Hi all, I just figured I would throw this out there.

I remember reading an article in SCC about a new concept in turbo charging that used a hydraulic pump coupled to a compressor section to make a Turbo system. The pump, much like a power steering pump ran a transmission of sorts that spun the compressor. The nice thing was that you could mount the compressor housing anywhere and didn't have to modify the exhaust. You just mounted the pump much like any belt driven accessory and plumbed the hydralic lines to the turbo location. It was supposed to offer the best of both worlds when compared to superchargers vs. turbos. There was even talk of being able to use electronics to control the transmission for boost control. You could have instant boost with 0 lag.

I have never seen anything since on this concept. Has anyone else ever heard of this and is it still in the works? From what I understood, you could use anysize compressor housing. I maybe wrong but I thought that was what they were saying.

any ideas?

Mike

 

now that is some crazy stuff right there. sounds cool but crazy

 

Alfa romeo has this in GTV 196?

 

It will still draw hp to turn the pump. I don't think it would be much different then a centrifical (sp) supercharger. I don't really like those, they have the weakness of a supercharger and the weakness of a turbo all in one. At least with a turbo you are scavenging waste energy from the exahust.
Nick

 

that was in a sports compact car a long time ago... but they called it a hydracharger... meaning they used water and some sort of high pressure water pump...
-Keith

 

Well, if it is still a turbo, it would make the most sense to use the hydraulics to spool it, and let the exhaust gasses drive it once they get up to speed.

 

saab is working on this also, they call it a hydrocharger.

 

Now that I know what it was called (thanks). I found this link to the SCC article. There is also other stuff out there. Here is the link

http://www.turboprelude.net/PeaceTur...percharger.pdf

 

I think Garett or one of the other turbo makers was developing something like that a few years ago. I haven't heard anything about it since. Actually, I thought it was a regular turbo that had a hydraulic motor that would spin it up quickly when there wasn't enough energy in the exhaust to do it (low RPM). It was on one-way bearings or something so that when there was more exhaust energy, it could spin faster than the hydraulic motor. It may have been an electric motor (or at least someone has tried it that way). The Hydracharger name is what I remember, so it sounds hydraulic.

I think there was an advertisement for an electric motor you could connect through a shaft that worked the same way in the back of car magazines some years ago. I never heard of anyone using one of these, though, and I might have fabricated that memory anyway. I remember seeing something like that somewhere, though, I am sure.

-Max

 

I got the HydraCharger concept wrong -- it looks like it is a turbo compressor on a hydraulic motor with no exhaust stuff.

Here is another link with a little info:
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_atind.../article.jhtml

Still searching for the one-way bearing lag eliminator thing...

-Max

 

that's dope yo!

 

After reading up on this some more. It seems that garrett dropped the concept. Another company evidently kept working with it and supposedly there is a prototype in an I30 at Jim Wolf's shop. My friend Doug who owns Z-Fever here in Tampa and buys product from Jim is going to give him a call and see what has become of the the project. I will post more when I find something out.

I was also thinking of some of the pro's and con's that I could see. It is obvious that having to run a pump off the Engine would of course be to some degree parasitic. How much would depend on the efficency of the pump. At some point, however, wouldn't it be more beneficial to have 18#'s at 1500 rpm on a T78 than the loss of 10hp at peak rpm. Since this technology works with any compressor housing and bearing section, You could pick that big turbo for high end power with out having to worry about turbo lag. Agreed you would ultimately suffer from ultimate peak HP by what ever amount the pump steals. There is always a trade off.

What about the fact that exhaust systems would be more perfect. No turbine to go through or complicated exhaust manifolds. You could have an equal length header designed mor max HP gain. This extra HP would go directly to offseting what the pump steals. Without the new setup, you would never have gotten the extra power through exhaust tunning. This helps close the gap.


This raises another issue. Since the turbo is not in the exhaust path and does not supply any back pressure, how would we design the new exhaust system? Would this mean smaller piping for propper tuning more like a normally aspirated car?

anybody else?

mike

 

all i know is that on a rotary it would be LOUD, with no turbo to quiet things down.