kenp60

This wound up be a long post so feel free to scroll on past as I completely understand. Recently I was going across a few YouTube channels and I ran across this vendor at 2019 Sema. The guy in the video I guess is the owner of a company called TorqAmp. http://torqamp.com/ First thing I was thinking, yup, another hair dryer Ebay blower motor but some reason I stuck with it because the compressor looked legit and he had two sitting on the dual intakes on a V12 motor. Apparently this thing uses a true turbo compressor mounted to a 5KW motor instead of a traditional compressor housing. The motor is powered off a 48 volt system, not 12, not 24, but 48 volts, the same 48 voltage Garrett is developing for manufactures. I thought it was interesting but what got my attention was when he picked up a laptop showing a couple of cars and their dyno graphs one was a 350Z. Now granted this thing looked small, and in reality it looks more suited for small displacement motors. But what stunned me was on the dyno graph that little puppy under boost dropped that Z's peak torque from about 4400 r.m.p to 2200 r.p.m. and in the process increased it by 27% so I looked up the conversion tables for Nm to ft/lbs and if I'm not mistaken that thing was throwing down about 311 fl/lbs at 2200 rpm which is sweet spot for me on a daily. The cool thing is when he was asked about an intercooler, he' like, there is not a hot side, so there goes the turbo manifold, housing, hot and cold side piping or about $4000.00.

Now I'm not advocating this unit as a big power booster, that is really not what it's made for, it's to boost low end torque on NA and vehicles with existing FI. His channel also showed the unit on a 650 h.p 2ZJ motor and the graph showed a 91% increase in low end torque until the turbos spooled up. The average on smaller motors seemed to be about 25% increase in power and roughly 35%. He even admitted for the Z it didn't increase the power, but substantially in the torque curve, he said due to the large MAF on the car (and probably undersized unit.) but I'm not technical and don't claim to be but it did increase torque 27% and merely dropped the whole power band down 2200 rpm which to me is stunning.

Cletus McFarland did a video some time ago where he tested an Ebay e-turbo and of course it was a joke, and he pretty much labeled all e-turbos as such. Recently TorqAmp sent him a unit to test. He tested the unit on thy dyno on a 4 banger Chevy Cobalt. It laid down 158 wheel under boost which they weren't expecting but seemed pretty happy about.

A few caveats to consider, and yes I am considering one on my daily, is this:
1. It is not full time on, the unit is armed much like nitrous and can be used with a WOT switch or wired into the TPS.
2. WOT boost is good for about 4 minutes until it needs to charge.
3. 1 second boost needs about 10 seconds to charge. The self-contained battery and controller charges when cruising or idling etc. when boosting the charging turns off and full power goes to boosting, no lag and no drain on the car battery.
4. The unit I've seen is probably too small for a 3.5L to make horsepower at this point but he states he is developing something for the LS-V8 crowd who we'll see.
5. All this is new, but electric likely going to be a trend and I hope it matures and gets better if it does.

Finally, price point, $2500.00 for compressor, 48 volt box and computer, and the four cables to hook it all up. Again, it is what it is, to boost low end throttle response or to augment existing FI vehicles in the lower rpms so please don't compare this with your Greddy twins, single turbos or Vortech's as all this seems to be in the early stages of its potential. I've sent an inquiry to the company with several questions and I have quite a few reservations but am open.

MicVelo

Hmmmmmm......

Hmmmmmmmmmm.......

Interesting.

Was wondering when the upsurge in electric technology (not electronic necessarily aside from controllers and such) would "find" new applications (not "apps") to power. There's a lot brewing on that horizon besides just pure electric cars, e.g. Tesla, Leaf, Formula E. This is creative use of high voltage system tech. Maybe not quite ready for prime time but getting there.

EDIT: Just watched a few vids and the claims seem plausible. As an aside, wonder the effects on emissions? (Being in California, gotta think that way.) Would imagine it wouldn't really negatively affect emissions (possibly go the other way.) Hmmmmm....

bealljk

iTrader: (13)

I saw the cletus video and it had me intrigued as well. I think the points are that its not your basic 12volt plug into the cigerette lighter type of thing and that it can keep up with the amount of airflow required at higher RPMs. I was surprised and impressed with how quickly it activated and built boost.

I see it as essentially just trading energy ... in this case voltage for compressed air. And, at the end of the day, pick your poison

iideadeyeii

iTrader: (6)

I've done a lot of research on this 10+ years ago.
I tried hooking up a gas 3hp leaf blower to a 1.5L engine and it made absolutely NO improvement(had SAFC-2)
You're not going to get 80(roughly 30hp) ftlbs of torque out of a 5.7hp motor; it defies basic science principles.
In addition, there is no way it would run for 4 minutes...also defies basic science principles.
Thomas knight make a supercharger with a 5kw motor over 10 years ago and there were no instances of a real person making power from it and required tons of extra batteries(something like 6-8 just to run it for 15 seconds)
It might flow a lot of CFM, but it isn't going to create pressure needed to boost an engine

/end thread as this is a joke

bealljk

iTrader: (13)

not to be critical and I respect everything you've done on your platform - but a leaf blower doesn't compress air, it blows air...the secret-sauce behind any turbo/supercharger is that it can compress air.

I can see this working as an equivalent to a turbo with the exception of how long it can operate. An engine doesn't care how air is being forced into the cylinder … X amount of air combined with Y amount of fuel and a spark.

I think time will tell with something like this. I don't think this will replace the turbo/supercharger but I think it has a serious up-side, especially as it can be further refined and perfected.

I say this under my own experience on the pickup I just bought - F150 ecoboost. It makes 365hp/420 torque out of a 3.5 liter engine with around (from what I interpret from it's OEM gauge) 16psi-18psi of boost. But when I'm simply cruising and the turbo is making no boost I am getting 25-30mpg (also from the oem gauge). I have the benefit of power when I need it and the benefit of fuel economy when I don't. and I would say in a given 10minute period of time I am in boost one to two minutes only - the remaining is cruise.

so what if you have a vehicle with a small / smaller engine that has great fuel economy because of it's small dispacement engine but when needed the ecu/electronic charger/engine can make a respectable hp/tq for a short amount of time (say 30second to 45seconds) to accelerate/pass/uphill/etc.

You have no negative effect of impeded exhaust flow from a turbo and you have no belt losses as seen on a supercharger. The engine/alternator can build-up and store power in a 48volt system and can use that power when its needed.

Just my two cents...

iideadeyeii

iTrader: (6)

Loses 9% HP(13hp) on a 2.0 engine(untuned) when not running and a gain of 20%(32hp) when running(tuned with timing)
Completely useless

bealljk

iTrader: (13)

On Cletus' video?

kenp60

Garret Turbos announced at 2019 SEMA that they are releasing theirs in 2021 for the aftermarket, maybe theirs won't be useless.

kenp60

Due to Cletus McFarland's YouTube video their entire production inventory is sold out with a six month waiting list. I just went with a Vortech setup. Proven technology and performance.