we used the highly non-technical " which one spins the fastest" approach and we trawled the internet and came across a Dyson YDK motor, Yes a hoover motor, it has 2kW of power and span at a whopping 107,000 RPM!. we also considered getting more than one motor to power it by making gears to attach the two motor output shafts into the input for the turbo but this would have created large frictional losses and added weight as well as complexity.

we then made a spacer to connect the motor to the impeller for the turbo.

and had to make a jig to drill out a hole and thread it into the motor shaft.

Attached the impeller to check fitment

We then had to plug all the now redundant holes in the compressor housing.

I made a plug out of ally bar to fill the hole where the wastegate doodah was taken from.

Soldered the holes in the back plate

Mocked up

We then came across the issue of how to measure boost from it so we made the most simple measuring device possible a pipe closed at one end with a pressure release with a boost gauge attached, to release pressure we used a rad cap from a mini that was rated to 15Psi, recycled the bleed valve thing and bodged it all together.

afterburner LOLZ

GUN GUM FTW!

This quite a brief explanation of the work put in but I wasn't around for final assembly where my mate decided wood glue would be adequate to stick everything down

the guy is a moron still we went ahead and tested it it produce the grand sum of 3 PSI this was due to low tolerances in the parts made and my mates that'll do mentality. after a few runs it unsurprisingly removed itself from the board it was mounted to and it was no more. I got a distinction for the project overall as my write up was good but my mate just about got a merit.

only assembled pic I got.

Thanks for looking

Leon

that looks alot better than them ebay jobbies

In your write up did you mention about how to power the thing, would a car battery be enough? would it have to be use in short bursts ect?

Finaly what gains would you expect from 3psi?

cheers :)

ps. its all about messing around with turbos and getting a distinction

great work pal, woulod be good to see if there are any gains?

Good project. We designed the motor internals on this. Serious bit of kit.

Edited 11 July, 201115 yr by yeha

It was 240v so you would need an inverter and a pretty hefty alternator, to run it for any period of time. I wrote about using regenerative braking to charge a capacitor, to save weight in a race vehicle as braking is hard and plentiful providing some leccy to run the turbo out of corners, I didn't design a regen system cause thats just plain more work than i needed to do.

3Psi would probably not be very noticeable at all (think turbo volvo 240 boost pressure) but with hindsight I probably would have spent more time in the workshop fabricating the parts to a higher tolerance and perhaps would have select a motor that can run at 12v but the dyson was the best thing we could find. It would have made more pressure had it been made properly (I was expecting 15PSI+) but hey i'm a beginner fabricator.

Yeha that was one of our references in the write up.

also, I suppose in a way it was successful in the way that it filled the criteria in our design brief " to improve torque" as 3 psi would improve torque.

During testing it sounded like a hoover (duh!) but with added scraping.

Good effort!

Did the compressor wheel not machine itself into the compressor housing without its own bearing? Can't imagine the tolerance on the Dyson motor bearings being too brilliant.

haha north brook college. Did some work in there aerospace dept

Well done on that though!

Dyson We've had dealings with him.... Cost us a few quid in legal fees over the years.

you have to spin faster of use a bigger compressor house

Blimey! forgot about this thread.

Good effort!

Did the compressor wheel not machine itself into the compressor housing without its own bearing? Can't imagine the tolerance on the Dyson motor bearings being too brilliant.

Never got the chance to find out as it destroyed itself after a few runs but many lessons were learnt, this year I pursued an aero project but the electric turbo may be something I come back to in the third year, as we have a team project (most likely a continuation of aero) and an individual project which could be the turbo or at least a regen system. hopefully if I do take another look, the benefit of hindsight and not being 18 will hopefully make it a more successful attempt.

haha north brook college. Did some work in there aerospace dept

Well done on that though!

Bloody aero!

haha north brook college. Did some work in there aerospace dept

Well done on that though!

You made tea for students? How low can you go...

most F1 teams use electric turbos!!!! just not on the engines! have a look at those brake coolers they attach to the front wings

An interesting idea, and at least it worked. You're never going to get it perfect first time.

thats a real good effort,

why not try an electric supercharger?

the fan ones off ebay? this is why

or if a roots or any other supercharger style design that was because we could get a donor turbo far easier than a supercharger and to buy a turbo that could be used without the need to be rebuilding it for £20 that wins over a supercharger any day because even ruined chargers don't go for £20. I also considered that there would be greater frictional losses with a conventional charger design.

Edited 21 September, 201213 yr by Leon