February 2017 interview with Swedish magazine Billsport: In depth description of development history, operational characteristics and cylinder filling techniques
As a general comment for those who are interested. Yes we have continued to run and evolve the system in question. The car (Pre CV19) was a regular at Autoclub Dragway Fontana, CA. A lot of effort has gone into simplifying the system for the end user. Current focus is on creating a high pressure tank & regulator package that is essentially a "drop in" , no customer hoses, etc.. We have systems we could sell to serious racers (and have actually setup several) but, they require a fair amount of engineering acumen to configure and operate correctly. Hence we have not pushed them. With respect to the Camaro, it runs 12.30 on the motor. At 6 - 7 psi it has run 9.60. At 8- 9 psi it has run 5.77 in the 1/8th (8.94 1/4 equivalent); most of our development work is 1/8 mi stuff as launch and low gear rapid transients have been the most difficult things to sort out. In the above testing we run VP C12, engine timing remains @ N.A. MBT levels (≈ 34° total). No other changes, N.A. to boosted. So, yes it does work, the physics are sound and the system is safe. It has been developed with the same level of scrutiny (engineering design, testing & failure effects analysis) that we have used on high pressure natural gas vehicle systems for years in OEM applications. Our intent is to continue to evolve the concept with an eye towards producing systems that perform well and that fill a niche in the high performance aftermarket.
Karl as you may know we are building the first Compressed Air Engine for your system and will post Videos on the build and car on my CZcams channel. like with NOS it will take some time for everybody to come on board. Everybody will be kicking themselves in the ass for not investing in this.
@@MrDanielSoliz I'm so excited to see this. I've been going insane with ideas similar to work withis actually. I have a new type if engine to build but I'm not a mechanic. I'm an inventor. I want to work with some OGs.
Forget the ringing noise, the way this was all presented was so boring I couldn't take it. Great idea and I was excited at first but fucking Ben Stein killed it for me and I just couldn't pay attention anymore.
Man I really enjoyed watching this. There's nothing like listening to someone talk about a subject that they have spent so much time thinking about. Just awesome.
3300 psi in the back seat sounds like a ticking timebomb. What happens when some Asian rear ends you in traffic. Say goodbye to Kansas... thanks ... but no thanks professor sociopath.
it's a trade off between the weight of the tanks being high enough to make it slow, versus low enough dude's afraid to drive cuz it's a bomb held in check by flimsy wrapping. My guess...
So the power comes from the compressed air being forced into the intake , compressing the cylinder and forcing the piston down? Of course the fuel is igniting but the majority of the energy is due to the crazy amount of air being forced into the system? Is that correct or am I wrong?
you're wrong, the boost pressure is only 8psi. its got no parasitic loss of energy like you get from turbo or supercharger, both produce very hot charges as they are compressing, this system makes a cool charge because the air is already compressed and cools as it expands. the charge is then denser, thus containing more oxygen molecules per specific volume at the same boost level. all of that means you can put more fuel in to the cylinder and get more energy from the combustion, moreso than a turbo or supercharger can produce at the same boost. this engine wouldnt be anywhere near the same hp levels if it had a turbo running the same boost level.
krameip7604 thanks for the info!! I'm no engineer , or mechanic, but I do have a pretty good idea of how things work. This one confused me a little! Thanks for clearing that up !
I actually did this exact setup back in 1993 - 1994! Still have one of the prototypes of the Eductor here in my garage! Took my car from 16.0 Seconds in a 1/4 mile to a 14.0 flat, and I still had a lot of dial in to go. By the way guys GM did this back in the 1930's! I read about it in an old SAE journal. They scrapped the idea for every day use becuase they were concerned someone would be passing and run out of air / boost half way through the pass. (Liability) If you have any questions or what to see what we developed, I'd be happy to e-mail you a few pics of the one that I have, and the test fixture we designed and built to. (Still have it! )
I'm glad someone went through the trouble to do this properly. I give these two guys lots of credit on making it work and seemly have done a good job too. Similar to my engine head project... it takes a lot of effort to do development of a brand new thing that no one has done before and figure out all the bugs one at a time. Great explanations too!
It would take a rocket engineer to figure out how to inject oxygen not to blow things up. He doesn't use pure o2 either that's another adjustment a shade-tree guy wouldn't know when or why he should do that.
Put it this way... the mid 80's Firebird and some others Karl was instrumental in aerodynamics of them. He ran the tunnel for GM for a while. He is a great person and super super super sharp. If you ever see him around a conversation about such things you can almost see his brain thinking. When he finally speaks he will be spot on.
Years ago while working on a Ford 302 cid v 8 , while starting and revving the engine I took a standard hi flow cleaning nozzle/gun that was hooked to the shop's 135 psi air supply and blew it into the open carburetor intake. The very noticeable difference in gain of throttle response and performance of the engine was amazing! A short time later I had to run a slightly larger propeller on my Continental 220 gpu powered airboat, I could only get 2700 rpm at the propeller, enough to get around but would leave me stuck on occasional dry ground Lightbulb! I used two aluminium scuba tanks and a fire suppression system high flow dump valve. I quickly achieved the desired 2900/3000 rpm at my propeller through tweaking the system, and being as I only needed the boost at occasional times it worked for me. This was in the mid to late 1990's. Glad to see you guy's doing this.
Why didn't I think of that ? Brilliant guys. I wish you all the best with this project and look forward to seeing this system in practice. Thank you for showing us.
It seems like most the people in the comments have not watched the video and are asking questions that are all answered in the video. I must be too old to hear the audio problem...or my speakers suck too much, so I actually watched the whole thing. I think the system is brilliant, they have thought about pretty much everything during development, and did a good job designing custom parts for all the tricky points in the system. I feel like the creator should post a FAQ in the description to handle all the questions people are asking. Ah, who am I kidding? That would require a click, reading, and actual brain power before spouting off a stupid comment with their keyboard.
Matt Mead Amen! There are people who design things and there are people who mash pedals. But....pedal mashers are the customer.... I'd have liked them to compare the mass of the typical systems out there...the only close competitor is nitrous...if a test engine were maxed out on nitrous and coompressed air in back to backs what would the percent power addition be and total mass of the system and cost per kw etc. They clearly know this from bench marking. Great example of persistence and very interesting in short run applications...small engines and low boost.....bonneville?...
You have some great questions there: "if a test engine were maxed out on nitrous and coompressed air in back to backs what would the percent power addition be and total mass of the system and cost per kw etc." The only thing I can guess is the cost is pretty damn high. The power to weight ratio of the final system is very important. Wish we could get that.
Incredible design and engineering. I cannot imagine how much effort it has taken to achieve such a complex project. You guys are awesome. Thank you for sharing your project, hope to see more...
I've been a car guy all my life, but when I began scuba diving 40 some years ago I got to thinking about the volume of compressed air and wondered if I could use it to supercharge the engine, same idea as yours, but I was just a kid really with no idea of how to increase the flow and regulate it, knew I needed a kind of priority valve in the intake to switch from ambient air to compressed, but didn't know all the details. Now I feel that you've proven I wasn't a nut back then, I just hadn't grown up enough by then to make it happen. I'm glad to see that you brought my dream to life.
Lol, I actually have Tinnitus and got so confused there at the end.. Cause I only have it in my right ear and I started hearing that high pitch in my other ear now and I was like, oh great this is just fuckin awesome, now I got this shit in both ears! Lol
I thought of this system when I was 12 years old. I'm not joking. Around 12 was when I learned how forced induction worked. That summer is also when I got my open water SCUBA cert. I thought one night about why you wouldn't just use a tank of compressed air. Of course at the time I was 12 and had no clue it could be anything more than a passing thought. Fast forward 17 years and I see this video. So cool!
I thought of this too, with a compressor tank like boyzz said. It is the most efficient way to get boost pressure (breifly), so I'd imagine a hellova lot of people have pondered this, and ultimately decided it's daft because of how much CFM an engine will need, unless it's a tiny engine.
The Boyzzz & Simon T, using an air-compressor translates to you merely running a traditional supercharger. That's been around since 1878. It gives you a boost, but it comes at the cost of power needed to drive the compressor. Now, a hybrid system would be interesting for niche scenarios. You could get tank-boost when max-power is needed, and then have the engine drive the compressor to repressurize the tanks when horsepower is not required. But not many races popular today would benefit from that. Maybe it could be useful by allowing you to drop in a much smaller/lighter engine, and still have the power you need for peppy acceleration. But it'd be easy to screw up and implement that in a way that you are screwed in a stop-and-go traffic situation. If you find yourself with no compressed air left, then you might not have the power needed to climb a hill in the city. As the video mentions, the hard part in these things isn't usually the clever idea. It's the elbow work in terms of trial-and-error and lots of tricky math needed to make it a mature product, ready to market.
I designed one of these systems over the span of 2 months. Almost identical yet I managed to make a system without the electronic pressure regulation and still maintain stability. Im roughly 47 years late to create one of these before anyone else. I believe the concept of compressed air into the intake was first invented around 1971. Just wanted to bring this up.
Just absolutely love this video!!! I was instructed back in the early 80's about CAS in my High School small engines class. But nobody was doing it. You have made my training relevant.
You notice that the guy from NOW was hesitant to say nitrous hurts engines. Plus the main guy talking doesnt really seem like he understands how nitrous works. He said"the main power boost from nitrous comes from the break down of the molecule, not the extra fuel you add to cool the combustion." Sorry dude, nitrogen and oxygen down burn by themselves, you have to add fuel for the excess oxygen to react with and make energy. I understand breaking the nitrogen and oxygen bond will release a little bit of power, but it's not the main source of poerr from the nitrous.
No parasitic loss, no intercooler, super/turbo charger, optimal timing, A/F ratio, adjustable boost pressure. Nice idea, never thought about it. All the effects of turbo charging, supercharging an nos combined in one system.
Matt & Neil, seems like a great idea to me for 1/4mile racing. They should crank the boost up to 20psi or more to really silence the critics, ie add two more tanks.
