I saw an 87-91 truck last week with an interesting setup. The owner made an airbox and installed a squirrel cage fan from a heater box and had it set up with a toggle switch. Would this actually add power? Or, would it create too much pressure?

 

it would create a restriction not pressure. the engine vacuum sucks air at a faster rate than that fan could put out.

Are you sure you didn't see this on a Honda along with a big wing and bunch of stickers?

 

I have seen this only two times. The first was on a K-5 blazer with the 6.2L diesel. The second was on this ford.

 

Someone had hooked an electric leaf blower to their intake, but again, probably restriction. Maybe a duct to blow the air conditioner output into the airbox, while leaving the stock intake intact.

 

that sounds almost pointless to me...maybe u could use like a high speed squirrel cage fan from like a furnace or something...that might help

 

Yeesh......Ok. Did my homework on this.

Yes. Hooking up a leaf blower to your truck will add horsepower under the following condition. If its plugged into your house. Basic physics states that energy cannot be created nor destroyed but can only change forms. In this case you are using electric energy converting it to mechanical energy then heat and ultimately back to electric. If your running off the alternator then in order to run the power inverter its going to create more of a drag on the motor. So you are going to experience power loss through the motor (friction\heat), the wires and inverter (yet more friction in the form of Ohms, room temperature superconductors are still being invented), the electric motor driving the thing, and other stuff. The basic gist of it is that there is alot of power lost in the process. It's not the same as a turbo which is using energy that would normally be wasted through the tailpipe anyways. By pluggin the leaf blower into your house then shoving the exhaust end into your intake you are introducing energy from an outside source.

That and while the blower. Bilge, leaf, or otherwise. Might be rated for 400cfm. CFM is the amount of air thats being pushed through not the pressure its being pushed through at. And try as you might, your not going to find a CFM to PSI equation. I know, I have looked. It's not providing much of a boost in pressure. If any at all. The highest boost pressure I have seen on an electric blower was 30 (I think) psi and that was an actuall blower run off three starter motors and a seperate set of batteries (again introducing energy from an outside source). If you even thought about putting that load on an automotive alternator it would spontaneously combust (I jest but it would seriously mess it up). The more generic ones provide up to 1.2psi of boost. Or using the rule of thumb, about a 18 hp increase.

There is also the issue of "Do you really want to bolt this cheap plastic piece of crap that could possibly grenade to your motor and screw it over in a big way?"

Do they work? If you mean a 4-6 hp increase then yes. If your motor is 2.0L or smaller and from idle to about mid range. That means streetable ponys for a small 4 banger in the low range. A place those motors desperately need power. Anything larger and you can possibly reduce horsepower by disrupting the flow of air to the engine.

 

I couldn't have said it better myself (but that's not saying much).

 

right...but what about those uhm what r they called?....AIR pump on like emissions vehicles...what if u use a SMALLLL pulley on one of them and boost the intake like forced induction almost?

 

You can't get any pressure from them. Maybe 3 PSI. However, at the volume of air needed for an engine, you'd be hard pressed to do anything.

 

I also looked at a Geo Metro one time that had a small pump hooked the the timing belt. Picture, if possible, a belt driven turbo. Had a turbine wheel that pulled air in from the engine bay, through the unit, into a compressor wheel, and finally, out through a tube into the airbox.

 

That would/should work. Though because its driven on such a small motor your gains aren't going to be as great.

And on a Ford the "smog pump" is known as a "thermactor". Why? I have no freaking clue.

 

These don't work because 1. they can't flow enough air to keep up with even a small engine (think about a turbocharger that has to turn about 20,000 rpms in normal operation to work compared to a small electric motor that turns about 3000 rpms at best), and 2. assuming it were able to provide enough airflow there is nothing to reference the amount of boost to the rpms of the motor (a supercharger is crank driven and runs in direct proportion to engine speed, a turbo is powered by the flow of exhaust, again relying on engine rpm to generate boost). If it did actually work, you'd have your maximum boost at the engine's idle rpm, and then it would actually continuously drop boost pressure as the engine speed increased which is the opposite of what you need.

 

Just for fun, let me take the other side regarding some of the above . . .

Regarding net energy, a drag racer with some electric "utilities" (an electric water pump, for example) CAN get a net gain IF they have a "kill" switch that allows the alternator to free-wheel during the actual run. The alternator can re-charge the battery on the way back to the pits.

Also: The net energy argument could be applied to any form of super- or turbo-charging. The reason that the "there is no free lunch" argument does not apply is that the charging process energy losses are more than made up for by putting the engine into a different "zone". There is more energy output - it comes from burning more fuel in the same amount of time.

I do agree that all the examples of non-engineered amateur charging are a waste of effort. (Perhaps the first one would give you more torque at idle-type rpms.)