did any of you guys ever hear of a homemade turbo made out of a bilge blower from a boat motor? Did it work? how well?

 

I haven't - not have I seen it done, but it will be interesting if anyone here has...

 

There was a write up in a tuner magazine on electric turbo type installations and although it had been done with some success, the juice needed to run the very large, high speed motor for the turbo was just not worth it.
The general idea seems sound but as you speed up, air is forced into the engine just by the general forward motion anyway. Basically works out to be a 65 mph wind running into your engine. I have no idea but I am pretty sure a bilge pump or other fan would never make it up to 30, let alone the speed that a normal turbo produces.

As I sit here and think about it, a gas leaf blower rated at 140 mph may have some possibilities. Just the sheer entertainment of seeing landscapers everywhere look around wildly...

 

A fellow on the 3.0V6 Forum used a leaf blower.... power to drive was the problem... they did it on an old beater and blew up the motor...

 

Anytime you convert energy from one form to another, you're losing efficiency.

Converting crank rotation to electrical (alternator) has a fair amount of loss to it, then to convert electrical to rotation (blower) has even more loss to it.

So, why not run a true supercharger, and take the power from the crank directly, to spin the blower?

 

the bilge motor was just one of the many scams that i have seen on ebay. if your going to go forced induction just bite the bullet and get a turbocharger or supercharger system and be done with it.

 

I got a 1983 honda civic with a "Filter Queen" vaccum cleaner hooked up to it. I managed to mount the vaccum cleaner hose to the air filter intake, and i bought a AC power converter so the vaccum can run of the cars battery power. And then all i did was rought the vaccum cleaner hose from the air filter intake-through the fire wall and the vaccum cleaner just sits on the passenger seat. Being as my vaccum cleaner does have a blower on it it gives the car quite a bit of boost, and i'v had it hooked up like that for about 2 months and havent noticed any problems yet. I drive it to work everyday.

 

There ya go, three conversions of power, and three significant losses.

rotational to electrical, electrical to an inverter that is 80% efficient tops, and inverted electricity to rotational (blower in vaccum).

yeah, sure.

 

Filter queen vacuums had a blower on top of them. Seriously, my car does have a little more kick to it. It's nothing big but it is noticeable.

 

If you say so.

I find it difficult to believe, only because I made a homemade flow bench for comparing heads before and after my porting efforts, and I found my old "super sucker" kirby didn't have enough flow to give useful results. I ended up using a gas powered blower instead. Then I could measure the delta in flow before and after porting.

Granted, this was for big block ford heads.

If you can fit your fist into the port, it's big enough

 

that's a good one broesky. brought on a few smiles.

 

I have often thought about doing such things (I like goofy off the wall stuff) I love the vacume cleaner idea! I have doubts about how much it could help due to the low volume of air moved. If you had a friend rev up the motor and feel the suction at the air intake I bet it would be as much as the vacume. The leaf blower on the other hand would be great... Would it work on a carb. or would you have to use a fuel injected car? Cause I have a leaf blower and a digital camera...

 

If you want my honest opinion, it wouldn't work at all...
Leaf blowers and vaccum cleaners and the like shift large volumes of air, but they don't cause an increase in pressure like a turbo or supercharger.

 

True enough. What was I thinking, my truck already has a turbo! It just seemed so fun...

 

One of these days, I'm going to have to spend tens of thousands of dollars, gather up a gaggle of vehicles, a broad array of gas and electric blowers of various types, and a dyno just to debunk this myth.