Turbo future is looking good! Luckily we have some time to prepare our wallets.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/samabue.../#1237fe3c180a

 

Good idea. Forged rods and pistons will be a must for the early torque.

 

I didn't read the entire article, but it looks like a three phase brushless motor design that allows exhaust gases to still spool the turbine wheel of the turbo, but the electric side of it spools it very fast at lower rpms when the exhaust gases are low. Not a full electric turbo, but very impressive.

 

Yah its like a hybrid turbo. You could spin up large turbos very quickly. Theoretically a very nice "Have your cake and eat it" for us, big turbo with near instant transient response.

 

For transient response that's all well and good. But I don't see our engines being able to handle faster spool for earlier torque as someone else stated above.

My 2.2 with the red can surges bad at 32-3400rpm since it wants to try to make all the boost down there in the 5th.. The engine can only ingest so much air.

 

What I envision would hopefully be something with the response of a supercharger but the efficiency of a turbo. I wouldn't mind 500 ft-lbs at 2000rpm but realistically what I care about is throttle response.

 

Since a turbo charger isn't positive displacement, you would have to find how much air the engine could take, and ramp the turbo RPM with engine rpm. It won't be able to be on kill at 2500rpm.

 

Yah if this works out it will definitely be a boon to tuners, and the aftermarket at large. This tech could lead to some pretty wild stuff. I'm really curious to see what those limits are. The more area under the curve the better.

 

I went to pass someone on the free way last night. Rolled into it without really thinking about it, and it spiked 38psi at 3100, And it did not like it at all. It will definitely require a few 3d tables of commanded shaft speed vs engine RPM, and some sort of target boost table, etc.

Or you could run a servo controlled recirc blow off valve, so the electric motor can park the turbo right on the whip (the shaft rpm where the turbo has the energy to make boost) and the BOV closes as boost is needed and then exhaust gas will take over at the normal "spool" point.

 

They don't mention what sort of minimum actuator psi that thing runs in the pic. Prob a mild minimum psi is my guess.
A bit off topic, but I'll throw it in. Collin's 6.2sec Eclipse runs compound turbos and it has an electronically controlled
waste gate under the inlet manifold to waste some psi when needed. It runs 112psi tho

 

The control strategies are going to be SUPER interesting. For simplicity you could leave most of the boost control the same. You then just use the motor to speed up the turbo until its moving enough air to be self sustaining, then it just transitions to pure turbine power. Use throttle position to control watts to the motor and have a cut off circuit to handle the transition. You could probably get super fancy with it too using algorithms and look up tables with multiple data inputs.

 

The pic shows an electronic actuator, so it doesn't have "spring" pressure. Boost will be what the computer wants it to be. Those don't even have a boost reference line to them.

 

This would go nice on a bigger turbo, MIVEC 2.3L setup. It would be able to ingest a lot more air at lower RPM yet make big peak numbers, further taming a big turbo's lag. Motorsport use is probably still a long way away, but I could see one of a 2.3L/MIVEC/eTurbo GTX35 responding like a 16G on a 2.0L.

 

Motorsport use a long way away? This is current tech in F1....

 

Off-the-shelf motorsport. This will be found in OEM applications for fuel efficiency for years before it's available in aftermarket performance sectors because of the cost. Once the cost drops, it will be way more widespread.