My mechanic ears worked out well. Adjust the hearing and the way of thinking. TUNE IN AND TUNE OUT. Great info all around. Pressure regulator is a must to maintain the PSI. Thank you for the video with great info
naufal muhammad BMW has poured money into regenerative brakes to become lightweight and a feasible electric power source. Maybe swap the second air tank for a battery to store energy to drive an electric air compressor. The power delivery from brakes and a beefy alternator can probably provide enough to provide long term boost from the compressed air
Mark Wright yea but im talking about a compressor that feeds air into the storage tanks not the engine. Point being the stored compressed air delivers instant boost response but you only have so much compressed air so im trying to figure out how this system can be recharged on the road.
The tanks need to be 300 PSI minimum. I'm not sure what kind of compressor would be capable of filling those tanks fast enough to be practical in any application where you need power continuously. But if one did exist, and it was small enough, it would probably be better to just plum that into your carb rather than rely on tanks with a limited air supply.
I'm glad you got a nitrous guy to talk about this. This answered a lot of my questions off the bat. I think you should reupload this after sending it through a low-pass filter in audiology. That'll clip off those high pitch tones that the young people are complaining about. Personally, I'm pretty happy I can still hear them loud and clear in my mid 30s.
I have asked my father who is a retired engineer and weekend drag racer "when younger" so many times about this exact thing I feel so vindicated to know a idea I derived at my self it indeed was very successful maybe its really true what my parents always told me I was engineering naturally inclined. Great video!!
BrownMoses I remember an article in carcraft during the 70s they were trying to plumb an oxygen bottle into an intake manifold to increase power density
Rolls-Royce played with pure oxygen as an altitude booster during WW2. There with issues that other things beside the fuel would burn: valves, pistons etc. Nitrous doesn't do that
There is no volume 'lost' in this system, that would be an air leak. I imagine you meant pressure drop. With a venturi system, the flow rate and pressure would change as the source pressure drops. Think of a battery powering a bulb, it would slowly dim as the battery is discharged, a visual indication the voltage (pressure) was dropping. We'll assume that the resistance of the bulb remains the same (your venturi in the air system). So therefor, if the resistance is the same and the voltage (pressure) is decreasing, the flow has to decrease too. Laws of thermodynamics always apply, regardless of the system. To answer your question plainly, yes it would better utilize the amount of energy put into the bottle (compressed gas in this scenario) but might present unique tuning challenges. These guys are pretty smart, so my guess is that the energy lost to regulating the pressure is not enough to out weigh the benefits of a constant pressure at the manifold.
Ryan Nelson I'm not quite sure you understand what I'm saying. Let's just say it takes 50³' of gas from the bottle to make the run. If you had a Venturi that pulled in more atmosphere you would need less compressed air because if the venturi was tuned to produce 5³' of air for evey 1³' of gas from the bottle then you'd only need 20% as much from the bottle. These numbers aren't actual...just a representation. You can make high pressure & volume with a venturi that requires much less to get siphoning than the end volume/pressure result. Just gotta have the right ratios of orifices / piping and reducers. Since he wouldn't have to flow nearly as much from the bottle, the system (valves & other restricting points) would be simpler too. Or the same valve system with much higher volume / boost at the motor.
Steven Littleton No I didn't understand, I thought you were talking about having a simple orifice meter the compressed air into the engine lol. What you're imagining is a quite a bit beyond my weak grasp of physics. Do you have any way of estimating the volume of added air and be able to do some napkin math to see if that was enough to overcome the weight of a further complicated system? My guess is that it wouldn't be enough to eliminate the second tank. Thanks for taking the time to correct my ignorance
The system closes off the atmospheric intake with a butterfly that the engineer showed and runs purely on the tanks under boost. Like Ryan said in his initial post, you don't lose or gain air based on any venturi magic you are talking about. It becomes a closed system.
Great to hear the creators thoughts on how they made it happen! But only 8 psi of boost when you have minimum of 60 psi at the EPR. I want to see someone run an engine with the CAS putting out 50+ psi of boost and running on nitromethane. (but that depends on how long the tanks can maintain that boost pressure) Or even higher boost if its possibly capable of outputting 100 psi (which will probably be hard to contain in the intake tract) And there is an annoying high pitch noise during a lot of the interviews : (
8psi of this super cold dense air is probably equivalent to 40-50psi of hot air from conventional means of supercharging. so 50psi from this system would probably be comparable to 300psi of conventional supercharging... or more like 400 since the more compressed conventionally, the hotter and less dense the air. i still think its cool, but its less self sustaining like a turbo or supercharger as in how long it lasts, kinda like nitrous but has a pure purpose at the drag strip.
one thing in top fuel racing, NHRA has it's own idea what is allowed for increasing boost. they didn't even allow the centrifugal supercharger bcs it was too efficient I suppose. a roots blower is compact. it's in one location. not spread the length of the chassis and safer then a supply of compressed potential energy. regardless if in use, it's more efficient for the weight
someonw put the effort into sound editing a crappy piano track into the video but didnt hear/bother to edit out the 15khz+ buzzing noise?? Do a re upload
I UNDERSTAND THE SCIENCE AND AM AWED BY THESE OLD SCHOOLERS COMING UP WITH YET MORE WAYS TO MAKE POWER. I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE WHAT ELECTRIC CARS WILL BECOME IN THE RACING ARENA.
its free in a sense that there is no demand on the motor to create boost...the only down side i see here is the added weight of the bottles, but thats hardly a reason to avoid this type of setup, pros out weigh the cons for sure
The engineer was at NO2 for 27 years. The other guy founded NO2 and was the inventor of the system. Most of you don't know what you're talking about. This provides COLD, fridgid cold boost on a MILD motor. That's a single 4bbl 400 hp 350 SBC making 900-1000 hp that will run ALL season, and not needing pistons, (and the associated replacement costs), or high dollar head, etc. With the deluxe air comp setup, and the system, (they said what the system might cost), you probably have the cost of a BBC blower motor, done right. Instead of melting pistons, eating valves, and all then engne maintenance, and tuning challenges, you run a 9.5:1, hydraulic cam 350, and get 900-1000. It is a NO brainer, and will be the next huge thing in drag racing. In 10-15 years, NO2 will be old, and outdated, and compressed air will be THE thing to have. Just watch... I've been watching, (and building engines and cars), since the '60's; I've already seen what advanced metallurgy has done, then what turbos have done, and what NO2 has done. THIS is next...
I'm glad you understand it man. It's pretty freaking awesome. I got a little too excited and went through every comment on this video and tried to respond to many of them explaining how cool this is and how it works, but like you said, they just don't get it.
So you get 10 seconds of boost.. then have to refill your 3,000 PSI tanks for 5 minutes between passes. Because the system is "safer" what happens WHEN a car a equipped with this crashes and ruptures a 3,000 psi bottle? Also 1,000 HP is friggen childs play. You cant make a car big enough to hold all the bottles to feed real power like 3-4,000 hp of a pro mod or something, Which uses a pump... driven by the engine omg so simple! Seriously this is not marketable.
the 'air' in the tanks is inert, so there won't be an explosion from them. If there was also a fire, it might be 'fanned' by the massive release of air, but it might also get snuffed out. NO2, I do believe is flammable, so... As far as 1000hp being child's play, that's a bit over simplified. It takes a lot of money to make HP, and one mistake during the engine build, one minute flaw in material in one part, and a large portion of the money is gone. With a relatively stock engine, plus this setup you would have a campaignable motor for a sportsmen class drag car. One of the barriers to participation in drag racing since it's beginnings has been the cost of participation. It's why 'dial in' or bracket racing or Et racing, whatever you want to call it was created. Before that, (when I first got into drag racing, BTW), it was a race for fast, and it also got expensive fast. Your 3-4k hp Pro Mod argument is a red herring, no where in the vid did they say that was the intended market. I still stand by my argument. Time will tell if it supplants NO2 systems in lower end cars. Out of curiosity, how many 1000 hp engines have you personally built?
+George Dennison my own 1200 hp trans am, and worked on my dad's top alcohol dragster a B/AD (blown alcohol dragster) which is a 440 cubic inch billet block Brad Anderson hemi with a PSI screw blower, mechanical injection and 20 injectors. 3,500 hp (estimated) 5.30s @ 270 mph. 1,000 hp is what any dummy can put together with a turbo on virtually any forged bottom V8. I ran 23 psi on an LQ9... check my videos. as far as rupturing 3,000 psi it doesn't matter if it's inert or not that's alot of stored energy.
Years ago, I was using compressed air from an industrial compressor to blow out the air filter on a Toyota forklift. The thought of CA Supercharging entered my mind. I started the forklift, floored the throttle then sprayed the compressed air into the inlet. The engine revs increased dramatically, then BOOM! Bye bye engine. I think it over-revd and threw a rod. I think an electronic rev limiter, boost controller, fuel management system would have kept it together. I knew it was something that would work well. This was over 20yrs ago.
Great post. These guys are the best. Outstanding gents!!! I owe Dale more than I could ever say in 2 lifetimes. Karl is top top notch in the field. I see no reason why this will not be a great addition. Love the stuff guys.
A turbo reclaims the wasted HEAT energy of an internal combustion engine as hot exaust gasses expand. The turbo is powered (mostly) by waste heat, rather than back pressure. (Sorry, no disrespect intended).Your compressed air idea is one that I abandoned about 40 years ago due to the many cubic feet of air per second that a hungry V8 needs for power. Have you tried this on a small displacement engine? Compressed air was viable on the 100cc 2stroke engine that I was using for my tests. I am happy to see that someone is experimenting to solve the volume of air problem. Compressed air could offer many of the advantages of NOS, but without the expense. I wish you sucess in your exploration. Thanks for listening.
You might have abandoned your project because you couldn't get enough cubic feet of air per second, but these guys designed enough parts to make it happen. At the 19 minute mark he explains they use 160 ft^3 for one pass. Nothing off the shelf could flow that much, so he designed things going all the way back to the valves on the tanks that he was showing. Of course it could scale down to a smaller engine.
Oxygen+fuel in the chamber = no unburned fuel in the exaust. Tread lightly or a cylinder of o2 in its compressed form will send egt s up quick. Its an old hilbilly trick for bout 250bucks vs mods like twin turbos. It will kill a 12 valve cummins quick
You have a great point Decoy 263. The further you go above 21% oxygen such as in atmospheric air, the further your temps in the combustion chamber go up and as you mentioned EGT. You literally start melting shit. That's why Karl went over the alternatives and decided against them. Many people immediately think - What about Nitrox at 40% O2? What about pure liquid O2? What about the fact that nitrous oxide is ~33% O2? Practicality goes down fast. You would have to start making pistons and stuff out of a new material to handle the heat and yet still have the other properties that make those parts work well.
