Has anyone tried or heard of the Air Ram+ electric "supercgarger"? It supposedly draws up to 40 amps at top speed and can lift itself up vertically in a bence test? The manufacturer of this device has gotten a lot of not so great feedback on E Bay, mostly for taking people's money and not sending the product. There was no actual feedback on the device itself. Should I be directing this question to the "Ricer" group instead of you folks? I know there is nothing like the EATON supercharger, but I had to ask?

Your going to need to "don" your flame suit....

Those things arent worth the URL space that they take up.

I heard that you can remove the oil out of your car and run it in a total block of ice as well...and not have to worry about it failing...

Snake Oil ring a bell?

I read about a "hydrocharger" in SCC a few months back. They actually exist too! It's essentually a turbo that is spun hydrolically with a very small hydrolic pump instead of with exaust gasses. Sounded slick to me. Not sure why they arn't commercially available yet.

-M

From what I can remember reading on here... the rated CFM of most of those (the e-ram chargers) doesn't even come close to what the car takes in all by itself. I forget the exact numbers. So in essence, it may be an obstruction.

[Free Advice to anyone that cares to read/Rant]
In all honesty, when looking down the list of search results ebay gives you, I would ignore anything that reminds you of the incessant, loud (visually), repetitve internet advertising (pop-ups, spam email) that has become so popular over the course of the past 3 years or so.

If a product is being "oversold", there is a reason.

It has become increasingly obvious that there are some unscrupulous characters that lurk this forum for good free ideas that are shared by the members. These ideas are then translated into merchandise, and sold on e-bay. As much as this saddens me, I would still prefer to buy from these people than the other useless products that are needlessly listed over 20 times, are being "oversold", and use sly deceptive wording to get good people to open their wallets. At the very least, the products being sold whose idea for was based here in the forum, have been tried and true and originated in a good place.

There, 2 rants in 1

Sorry to go a little off topic there, sometimes I just keep on going.. LOL

Any other thoughts?

[This message has been edited by Tweek (edited 07-01-2003).]

Thanks guys. The message is clear, do it the right way or don't do it. This supercharger thing is not the place to look for a shortcut.

I read in Road and Track (July 2003, Page 112), that they are working on one that will produce 5.5 lbs of boost but it is still experimental. I would have to agree that anything out right now is bogus.

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American Exotic

the E-Ram so far is the only one proven to make 1 PSI for boost which is about 10hp on the dyno and they cost i think like $200

I was in contac with a guy that had developed one and was selling his project car on e-bay to help foring for an international patent and more develope ment that he said could make a few PSI of boost.

Now the ones you see on e-bay for like 30-100 dollars that just looks like a fan in a tube is just that, a fan in a tube. Made for boats with enclosed motors to vent out the engine compartments. They say that they are rated at 300cfm but say nothing about PSI, and the V6 draws a little over 300cfm at WOT so id only putting a restriction in your intake. Plus if one of the bladed breaks off thats gonna do some serious engine damage, the E-Ram has a protective screen

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--Adam--
1987 Blue GT 5-speed
IM AOL: FieroGT5speed

There was a reputable company a few year back that was making a electric assisted turbo but it was marketed toward diesel trucks, not the performance market. It was shorten spool up time and help to reduce emissions. They were extremly expensive.

That one that can lift itself - It might be good for a "cooling" fan for stuff that gets really hot.. (super-alternator or ignition module I guess?) Although it does draw a lot of power. The video of it lifting off was cool anyway!

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Bob Williams
Multi-colored '87 Mutt, a work in progress! (Got my 3800SC, installation in progress. It now starts and runs!!!)

Thanks for the great feedback. I guess I'll save up for the Eaton SC or the Vortec SC.

I think the "E-ram" has potential. In fact, I will bet that the $200 Eram gives more of HP boost than $500 Sprint Headers.

quote Originally posted by onereelbigfishy: I read about a "hydrocharger" in SCC a few months back. They actually exist too! It's essentually a turbo that is spun hydrolically with a very small hydrolic pump instead of with exaust gasses. Sounded slick to me. Not sure why they arn't commercially available yet. -M

That's not what he's talking about, those are ran with a belt driven pump nothing to do with eachother. They are not avaliable because they are too expencive, too complex, and still considered prototypes.