As far as weight, anyone ever weight a large turbo or super charger? I would have to say this is lighter. It doesn't need intercooling bc the air is cool already. This is pretty damn interesting.
People, from what I've seen, really don't appear to appreciate the importance of the temperature, and hence the density of the ingoing air charge. Not too mention how relatively benign it is to the engine itself and parts. The timing needing no retardation and the fuelling remaining constant and not needing to be overly rich. Of course the system is really only suitable for the strip. But it is, as you say, very interesting.
I hadn't thought of this system since I wrote my comment above, but someone commented, so I came back, and reading over the comments, again, the biggest barrier to understanding how amazing this might turn out to be, for low dollar racing, is most people don't know, or forget, an engine is a big-ass air pump. Anything you can do to increase the air volume pumped, while mitigating destruction, is a performance boost. Low cost, non-destructive, non-parasitic increase of volume via compressed air seems like a natural, to me. Something else everyone seems to over look with turbos is anything broken, which goes through the combustion chamber, and out the exhaust, has a high likelihood of damaging the turbo. Chunk of piston, or ring, (from nitrous), there's a grand, just for the turbo rebuild. GeoD
@@georgedennison3338 i say forget about traditional engine design. turbo is an air compressor. driven by exhaust gas, and heat. why use the engine itself as a compressor as well? why expand compressed air in a bottle into a cylinder then recompress it? dump the intake and compression strokes, inject compressed air as the exhaust closes before TDC, direct inject fuel as well, light it up... ignition commences ATDC, pistons approaching ideal position to actually produce torque, and the extra heat pumping from the exhaust only assists the turbo chargers... modified "lenoir cycle". no need for a blower or pre-compressed charge to start. run compound turbos... see twins hit 130PSI... thats getting close to normal compression ratios in an engine... how about triples, put some effort into really matching them? not much info on matching compound turbos... lag would be terrible but as a range extender...
@@paradiselost9946 Now, THAT is a novel idea; just skip the entire plenum, runners, adequate volume issues & inject straight into the cylinder... hmm... You got me thinking about how cam lobe design could change tremendously, flat top, or even dished pistons to increase chamber size. My head's spinnin'. Is this your original idea? I want to think about it a bit to see if there's any flaming holes of failure. If not, I would like to put it to someone who builds racing engines of all flavors & actually manufactures his own design all aluminum block & so9n, heads. If it's your idea, I don't want to step on your toes. That'd just be rude. Gotta ponder this one... I learned how to build high performance engines in the '60's & built Small Block Chev motors thru the '80's, for street & track. Learned porting & all the tricks, did everything but gring cranks & cams. Been a while, haven't built a motor since '85-'86. GeoD
TL;DW: [aka save my ears from bleeding] Compressed air as an alternative to turbo charger/super charger/nos Been in development since 2002, expected to hit the market in 2017 Compressed air is better than turbo charger/super charger/nos because it doesn't require special tuning, and doesn't cause inconsistent combustion - touted as safer and alleged to give more boost Doesn't cause same parasitic draw from car as a turbo or super charger does Can only be used in short duration like NOS, due to decompression of air causing condensation Benefit that it cools engine instead of heating it, temperatures wont stabilize in a 1/4mi run Boost up to 11lbs for the engine in test car, can go higher on smaller engines One tank not enough for a run, two tanks is a bit more than needed Pressurized to 3300psi Lots of specialized parts, precision high flow valves, custom carb, and custom computer - no off the shelf parts Air tanks refilled using scuba compressor
Pretty damn good description man, thanks! There is one point you made I would like to discuss. You said it can only be used in short duration due to condensation. In the video he didn't make it very clear, but he was talking about on the outside of all the equipment, not the inside. As somebody reminded somebody else in another comment, that scuba compressor tries to really dry the air out as it compresses it. It should have a very low moisture content. Even though it is coming out of the ejector at -80°F it should have very little water or ice doing anything funky. He was just mentioning how you notice it on the outside all the plumbing and stuff after a run. I don't think that limits the duration at all. I think the only limit to duration is capacity on board the car. As in how many tanks do you want to shove in there?
I was just trying to give a description of what they said in the video, not really provide any kind of personal view on it. Me personally, I think its way too impractical to be useful to anyone who isn't a drag racer. He did say that the short duration of the run keeps it from turning into a block of ice... I would say if that ever did become an issue, you could simply insulate the tanks and lines. I doubt that'll be an issue though, because you're using it for too short of a duration. This system is clearly only useful in quarter mile drag race scenarios, as you blow through almost 2 entire tanks in that time alone. I wouldn't think this is something anyone would be able to put in a car just to chooch around town.
id like to see some results from this system setup. whats your timing curve look like whats your fuel pressure and what type of fuel are you running, what are the air temps and your engine temps under load? do a dyno run with and without the system. what are its shortcomings besides having to refill your tanks every pass? whats the total weight of the system?
The very high pitched whining in the background made this video unwatchable for me. I really was interested in it too but now my tinnitus is going crazy after only a fee minutes of watching
1RAH i have tinnitus but it's not a high ringing sound it's a bassy 60hz hum triggered by washing machines and airplanes going by or complete silence does it too. The ringing in the video didn't bother me although i can definitely hear it
Wow it’s funny I came across this video I was wondering if it was possible to use compressed air but my thoughts where there isn’t enough capacity in anything I could use such as a air bomb. That man is a genius I would have never been able to figure that system out
Very cool system, great video. The ringing isn't a big deal, too many fruitcakes complaining over nothing. Wish there was a video of the car in action.
+tim babeu -my thoughts exactly, -isn't this along the same lines why NHRA banned CO2 extinguishers on drag cars? You've got a huge amount of stored energy there in those cylinders, -much like when an air compressor tank lets go, -it is a huge mess..
they have the same pressure than co2 tanks at 3000-3300psi, they can put 4500 psi on those carbon fiber thanks, they're similar or pretty much the same to scuba or paintball tanks.
the most common failure is the regulator exploding, or cutting off.. you can see some videos of paintball players diving and the regulator gets cut and the tank sky rockets
What if you wreck with NOS tanks? What if you wreck a Toyota Mirai with hydrogen tanks? What if you wreck a bus powered by LNG or CNG? This isn't the only vehicle in the world with compressed gas onboard.
Compressed air supercharging was tried in the late 60s and I actually worked on it in the 80s. At the time though cylinders were too HEAVY and carb/fuel injection tech just wasn't there. Its funny because i used to heat and turn the injector tube in at a 45 deg angle on their plate systems in the 80s a year later NOS made that change to their systems. Best of luck guys.
The bottles are facing the driver, if the valve blows out, there are two potential rockets aimed right at the drivers head lol. Pretty cool idea. Not exactly new, but cool non the less
if the regulator breaks off, all that gas shoots out that hole pushing the bottle towards the driver. We dont get that good of a shot of the inside of the trunk area but im sure theres a blast shield of sorts protecting the driver.
My dad and his buddies did something like this in the 70's just messing around. They took a couple cars and a cutting torch and one 1 car mounted the oxygen tank from the cutting torch, and the other car mounted the acetylene tank from the cutting torch. Both engines melted down pretty quickly because they didn't account for the extra heat and the fuel system running lean.
I'm guessing this is more of a "can we do this" thing than a "should we do this" cause the answers are obviously different to the two questions. Anyway cool idea but just a experiment obviously.
I am sure this will be more than that if I know these 2. Both very driven people and Dale knows how to make a business.......No Doubt about that..(with out spilling any beans how I know). The valves you saw I am sure that they are ready or are starting to have some kind of a volume made.
I did invent this in a dream about 20 years ago but I think my Dad talked me out of the whole idea. Its late I wonder if I am dreaming right now because this is totally radical awesome .
So, some guy who may, or may not of, been me worked medical supply, and may have run a straight shot of oxygen through a buddies air intake on a 90's Dodge Neon. It was pretty incredible for a 6 or 7 second stretch. He hadn't touched the gas for a couple seconds, and we were still accelerating. He drove the car for another year after that and never noticed any engine damage.
Baxter Ross I just watched an Engine Masters video where they made 750 hp with a stock cast 350 bottom end with a procharger. Very close in hp and cheaper. Oh and you get that power as much as you want. Not one hit and done.
This is very interesting stuff, something I've thought about before but could never visualize. Seems to me though that you could make the whole system much more efficient, by injecting the compressed air directly into the cylinder during the compression stroke of the engine. Of course you'd really need a fuel injection engine to go along with it. Just seems to me like pressurizing the entire intake system is wasted energy
The exhaust gases have to push past the turbine to exit the car which creates additional back pressure before the turbo. So you technically lose some volumetric efficiency but as soon as the compressor pressurizes the intake it makes the engine more efficient then it ever could be on its own. So if you stuck a turbo on your exhaust and didn't plum the compressor to the intake you would technically lose power (and spin the bearing in the turbo) because the back pressure is technically creating a load for the engine to overcome and lowering the volumetric efficiency.
Anthony is pretty much spot on, -turbos have to make boost before any extra power is made, and unfortunately, the exhaust restriction comes at a cost well before it is able to make boost (that is why there is a lag before the power comes on). At the end of the day, a turbo (or supercharger) costs HP, -but they offer an increase that far exceeds the power-requirement to drive the device (they give more than they take). In my opinion, this whole compressed air thing is a gimmick, -only because it isn't practical, or sustainable, -and lasts a very short amount of time. For a street driven car, any other type of mechanically driven forced induction makes a lot more sense. Nitrous in and of itself is not "dangerous", -only more particular in how it is set up. Nitrous offers very little leeway in terms of things going out of spec. -such as timing, fuel pressure, etc. -in that regard, it is very picky (yes, I have built, raced, and damaged a few nitrous motors). This compressed air thing is neat, but it will never replace turbos or superchargers in my opinion.
Anthony Trujillo turbos are not more efficient than naturally aspirated, but the ability to move more air and esp. more fuel, getting a higher output. sucking more drops of fuel per rpm is a way to look at it. efficient way of creating boost compared to crank driven superchargers, but they do suck more fuel
pds tech a turbo charger absolutely increases the efficiency of an engine. An engine relies on camshaft overlap to expell (scavenge)the spent exhaust gases. So an n/a engine is using the movement of air to expell 70%-80%-90% (what ever the engines volumetric efficiency is at what ever rpm) of the exhaust gases, and draws in that amount of a fresh air fuel mixture. A turbo charged engine with a pressurized intake manifold ( from 0 psi to what ever just not under vacuum) can achieve over 100% volumetric efficiency.. that's right they can actually push fresh air fuel mixture into the exhaust. So yes a turbo can increase an engines volumetric efficiency and thermo efficiency.
You could do that, but you get way more power by burning fuel with that air and then expanding it in the engine with the pistons, than you would just allowing it to expand across a turbine and then exhausting to the outside air. But you could use a turbine (or several staged turbines) to reduce pressure from tank pressure manifold pressure instead of the throttling valves they're using. But then that's more mechanical complexity.
What part of the cold air and fuel speech did you not understand? The entire point of this is when the air discharges (just like a air can) it gets super cold, and that's where the real power lies.
Baxter Ross, it's kind of funny how many people tried to invent supercharging in the comments without even realizing it. The whole point is you are compressing the air external to the car, using energy from a different source. That's a very important step that most people are missing. They immediately switch over to "Oh, but you could fill the tanks back up! Using a ..... on the car!" Jesus Christ, SMH!
Matt Mead I think someone should do something similar with compressors on the car that use braking energy to charge the tanks. Then it's like every 10 stops you get to haul major ass once.
this sucks! all the extra weight , for maybe 20seconds of boost, its a cool project but it doesn't make sense at all, theirs a reason people use superchargers turbos and nitrous, and not reserves of compressed air.. the parasitic losses would be less the the weight added If you consider you get 20 seconds of boost vs unlimited boost. I see it as more of a nitrous eqivalnt though nitrous is just as safe as boost if you're set up for it , boost will blow motors easily if you're not set up for it too. but a nitrous kit is super cheap easy to install and light everything this kit is not! everyone who's giving boost some thought has thought of this idea , and realized it was dumb theirs no money here its more of a science project.
I built a system kinda like this in highschool thought it was gonna be bad ass. Tank emptied in like 15 seconds. Was a neat idea but ended up putting the nitrous back on the car til I could afford turbos
Think he said they get 1 run on 1.5 tank and it's running high 9's So you only get maybe 15 seconds? Very cool idea, but they lost me when they said a quality recharge setup would cost around 6-7 grand. Definitely out of my reach.
Koenigsegg is doing that. You also need something like a freevalve system, because you can't force the air in the opposite direction on an engine that is controlled by the camshaft.
Yes. Until the full system is weighed you can't compare the power to weight ratio to anything. All we know is how much the tanks weigh and the compressed air inside them. But it is pretty cool they are borrowing energy from another source and placing it on the car. You could argue a nitrous tank is doing the same. Some factory used electricity and chemistry to bottle up some energy and then shipped it to you to put on your car.
The cost to me seems to be done off the car by the compressor. the weight can't be to much different than a really involved turbo setup. think of the piping, turbo, bov, inter coolers because at hp 2000 that they were talking about and trying to make no heat in the intake with a turbo or supercharger would take quite the setup.
E, a bit of extra weight over the rear wheels wil aid traction and is propbably a good thing in that car as the power gets turned up. Plenty of front engined 1/4mile race cars have extra weight added over the rear wheels to aid traction.
You could run just an air pump with compressed gas through it & get down the track. Don't know how fast but just wondering. That's great that you guys are getting it sorted out.
Skinny Dugan see my comment, they want that for their setup, it can be made a lot easier and a simple design for literally fractions of the cost and can also recharge the bottles with a high value compressor and regulators between every run. It's very simple and cheap to do
Skinney Dugan - That's one way to go, but these guys could be good where you're class racing and need to stay with a certain size of motor. Sure, there is no end to what you can do with cubic inches or cubic $$$, but these guys are doing it with the same engine and doing so with all the positives of the air system; lower intake temperatures and no engine drag or back pressure. That will allow the engine to live far longer.
Am I right in thinking that the engine runs on a regular air intake but switches to the compressed air via a simple one way valve when the compressed air psi is x amount higher than the regular intake psi?
How do you fill the tanks after each run at the track? Dose this mean there is a lot of support equpment you need ? How much weight is added to the car?
there is a high pitched whine in the audio, not sure what that's from, but it's certainly there. I have really good hearing, I'm not surprised some don't hear it (to be expected), the pitch is up there.
Just injecting fuel with pure oxygen is one hell of an explosion, thats why they tell you NOT to use oil on or near the oxygen cylinder or regulators in an oxyacetylene system.
This interview has to be way older than 2017. Lennart of Autoshop passed away about 10 years ago but his wife still runs the buisiness. Regardless , this is a great example of intelligent, well seasoned engineers walking through the development process.
As a general comment for those who are interested. Yes we have continued to run and evolve the system in question. The car (Pre CV19) was a regular at Autoclub Dragway Fontana, CA.
A lot of effort has gone into simplifying the system for the end user. Current focus is on creating a high pressure tank & regulator package that is essentially a "drop in" , no customer hoses, etc.. We have systems we could sell to serious racers (and have actually setup several) but, they require a fair amount of engineering acumen to configure and operate correctly. Hence we have not pushed them.
With respect to the Camaro, it runs 12.30 on the motor. At 6 - 7 psi it has run 9.60. At 8- 9 psi it has run 5.77 in the 1/8th (8.94 1/4 equivalent); most of our development work is 1/8 mi stuff as launch and low gear rapid transients have been the most difficult things to sort out. In the above testing we run VP C12, engine timing remains @ N.A. MBT levels (≈ 34° total). No other changes, N.A. to boosted.
So, yes it does work, the physics are sound and the system is safe. It has been developed with the same level of scrutiny (engineering design, testing & failure effects analysis) that we have used on high pressure natural gas vehicle systems for years in OEM applications.
Our intent is to continue to evolve the concept with an eye towards producing systems that perform well and that fill a niche in the high performance aftermarket.
Karl as you may know we are building the first Compressed Air Engine for your system and will post Videos on the build and car on my CZcams channel. like with NOS it will take some time for everybody to come on board. Everybody will be kicking themselves in the ass for not investing in this.
Airplanes run on compressed air not fuel, but this is the secret of the beast system
Amazing video buddy and great read here. TOP work AND i hope the end result will be a small package we can buy and bolt in our road cars =)
Would love to see this technology combined with CNG. At near 120 octane could have significant compression ratios and a lot of power.
@@MrDanielSoliz I'm so excited to see this. I've been going insane with ideas similar to work withis actually. I have a new type if engine to build but I'm not a mechanic. I'm an inventor. I want to work with some OGs.
I wanted so badly to watch this whole video but that high-pitched ringing is just unbearable.
PatonHaus got some more sympathy for tinnitus suffers
Ivan Lynn No kidding me too
eh, its lame. they repeat themselves hundreds of times
Ivan I had to stop multi times to check if it was my ears ring louder or if it was the video I couldn'y watch more than 4 minutes of this video
Forget the ringing noise, the way this was all presented was so boring I couldn't take it. Great idea and I was excited at first but fucking Ben Stein killed it for me and I just couldn't pay attention anymore.
Man I really enjoyed watching this. There's nothing like listening to someone talk about a subject that they have spent so much time thinking about. Just awesome.
I did as well, they explained things very well I think. :) There have been a couple different articles in Hot Rod Mag, this last year.
Yes Karl know his stuff. Anything with flow dynamics and theory he has always been spot on.
Yeah it would also be enjoyable if they actually showed it in action.
3300 psi in the back seat sounds like a ticking timebomb. What happens when some Asian rear ends you in traffic.
Say goodbye to Kansas...
thanks ... but no thanks professor sociopath.
Love the video. What is the constant highlight pitch throughout the video?
That long ass video, not one single clip of a run?
Jesse Smith Hey Jesse, i can tell you first hand it works. Its not b.s. like some are saying. Its really the cost that makes it unmanagable. i.M.H.O.
Easy to miss: 27:27
Not a dyno run. A dragstrip run.
it's a trade off between the weight of the tanks being high enough to make it slow, versus low enough dude's afraid to drive cuz it's a bomb held in check by flimsy wrapping. My guess...
Yeah all that and he said it runs 9.8s lol
That buzzing is crazy
So the power comes from the compressed air being forced into the intake , compressing the cylinder and forcing the piston down? Of course the fuel is igniting but the majority of the energy is due to the crazy amount of air being forced into the system? Is that correct or am I wrong?
you're wrong, the boost pressure is only 8psi. its got no parasitic loss of energy like you get from turbo or supercharger, both produce very hot charges as they are compressing, this system makes a cool charge because the air is already compressed and cools as it expands. the charge is then denser, thus containing more oxygen molecules per specific volume at the same boost level. all of that means you can put more fuel in to the cylinder and get more energy from the combustion, moreso than a turbo or supercharger can produce at the same boost. this engine wouldnt be anywhere near the same hp levels if it had a turbo running the same boost level.
krameip7604 thanks for the info!! I'm no engineer , or mechanic, but I do have a pretty good idea of how things work. This one confused me a little! Thanks for clearing that up !
I guess I should have expressed that being a question, not trying to say I know how it works
I would say the camera is picking up interference from the fluorescent lamps in the room. At a guess.
I actually did this exact setup back in 1993 - 1994! Still have one of the prototypes of the Eductor here in my garage! Took my car from 16.0 Seconds in a 1/4 mile to a 14.0 flat, and I still had a lot of dial in to go. By the way guys GM did this back in the 1930's! I read about it in an old SAE journal. They scrapped the idea for every day use becuase they were concerned someone would be passing and run out of air / boost half way through the pass. (Liability) If you have any questions or what to see what we developed, I'd be happy to e-mail you a few pics of the one that I have, and the test fixture we designed and built to. (Still have it! )
trying to pass semis on the freeway in Kia is a liability 😂
I'm glad someone went through the trouble to do this properly. I give these two guys lots of credit on making it work and seemly have done a good job too. Similar to my engine head project... it takes a lot of effort to do development of a brand new thing that no one has done before and figure out all the bugs one at a time. Great explanations too!