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'86 GT - 4speed (Fiero GTI) RED!

Go FAST before you LOOK fast.

ICQ: 320841898
Email: RazorWingX7@hotmail.com
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<>{RazorWing}<>

I was talking to someone just recently (I can't remeber who it was so can't make a judgement about accuracy) and they were talking about an electric assist turbo for deisel trucks. He said they provided boost at low RPM's then were bypassed somehow at higher RPM's with a conventional turbo. The idea was to provide umph from idle to just above. Like a pointed out this could be horse pucky, just something that came up in idle conversation. I hate talking about the weather!

what i never got was why someone didnt take a regular turbocharger or supercharger and mount an electric motor directly to the drive shaft of the turbo/supercharger? hell, any half a$sed machinist worth his salt could whip out a shaft adapter to connect the motor to the charger, and make a few brackets. or even mount the motor like an altenator and belt drive it, the have them for water pumps after all. the motor wouldt have to have a huge amount of torque I would imagine

[This message has been edited by Avery Montembeault (edited 07-02-2003).]

turbos spin 20,000 or more RPM
eltric motors DONOT spin that fast
gears you say
they cost power and weight
and add to lag

eltric superchargers donot work
ex-gas turbos DO work

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Question wonder and be wierd
are you kind?

Ive used the electric turbo for diesels on a Formula SAE car when I was in school. It was made by a company called Turbodyne in Carpenteria, CA. They have since been absorbed by Garrett's turbo division. It was built for a retrofit to older diesel busses and the like in municipal fleets to get rid of the soot generated during the initial throttle input when starting from a stop. They were working on a car application when we were working with them, but it didn't work well enough to justify the cost on a sub $20,000 car versus a turbo kit or supercharger. It was basically the compressor side of a turbo with a DC brushless motor spinning the shaft. The data from our application isn't real useful as we had to run a restrictor, but in the car app they were working on it made 4-5psi of boost. The BIG problem for the car app was that it drew 170amps when it kicked on. Not a big deal for a diesel bus charging system but a big deal for a Corolla (the car they were testing it on). On our race car we had to run a 250 amp alternator with a capacitor to run it. It took us a while to work the bugs out of it (like it browning out every system on the car when it kicked on, playing havoc with our EFI). The motor was good for a 50K rpm shaft speed under boost. The original setup just turned the motor on and off. Later we were able to control it using a pulse-width modulated output from our Electromotive EFI to control the shaft speed, basically allowing us to build a map table for boost.

The hydro-drive stuff should be getting cheaper as its starting to be used in all sorts of applications. Many Fords (T-bird for example) use Valeo's hydro-drive system to run the engine cooling fan. I also believe that the Aztec uses hydraulic drive for the rear wheels on its Versa-trac system (the pump is mounted to one of the stub-axles on the transaxle, fluid is directed by electronically controlled valves).

Hope that helps.

Pikespeakfiero and I have been discussing the idea of a clutched turbocharger for sometime. we theorize that it would work just like a supercharger providing boost right off the line instead of waiting for the turbo to spool up on it's own. The clutch would hold the shaft of the boosting unit until the flow of exhaust gas is strong enough to take over; thus you get instantaneous boost like a supercharger off idle, AND the insane RPMs of a full fledged turbocharger. All that it would take is some slick machining to fit unit to the engine is such a way as to let the belt and the exhaust system work the boosting unit at the same time. We haven't posted our ideas on the forum yet, but I saw this and couldn't resist. What do you guys think. all you'd need is a shaft coupler and something that works the opposite of a centrifugal fan clutch. Not trying to hijack the thread, just trying to expand my knowledge.

Thanks,

John

I think you'd want something like a sprag clutch.

Or an electric clutch like on an AC compressor. That way, you'd be able to tweak the RPM settings a lot easier.

There was a protype electric turbo on ebay a while back. Electric motor tied to the intake side of a t3.... well it requred 60 volts and a hell of amps to run. I just don't think that 5 car batteries in the trunk would work so well... not to mention you only get 5 -10 minutes of run before recharging.