It would take a rocket engineer to figure out how to inject oxygen not to blow things up. He doesn't use pure o2 either that's another adjustment a shade-tree guy wouldn't know when or why he should do that.
This is how docs car makes so much power
Put it this way... the mid 80's Firebird and some others Karl was instrumental in aerodynamics of them. He ran the tunnel for GM for a while. He is a great person and super super super sharp. If you ever see him around a conversation about such things you can almost see his brain thinking. When he finally speaks he will be spot on.
The delivery of the video could've been different yes but I found it extremely fascinating. I love this type of engineering stuff.
I thought they explained things very well also. :)
I thought of a compressed air system years ago. awesome to see it becoming reality.
My dog has run away thanks guys
Probably because of the ringing that everyone in the comments is complaining about.
Eric06410 lol
I laughed out loud!!
Haha!aaa
Thanks for the laugh
Years ago while working on a Ford 302 cid v 8 , while starting and revving the engine I took a standard hi flow cleaning nozzle/gun that was hooked to the shop's 135 psi air supply and blew it into the open carburetor intake.
The very noticeable difference in gain of throttle response and performance of the engine was amazing!
A short time later I had to run a slightly larger propeller on my Continental 220 gpu powered airboat, I could only get 2700 rpm at the propeller, enough to get around but would leave me stuck on occasional dry ground
Lightbulb!
I used two aluminium scuba tanks and a fire suppression system high flow dump valve.
I quickly achieved the desired 2900/3000 rpm at my propeller through tweaking the system, and being as I only needed the boost at occasional times it worked for me. This was in the mid to late 1990's.
Glad to see you guy's doing this.
We used to do that with hair dryers on our lil moto bikes when young lol
Why didn't I think of that ? Brilliant guys. I wish you all the best with this project and look forward to seeing this system in practice. Thank you for showing us.
they could've done away with that annoying ringing sound
With you on that one. It sounds like that switch-mode supply running next to the laptop.
It seems like most the people in the comments have not watched the video and are asking questions that are all answered in the video. I must be too old to hear the audio problem...or my speakers suck too much, so I actually watched the whole thing. I think the system is brilliant, they have thought about pretty much everything during development, and did a good job designing custom parts for all the tricky points in the system. I feel like the creator should post a FAQ in the description to handle all the questions people are asking. Ah, who am I kidding? That would require a click, reading, and actual brain power before spouting off a stupid comment with their keyboard.
It turns out there is a wealth of information on their site to answer most of the questions here: casupercharging.com/tech/
I agree, I heard no hi pitch whine etc, I am an aircraft mechanic - this makes total sense to me.
Matt Mead Amen! There are people who design things and there are people who mash pedals. But....pedal mashers are the customer.... I'd have liked them to compare the mass of the typical systems out there...the only close competitor is nitrous...if a test engine were maxed out on nitrous and coompressed air in back to backs what would the percent power addition be and total mass of the system and cost per kw etc. They clearly know this from bench marking. Great example of persistence and very interesting in short run applications...small engines and low boost.....bonneville?...
You have some great questions there: "if a test engine were maxed out on nitrous and coompressed air in back to backs what would the percent power addition be and total mass of the system and cost per kw etc." The only thing I can guess is the cost is pretty damn high. The power to weight ratio of the final system is very important. Wish we could get that.
What he said!
Incredible design and engineering. I cannot imagine how much effort it has taken to achieve such a complex project. You guys are awesome. Thank you for sharing your project, hope to see more...
I've been a car guy all my life, but when I began scuba diving 40 some years ago I got to thinking about the volume of compressed air and wondered if I could use it to supercharge the engine, same idea as yours, but I was just a kid really with no idea of how to increase the flow and regulate it, knew I needed a kind of priority valve in the intake to switch from ambient air to compressed, but didn't know all the details. Now I feel that you've proven I wasn't a nut back then, I just hadn't grown up enough by then to make it happen. I'm glad to see that you brought my dream to life.
this video has tinnitus
lol
Lol i tought it was mine
Lol, I actually have Tinnitus and got so confused there at the end.. Cause I only have it in my right ear and I started hearing that high pitch in my other ear now and I was like, oh great this is just fuckin awesome, now I got this shit in both ears! Lol
I thought it was just me. Thank you.
😂😂😂
I thought of this system when I was 12 years old. I'm not joking. Around 12 was when I learned how forced induction worked. That summer is also when I got my open water SCUBA cert. I thought one night about why you wouldn't just use a tank of compressed air. Of course at the time I was 12 and had no clue it could be anything more than a passing thought. Fast forward 17 years and I see this video. So cool!
J D I had the same idea but with using an air compressor
Had it too in the 80s,writte them down when you get them,multi million$ ideas passing by sometimes
I thought of this too, with a compressor tank like boyzz said. It is the most efficient way to get boost pressure (breifly), so I'd imagine a hellova lot of people have pondered this, and ultimately decided it's daft because of how much CFM an engine will need, unless it's a tiny engine.
The Boyzzz & Simon T, using an air-compressor translates to you merely running a traditional supercharger. That's been around since 1878. It gives you a boost, but it comes at the cost of power needed to drive the compressor. Now, a hybrid system would be interesting for niche scenarios. You could get tank-boost when max-power is needed, and then have the engine drive the compressor to repressurize the tanks when horsepower is not required. But not many races popular today would benefit from that. Maybe it could be useful by allowing you to drop in a much smaller/lighter engine, and still have the power you need for peppy acceleration. But it'd be easy to screw up and implement that in a way that you are screwed in a stop-and-go traffic situation. If you find yourself with no compressed air left, then you might not have the power needed to climb a hill in the city.
As the video mentions, the hard part in these things isn't usually the clever idea. It's the elbow work in terms of trial-and-error and lots of tricky math needed to make it a mature product, ready to market.
If I were you I’d be really pissed.
I designed one of these systems over the span of 2 months. Almost identical yet I managed to make a system without the electronic pressure regulation and still maintain stability. Im roughly 47 years late to create one of these before anyone else. I believe the concept of compressed air into the intake was first invented around 1971. Just wanted to bring this up.
Just absolutely love this video!!! I was instructed back in the early 80's about CAS in my High School small engines class. But nobody was doing it. You have made my training relevant.
Nitrous doesnt hurt engines. Bad tuners hurt engines.
Drift Physics "Amateurs don't use nitrous!"
Drift Physics
Exactly !!
id be inclined to listen to the guys who are from NOS...
You notice that the guy from NOW was hesitant to say nitrous hurts engines. Plus the main guy talking doesnt really seem like he understands how nitrous works. He said"the main power boost from nitrous comes from the break down of the molecule, not the extra fuel you add to cool the combustion." Sorry dude, nitrogen and oxygen down burn by themselves, you have to add fuel for the excess oxygen to react with and make energy. I understand breaking the nitrogen and oxygen bond will release a little bit of power, but it's not the main source of poerr from the nitrous.
krameip7604 dont believe everything an engineer tells you. Cause most of the time it's bullshit that only applies to paper and not the real world.
So many people hating. Sit back and enjoy these great minds at work! They invented N.O.S, they obviously know their stuff.
Thank you for saying that.
Nitrous oxide was used in ww2 by the Germans in there fighter planes...it's been around for a long time buddy
They did not "invent" nitrous oxide.....
@@Clapxiomatic who said they did
@Cid Waters 😅😂
I never knew about the limitations of nitrous, once that is explained compressed air seems obvious to me, massive respect for getting it working
No parasitic loss, no intercooler, super/turbo charger, optimal timing, A/F ratio, adjustable boost pressure. Nice idea, never thought about it. All the effects of turbo charging, supercharging an nos combined in one system.
It's like having a NOS system that's very nearly empty
Neil, you got the idea. Pretty freaking cool, huh?
Matt & Neil, seems like a great idea to me for 1/4mile racing.
They should crank the boost up to 20psi or more to really silence the critics, ie add two more tanks.
When will this be available to the public? I'm all in.
The blue sweater guy must be a real hoot at parties.
84moneypit 😂😂😂😂
I'd talk to that guy at a party
I actually am the blue sweater guy. Yall couldn't keep up with me if you tryed,at the party or at the track😎
And that's why you're picking up used needles in underpasses to earn cash from needle return schemes.
@@LivingLifeSlower lol that's harsh
I had this idea at 15 yrs old! Glad to see someone else had it as well and did something with it!
My mechanic ears worked out well. Adjust the hearing and the way of thinking. TUNE IN AND TUNE OUT.
Great info all around. Pressure regulator is a must to maintain the PSI. Thank you for the video with great info
Now imagine air compressor brakes and a exhaust or belt driven compressor that can recharge the system on the road!
Sid probably too much moving parts and alot of extra weight.
naufal muhammad BMW has poured money into regenerative brakes to become lightweight and a feasible electric power source. Maybe swap the second air tank for a battery to store energy to drive an electric air compressor. The power delivery from brakes and a beefy alternator can probably provide enough to provide long term boost from the compressed air
Mark Wright yea but im talking about a compressor that feeds air into the storage tanks not the engine. Point being the stored compressed air delivers instant boost response but you only have so much compressed air so im trying to figure out how this system can be recharged on the road.
The tanks need to be 300 PSI minimum. I'm not sure what kind of compressor would be capable of filling those tanks fast enough to be practical in any application where you need power continuously. But if one did exist, and it was small enough, it would probably be better to just plum that into your carb rather than rely on tanks with a limited air supply.
Gaz Girl
Bwahaha!!!! You called him a muppet lol!!!!
So this is essentially a giant air hog
well.. yeah, ALL internal combustion engnes are... more or less..
I'm glad you got a nitrous guy to talk about this. This answered a lot of my questions off the bat. I think you should reupload this after sending it through a low-pass filter in audiology. That'll clip off those high pitch tones that the young people are complaining about. Personally, I'm pretty happy I can still hear them loud and clear in my mid 30s.
Dale Vaznaians reaction, at ~1:10, to Karl Staggemeirs, ex-chief engineer at NOS for many years, comment that "nitrous is dangerous" was pure gold!
So where do I invest?
would have liked to see a bunch of passes
I have asked my father who is a retired engineer and weekend drag racer "when younger" so many times about this exact thing I feel so vindicated to know a idea I derived at my self it indeed was very successful maybe its really true what my parents always told me I was engineering naturally inclined. Great video!!
Has alot of time wrapped up in this. Cheers sir nice job.
I thought of this years ago. I thought I was insane. I never had a clue about how to execute this concept. Only the idea.
BrownMoses I remember an article in carcraft during the 70s they were trying to plumb an oxygen bottle into an intake manifold to increase power density
Instead of Nitrous Oxide. I wonder how something flammable would work as opposed to a catalyst.
Rolls-Royce played with pure oxygen as an altitude booster during WW2. There with issues that other things beside the fuel would burn: valves, pistons etc. Nitrous doesn't do that
@@jacobmoses3712 the germans used nitrous oxide and/ or methanol water 50:50 mixture in their BF109´s, but only for special units
With the proper Venturi set up in the intake couldn't you maximize on volume with minimal cubic feet from the bottle
There is no volume 'lost' in this system, that would be an air leak. I imagine you meant pressure drop. With a venturi system, the flow rate and pressure would change as the source pressure drops. Think of a battery powering a bulb, it would slowly dim as the battery is discharged, a visual indication the voltage (pressure) was dropping. We'll assume that the resistance of the bulb remains the same (your venturi in the air system). So therefor, if the resistance is the same and the voltage (pressure) is decreasing, the flow has to decrease too. Laws of thermodynamics always apply, regardless of the system. To answer your question plainly, yes it would better utilize the amount of energy put into the bottle (compressed gas in this scenario) but might present unique tuning challenges. These guys are pretty smart, so my guess is that the energy lost to regulating the pressure is not enough to out weigh the benefits of a constant pressure at the manifold.
Ryan Nelson I'm not quite sure you understand what I'm saying. Let's just say it takes 50³' of gas from the bottle to make the run. If you had a Venturi that pulled in more atmosphere you would need less compressed air because if the venturi was tuned to produce 5³' of air for evey 1³' of gas from the bottle then you'd only need 20% as much from the bottle.
These numbers aren't actual...just a representation. You can make high pressure & volume with a venturi that requires much less to get siphoning than the end volume/pressure result. Just gotta have the right ratios of orifices / piping and reducers. Since he wouldn't have to flow nearly as much from the bottle, the system (valves & other restricting points) would be simpler too. Or the same valve system with much higher volume / boost at the motor.
Steven Littleton No I didn't understand, I thought you were talking about having a simple orifice meter the compressed air into the engine lol. What you're imagining is a quite a bit beyond my weak grasp of physics. Do you have any way of estimating the volume of added air and be able to do some napkin math to see if that was enough to overcome the weight of a further complicated system? My guess is that it wouldn't be enough to eliminate the second tank. Thanks for taking the time to correct my ignorance
The system closes off the atmospheric intake with a butterfly that the engineer showed and runs purely on the tanks under boost. Like Ryan said in his initial post, you don't lose or gain air based on any venturi magic you are talking about. It becomes a closed system.
Also, think about it. If you opened anything up to pull in atmospheric air you would just blow "boost" right out of it.
If u are ha ing a hard time falling asleep have a listen to these guys.....
The entire sport of racing thanks you for your detication too going fast thank you so,much!!!
And I appreciate your complete disreguard for the english language. Makes it easier to spot simpletons.
Great to hear the creators thoughts on how they made it happen!
But only 8 psi of boost when you have minimum of 60 psi at the EPR. I want to see someone run an engine with the CAS putting out 50+ psi of boost and running on nitromethane. (but that depends on how long the tanks can maintain that boost pressure) Or even higher boost if its possibly capable of outputting 100 psi (which will probably be hard to contain in the intake tract)
And there is an annoying high pitch noise during a lot of the interviews : (
8psi of this super cold dense air is probably equivalent to 40-50psi of hot air from conventional means of supercharging. so 50psi from this system would probably be comparable to 300psi of conventional supercharging... or more like 400 since the more compressed conventionally, the hotter and less dense the air.
i still think its cool, but its less self sustaining like a turbo or supercharger as in how long it lasts, kinda like nitrous but has a pure purpose at the drag strip.
Salvatore Hayes truth
one thing in top fuel racing, NHRA has it's own idea what is allowed for increasing boost. they didn't even allow the centrifugal supercharger bcs it was too efficient I suppose. a roots blower is compact. it's in one location. not spread the length of the chassis and safer then a supply of compressed potential energy. regardless if in use, it's more efficient for the weight
pds tech there's barely any weight in the system, those are carbon fiber tanks. What do you think, that a roots blower is weightless ?
That noise is all the air leaking out of the fittings.
someonw put the effort into sound editing a crappy piano track into the video but didnt hear/bother to edit out the 15khz+ buzzing noise?? Do a re upload
Lucky I can't hear over 14kHz
holy fook!!!! u measured the frequency???? da hell is wrong w u???LOL
Its 6khz tone. czcams.com/video/pchUAjQ-pxw/video.html
I UNDERSTAND THE SCIENCE AND AM AWED BY THESE OLD SCHOOLERS COMING UP WITH YET MORE WAYS TO MAKE POWER. I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE WHAT ELECTRIC CARS WILL BECOME IN THE RACING ARENA.
I had this idea as soon as I figured out how a turbo charger works. I am glad someone is playing with it :)
NOT Free energy.. its compressed air.. aka stored kinetic energy.. .
its free in a sense that there is no demand on the motor to create boost...the only down side i see here is the added weight of the bottles, but thats hardly a reason to avoid this type of setup, pros out weigh the cons for sure
I agree.
Free to the car meaning no parasitic loss
The engineer was at NO2 for 27 years. The other guy founded NO2 and was the inventor of the system.
Most of you don't know what you're talking about. This provides COLD, fridgid cold boost on a MILD motor. That's a single 4bbl 400 hp 350 SBC making 900-1000 hp that will run ALL season, and not needing pistons, (and the associated replacement costs), or high dollar head, etc.
With the deluxe air comp setup, and the system, (they said what the system might cost), you probably have the cost of a BBC blower motor, done right.
Instead of melting pistons, eating valves, and all then engne maintenance, and tuning challenges, you run a 9.5:1, hydraulic cam 350, and get 900-1000.
It is a NO brainer, and will be the next huge thing in drag racing. In 10-15 years, NO2 will be old, and outdated, and compressed air will be THE thing to have.
Just watch... I've been watching, (and building engines and cars), since the '60's; I've already seen what advanced metallurgy has done, then what turbos have done, and what NO2 has done. THIS is next...
I'm glad you understand it man. It's pretty freaking awesome. I got a little too excited and went through every comment on this video and tried to respond to many of them explaining how cool this is and how it works, but like you said, they just don't get it.
It would be great to see a class of cars set up with this system. :)
So you get 10 seconds of boost.. then have to refill your 3,000 PSI tanks for 5 minutes between passes. Because the system is "safer" what happens WHEN a car a equipped with this crashes and ruptures a 3,000 psi bottle? Also 1,000 HP is friggen childs play. You cant make a car big enough to hold all the bottles to feed real power like 3-4,000 hp of a pro mod or something, Which uses a pump... driven by the engine omg so simple! Seriously this is not marketable.
the 'air' in the tanks is inert, so there won't be an explosion from them. If there was also a fire, it might be 'fanned' by the massive release of air, but it might also get snuffed out. NO2, I do believe is flammable, so...
As far as 1000hp being child's play, that's a bit over simplified. It takes a lot of money to make HP, and one mistake during the engine build, one minute flaw in material in one part, and a large portion of the money is gone.
With a relatively stock engine, plus this setup you would have a campaignable motor for a sportsmen class drag car.
One of the barriers to participation in drag racing since it's beginnings has been the cost of participation. It's why 'dial in' or bracket racing or Et racing, whatever you want to call it was created. Before that, (when I first got into drag racing, BTW), it was a race for fast, and it also got expensive fast.
Your 3-4k hp Pro Mod argument is a red herring, no where in the vid did they say that was the intended market.
I still stand by my argument. Time will tell if it supplants NO2 systems in lower end cars.
Out of curiosity, how many 1000 hp engines have you personally built?
+George Dennison my own 1200 hp trans am, and worked on my dad's top alcohol dragster a B/AD (blown alcohol dragster) which is a 440 cubic inch billet block Brad Anderson hemi with a PSI screw blower, mechanical injection and 20 injectors. 3,500 hp (estimated) 5.30s @ 270 mph. 1,000 hp is what any dummy can put together with a turbo on virtually any forged bottom V8. I ran 23 psi on an LQ9... check my videos. as far as rupturing 3,000 psi it doesn't matter if it's inert or not that's alot of stored energy.
Years ago, I was using compressed air from an industrial compressor to blow out the air filter on a Toyota forklift. The thought of CA Supercharging entered my mind. I started the forklift, floored the throttle then sprayed the compressed air into the inlet. The engine revs increased dramatically, then BOOM! Bye bye engine. I think it over-revd and threw a rod. I think an electronic rev limiter, boost controller, fuel management system would have kept it together. I knew it was something that would work well. This was over 20yrs ago.
Great post. These guys are the best. Outstanding gents!!! I owe Dale more than I could ever say in 2 lifetimes. Karl is top top notch in the field. I see no reason why this will not be a great addition. Love the stuff guys.
What happens if the tanks were liquid oxygen?
kevin122759 then it would be hotter than nitrous 1 part nitrogen 2 parts oxygen...
Then that shit goes boom!
One word, boom.
pure oxygen was tried before nitrous but it makes things too flammable causing uncontrollable ignition
2 parts nitrogen 1 oxygen
A turbo reclaims the wasted HEAT energy of an internal combustion engine as hot exaust gasses expand. The turbo is powered (mostly) by waste heat, rather than back pressure. (Sorry, no disrespect intended).Your compressed air idea is one that I abandoned about 40 years ago due to the many cubic feet of air per second that a hungry V8 needs for power. Have you tried this on a small displacement engine? Compressed air was viable on the 100cc 2stroke engine that I was using for my tests. I am happy to see that someone is experimenting to solve the volume of air problem. Compressed air could offer many of the advantages of NOS, but without the expense. I wish you sucess in your exploration. Thanks for listening.
You might have abandoned your project because you couldn't get enough cubic feet of air per second, but these guys designed enough parts to make it happen. At the 19 minute mark he explains they use 160 ft^3 for one pass. Nothing off the shelf could flow that much, so he designed things going all the way back to the valves on the tanks that he was showing. Of course it could scale down to a smaller engine.
Oxygen+fuel in the chamber = no unburned fuel in the exaust. Tread lightly or a cylinder of o2 in its compressed form will send egt s up quick. Its an old hilbilly trick for bout 250bucks vs mods like twin turbos. It will kill a 12 valve cummins quick
You have a great point Decoy 263. The further you go above 21% oxygen such as in atmospheric air, the further your temps in the combustion chamber go up and as you mentioned EGT. You literally start melting shit. That's why Karl went over the alternatives and decided against them. Many people immediately think - What about Nitrox at 40% O2? What about pure liquid O2? What about the fact that nitrous oxide is ~33% O2? Practicality goes down fast. You would have to start making pistons and stuff out of a new material to handle the heat and yet still have the other properties that make those parts work well.
A turbo car can have 90psi exhaust manifold back pressure @ full noise.
Decoy 263 they're using compressed air not compressed o2. Would probably be easier to use liquid oxygen for that sort of system
I love this intellectual man, he knows his numbers...! A VIRTUE !!
REPLY
Karl Staggemeier
www.hotrod.com/articles/proving-compressed-air-supercharging-blow-carburetor/
this is an awesome concept in my mind. not sure how much a total system would be yet but the entire concept seems brilliant to me. science in action
As far as weight, anyone ever weight a large turbo or super charger? I would have to say this is lighter. It doesn't need intercooling bc the air is cool already. This is pretty damn interesting.
People, from what I've seen, really don't appear to appreciate the importance of the temperature, and hence the density of the ingoing air charge. Not too mention how relatively benign it is to the engine itself and parts. The timing needing no retardation and the fuelling remaining constant and not needing to be overly rich.
Of course the system is really only suitable for the strip. But it is, as you say, very interesting.
Scott Gaskill it is fitting air filter
I hadn't thought of this system since I wrote my comment above, but someone commented, so I came back, and reading over the comments, again, the biggest barrier to understanding how amazing this might turn out to be, for low dollar racing, is most people don't know, or forget, an engine is a big-ass air pump.
Anything you can do to increase the air volume pumped, while mitigating destruction, is a performance boost.
Low cost, non-destructive, non-parasitic increase of volume via compressed air seems like a natural, to me.
Something else everyone seems to over look with turbos is anything broken, which goes through the combustion chamber, and out the exhaust, has a high likelihood of damaging the turbo. Chunk of piston, or ring, (from nitrous), there's a grand, just for the turbo rebuild.
GeoD
@@georgedennison3338 i say forget about traditional engine design.
turbo is an air compressor. driven by exhaust gas, and heat.
why use the engine itself as a compressor as well?
why expand compressed air in a bottle into a cylinder then recompress it?
dump the intake and compression strokes, inject compressed air as the exhaust closes before TDC, direct inject fuel as well, light it up...
ignition commences ATDC, pistons approaching ideal position to actually produce torque, and the extra heat pumping from the exhaust only assists the turbo chargers... modified "lenoir cycle". no need for a blower or pre-compressed charge to start.
run compound turbos... see twins hit 130PSI... thats getting close to normal compression ratios in an engine... how about triples, put some effort into really matching them? not much info on matching compound turbos...
lag would be terrible but as a range extender...
@@paradiselost9946 Now, THAT is a novel idea; just skip the entire plenum, runners, adequate volume issues & inject straight into the cylinder... hmm... You got me thinking about how cam lobe design could change tremendously, flat top, or even dished pistons to increase chamber size.
My head's spinnin'. Is this your original idea? I want to think about it a bit to see if there's any flaming holes of failure. If not, I would like to put it to someone who builds racing engines of all flavors & actually manufactures his own design all aluminum block & so9n, heads. If it's your idea, I don't want to step on your toes. That'd just be rude.
Gotta ponder this one...
I learned how to build high performance engines in the '60's & built Small Block Chev motors thru the '80's, for street & track. Learned porting & all the tricks, did everything but gring cranks & cams. Been a while, haven't built a motor since '85-'86.
GeoD
TL;DW: [aka save my ears from bleeding]
Compressed air as an alternative to turbo charger/super charger/nos
Been in development since 2002, expected to hit the market in 2017
Compressed air is better than turbo charger/super charger/nos because it doesn't require special tuning, and doesn't cause inconsistent combustion - touted as safer and alleged to give more boost
Doesn't cause same parasitic draw from car as a turbo or super charger does
Can only be used in short duration like NOS, due to decompression of air causing condensation
Benefit that it cools engine instead of heating it, temperatures wont stabilize in a 1/4mi run
Boost up to 11lbs for the engine in test car, can go higher on smaller engines
One tank not enough for a run, two tanks is a bit more than needed
Pressurized to 3300psi
Lots of specialized parts, precision high flow valves, custom carb, and custom computer - no off the shelf parts
Air tanks refilled using scuba compressor
Pretty damn good description man, thanks! There is one point you made I would like to discuss. You said it can only be used in short duration due to condensation. In the video he didn't make it very clear, but he was talking about on the outside of all the equipment, not the inside. As somebody reminded somebody else in another comment, that scuba compressor tries to really dry the air out as it compresses it. It should have a very low moisture content. Even though it is coming out of the ejector at -80°F it should have very little water or ice doing anything funky. He was just mentioning how you notice it on the outside all the plumbing and stuff after a run. I don't think that limits the duration at all. I think the only limit to duration is capacity on board the car. As in how many tanks do you want to shove in there?
I was just trying to give a description of what they said in the video, not really provide any kind of personal view on it. Me personally, I think its way too impractical to be useful to anyone who isn't a drag racer.
He did say that the short duration of the run keeps it from turning into a block of ice... I would say if that ever did become an issue, you could simply insulate the tanks and lines. I doubt that'll be an issue though, because you're using it for too short of a duration. This system is clearly only useful in quarter mile drag race scenarios, as you blow through almost 2 entire tanks in that time alone. I wouldn't think this is something anyone would be able to put in a car just to chooch around town.
Yep, all good points. Once again thanks for the summary. Hopefully people who don't watch the whole video can just read your comment.
Not the intended use Kamel. It is engineered for a drag race use. :)
I don't disagree, but that's basically just agreeing with me. I think it would have been appropriate to cover the intended use up front.
All talk and no before and after track or dyno runs?
id like to see some results from this system setup. whats your timing curve look like whats your fuel pressure and what type of fuel are you running, what are the air temps and your engine temps under load? do a dyno run with and without the system. what are its shortcomings besides having to refill your tanks every pass? whats the total weight of the system?
The very high pitched whining in the background made this video unwatchable for me. I really was interested in it too but now my tinnitus is going crazy after only a fee minutes of watching
1RAH i have tinnitus but it's not a high ringing sound it's a bassy 60hz hum triggered by washing machines and airplanes going by or complete silence does it too. The ringing in the video didn't bother me although i can definitely hear it
Holy shit. It's like a wet dream come to life.... O.o
Please post more content social media is critical to marketing and letting the consumer see what you have to offer and the journey
Wow it’s funny I came across this video I was wondering if it was possible to use compressed air but my thoughts where there isn’t enough capacity in anything I could use such as a air bomb. That man is a genius I would have never been able to figure that system out
Very cool system, great video. The ringing isn't a big deal, too many fruitcakes complaining over nothing. Wish there was a video of the car in action.
Listen at 1.5x, you'll go crazy
That's most likely because your hearing sucks
Just because you have shit hearing doesn't make the rest of us "fruitcakes". The high pitched whine is tolerable but pretty annoying.
What if you wreck? I'm sure the guy made sure they're caged in well....
+tim babeu -my thoughts exactly, -isn't this along the same lines why NHRA banned CO2 extinguishers on drag cars? You've got a huge amount of stored energy there in those cylinders, -much like when an air compressor tank lets go, -it is a huge mess..
they have the same pressure than co2 tanks at 3000-3300psi, they can put 4500 psi on those carbon fiber thanks, they're similar or pretty much the same to scuba or paintball tanks.
carbon fiber tank wont fly around if it cracks. idk ..it might if the valve shears off the top..?
the most common failure is the regulator exploding, or cutting off.. you can see some videos of paintball players diving and the regulator gets cut and the tank sky rockets
What if you wreck with NOS tanks? What if you wreck a Toyota Mirai with hydrogen tanks? What if you wreck a bus powered by LNG or CNG? This isn't the only vehicle in the world with compressed gas onboard.
Compressed air supercharging was tried in the late 60s and I actually worked on it in the 80s. At the time though cylinders were too HEAVY and carb/fuel injection tech just wasn't there. Its funny because i used to heat and turn the injector tube in at a 45 deg angle on their plate systems in the 80s a year later NOS made that change to their systems. Best of luck guys.
A very interesting concept and I am glad they are able to bring it to reality,
The bottles are facing the driver, if the valve blows out, there are two potential rockets aimed right at the drivers head lol. Pretty cool idea. Not exactly new, but cool non the less
DaveandCruz the bottles are facing backwards towards the rear bumper not the driver
if the regulator breaks off, all that gas shoots out that hole pushing the bottle towards the driver. We dont get that good of a shot of the inside of the trunk area but im sure theres a blast shield of sorts protecting the driver.
There's a KITT turbo boost button for that.... Car goes all duke boys outta nowhere!
....this an old april fools joke?
J MR no it's legit and awesome
17 minutes into this and I'm still waiting for a demo!
www.hotrod.com/articles/compressed-air-supercharging/
Easy to miss, check out 27:27.
My dad and his buddies did something like this in the 70's just messing around. They took a couple cars and a cutting torch and one 1 car mounted the oxygen tank from the cutting torch, and the other car mounted the acetylene tank from the cutting torch. Both engines melted down pretty quickly because they didn't account for the extra heat and the fuel system running lean.
Yep the squealing is killing me!
I'm guessing this is more of a "can we do this" thing than a "should we do this" cause the answers are obviously different to the two questions. Anyway cool idea but just a experiment obviously.
James Rowland I suspect that is the case, rich educated car guys playing around in the garage. Nothing you will probably see on the street
I can understand your replies, but their website seems to point to a retail system.
I am sure this will be more than that if I know these 2. Both very driven people and Dale knows how to make a business.......No Doubt about that..(with out spilling any beans how I know). The valves you saw I am sure that they are ready or are starting to have some kind of a volume made.
I did invent this in a dream about 20 years ago but I think my Dad talked me out of the whole idea. Its late I wonder if I am dreaming right now because this is totally radical awesome .
So, some guy who may, or may not of, been me worked medical supply, and may have run a straight shot of oxygen through a buddies air intake on a 90's Dodge Neon. It was pretty incredible for a 6 or 7 second stretch. He hadn't touched the gas for a couple seconds, and we were still accelerating. He drove the car for another year after that and never noticed any engine damage.
First problem I see is not an LS!
czcams.com/video/_DDswtLUhdM/video.html
neither is this car...
10k.........sorry guys way to much cash for one pass.
10k is pretty cheap for that much power in the drag racing world
Baxter Ross Wow, i dont think so. Maybe for Alpha Getty!!
Baxter Ross I just watched an Engine Masters video where they made 750 hp with a stock cast 350 bottom end with a procharger. Very close in hp and cheaper. Oh and you get that power as much as you want. Not one hit and done.
Dunecoones per run? No
turboL67 they also used 116 octane fuel to stop it from detonating and damaging the engine. Also a procharger set up isnt that cheap either
wow just wow such a great idea, no loss to boost the air, no heat generated in that loss, and also the ability to deliver super high boost of idle,
This is very interesting stuff, something I've thought about before but could never visualize. Seems to me though that you could make the whole system much more efficient, by injecting the compressed air directly into the cylinder during the compression stroke of the engine. Of course you'd really need a fuel injection engine to go along with it. Just seems to me like pressurizing the entire intake system is wasted energy
with a turbo you make power from waste which is power from nothing am i wrong?
The exhaust gases have to push past the turbine to exit the car which creates additional back pressure before the turbo. So you technically lose some volumetric efficiency but as soon as the compressor pressurizes the intake it makes the engine more efficient then it ever could be on its own. So if you stuck a turbo on your exhaust and didn't plum the compressor to the intake you would technically lose power (and spin the bearing in the turbo) because the back pressure is technically creating a load for the engine to overcome and lowering the volumetric efficiency.
technically you're pretty much correct, non-technically speaking
Anthony is pretty much spot on, -turbos have to make boost before any extra power is made, and unfortunately, the exhaust restriction comes at a cost well before it is able to make boost (that is why there is a lag before the power comes on). At the end of the day, a turbo (or supercharger) costs HP, -but they offer an increase that far exceeds the power-requirement to drive the device (they give more than they take). In my opinion, this whole compressed air thing is a gimmick, -only because it isn't practical, or sustainable, -and lasts a very short amount of time. For a street driven car, any other type of mechanically driven forced induction makes a lot more sense. Nitrous in and of itself is not "dangerous", -only more particular in how it is set up. Nitrous offers very little leeway in terms of things going out of spec. -such as timing, fuel pressure, etc. -in that regard, it is very picky (yes, I have built, raced, and damaged a few nitrous motors). This compressed air thing is neat, but it will never replace turbos or superchargers in my opinion.
Anthony Trujillo turbos are not more efficient than naturally aspirated, but the ability to move more air and esp. more fuel, getting a higher output. sucking more drops of fuel per rpm is a way to look at it. efficient way of creating boost compared to crank driven superchargers, but they do suck more fuel
pds tech a turbo charger absolutely increases the efficiency of an engine. An engine relies on camshaft overlap to expell (scavenge)the spent exhaust gases. So an n/a engine is using the movement of air to expell 70%-80%-90% (what ever the engines volumetric efficiency is at what ever rpm) of the exhaust gases, and draws in that amount of a fresh air fuel mixture. A turbo charged engine with a pressurized intake manifold ( from 0 psi to what ever just not under vacuum) can achieve over 100% volumetric efficiency.. that's right they can actually push fresh air fuel mixture into the exhaust. So yes a turbo can increase an engines volumetric efficiency and thermo efficiency.
Wouldn't it have been better to attach a turbine wheel in the driveline and use the compressed air to drive that instead?
You could do that, but you get way more power by burning fuel with that air and then expanding it in the engine with the pistons, than you would just allowing it to expand across a turbine and then exhausting to the outside air.
But you could use a turbine (or several staged turbines) to reduce pressure from tank pressure manifold pressure instead of the throttling valves they're using. But then that's more mechanical complexity.
What part of the cold air and fuel speech did you not understand? The entire point of this is when the air discharges (just like a air can) it gets super cold, and that's where the real power lies.
bravo - you invented supercharging
Baxter Ross, it's kind of funny how many people tried to invent supercharging in the comments without even realizing it. The whole point is you are compressing the air external to the car, using energy from a different source. That's a very important step that most people are missing. They immediately switch over to "Oh, but you could fill the tanks back up! Using a ..... on the car!" Jesus Christ, SMH!
Matt Mead I think someone should do something similar with compressors on the car that use braking energy to charge the tanks. Then it's like every 10 stops you get to haul major ass once.
These some super smart individuals. Any one can be an idea's guy. To exicute this was more then just genius.
I like these guys , good people
this sucks! all the extra weight , for maybe 20seconds of boost, its a cool project but it doesn't make sense at all, theirs a reason people use superchargers turbos and nitrous, and not reserves of compressed air.. the parasitic losses would be less the the weight added If you consider you get 20 seconds of boost vs unlimited boost. I see it as more of a nitrous eqivalnt though nitrous is just as safe as boost if you're set up for it , boost will blow motors easily if you're not set up for it too. but a nitrous kit is super cheap easy to install and light everything this kit is not! everyone who's giving boost some thought has thought of this idea , and realized it was dumb theirs no money here its more of a science project.
Eric Petrovich the added weight is still a huge drawback especially with the very low power this set up adds
I built a system kinda like this in highschool thought it was gonna be bad ass. Tank emptied in like 15 seconds. Was a neat idea but ended up putting the nitrous back on the car til I could afford turbos
josh012345 not that much weight...the tanks empty maybe weigh like 5 pounds each
Think he said they get 1 run on 1.5 tank and it's running high 9's
So you only get maybe 15 seconds?
Very cool idea, but they lost me when they said a quality recharge setup would cost around 6-7 grand. Definitely out of my reach.
i believe its more a nitrous alternative comparing it to turbo or supercharging is wrong since they are always working
compressor in the trunk ! :)
yep
das wut I'm sayin
What about compression braking to recharge the tank?
Koenigsegg is doing that. You also need something like a freevalve system, because you can't force the air in the opposite direction on an engine that is controlled by the camshaft.
how did you solve the problem to evenly fill the cylinders with air with only one carburettor?
I've got a better idea, ride a horse...
Or even better, strap a tank to that horse and stick the nozzle up its ass......compressed air will make that horse incredibly fast!
No such thing as something for nothing in physics, there's always a cost. This one may be weight but without hands on access no way to know.
Yes. Until the full system is weighed you can't compare the power to weight ratio to anything. All we know is how much the tanks weigh and the compressed air inside them. But it is pretty cool they are borrowing energy from another source and placing it on the car. You could argue a nitrous tank is doing the same. Some factory used electricity and chemistry to bottle up some energy and then shipped it to you to put on your car.
The cost to me seems to be done off the car by the compressor. the weight can't be to much different than a really involved turbo setup. think of the piping, turbo, bov, inter coolers because at hp 2000 that they were talking about and trying to make no heat in the intake with a turbo or supercharger would take quite the setup.
E, a bit of extra weight over the rear wheels wil aid traction and is propbably a good thing in that car as the power gets turned up.
Plenty of front engined 1/4mile race cars have extra weight added over the rear wheels to aid traction.
but can the engine handle the pressure? can the stock manifold bolts, head cylinder bolts hold up or do you have to convert to studs?
You could run just an air pump with compressed gas through it & get down the track. Don't know how fast but just wondering. That's great that you guys are getting it sorted out.
Only really useful in a short drag race and nothing more
pretty much. if it takes a bottle and a quarter to do a quarter mile pass, it would probably make a half mile, but thats about it
no shit...
The Moto, yup, for a dedicated drag car.
7k just buy a new motor
Skinny Dugan I don't think that was an old motor. Lol
Or build a real motor
7k was just for the tanks and the compressor. He never mentioned the cost of the whole system.
Skinny Dugan see my comment, they want that for their setup, it can be made a lot easier and a simple design for literally fractions of the cost and can also recharge the bottles with a high value compressor and regulators between every run. It's very simple and cheap to do
Skinney Dugan - That's one way to go, but these guys could be good where you're class racing and need to stay with a certain size of motor. Sure, there is no end to what you can do with cubic inches or cubic $$$, but these guys are doing it with the same engine and doing so with all the positives of the air system; lower intake temperatures and no engine drag or back pressure. That will allow the engine to live far longer.
Am I right in thinking that the engine runs on a regular air intake but switches to the compressed air via a simple one way valve when the compressed air psi is x amount higher than the regular intake psi?
You’re doing thing that no one else is doing
@3:48 Guy in the Dodgers shirt looks like the product of someone who sucked on a NOS tank 1 2 many times....wtf sloth
And I bet you look like Fabio, huh?
How do you fill the tanks after each run at the track? Dose this mean there is a lot of support equpment you need ? How much weight is added to the car?
Do you have a on board compressor? Can't watch the video for the ringing.
there is a high pitched whine in the audio, not sure what that's from, but it's certainly there. I have really good hearing, I'm not surprised some don't hear it (to be expected), the pitch is up there.
Has pure oxygen ever been used? Such as medical or welding/cutting oxygen?
Just injecting fuel with pure oxygen is one hell of an explosion, thats why they tell you NOT to use oil on or near the oxygen cylinder or regulators in an oxyacetylene system.
just curious... do you have to modify gaskets or cyclinder head torque requirements for this system?
I drive a CNG tractor at work now and I'm wondering is there anyway I can give it more power without hooking a computer up to it?
This interview has to be way older than 2017. Lennart of Autoshop passed away about 10 years ago but his wife still runs the buisiness. Regardless , this is a great example of intelligent, well seasoned engineers walking through the development process.