I had an idea the other night, why not use a bottle of compressed air (rather than a turbo or nos) to pressurize the air in your engine there for giving you a performance boost?

My friends and I have already started building a prototype for a POS civic to see if it is plausable. We have looked into parts and the actual usefulness of this kit and found that the kit could be had for as little as $500, not hurt your engine like nos, still have a blow off valve for the cool sound, and only be ran when you want it to be ran, like nos, so you get your normal gas mileage, and to fill up tanks only costs you as much as 5 bucks (depending on where you go, but that seems to be average for scuba shops), and less than a 1/3 the weight of a turbo setup. The bottles of air could even but put into a small car/truck freezer (one of those made for long travels) to keep the air below ambient temperature. I will try and keep you guys upto date on how things are going and if I get a nice solid design I will be willing to test it on my car =).

let me know what you guys think?

-Justin

 

seems like a cool and new idea - cant wait to see how it turns out.

 

make sure you compensate for fuel when "under boost". you will need more fuel somehow due to the increased air flow.

 

do you knwo what kinda size tank you would need for that?
and do you know how many CFM's the car pull in at like just 3000 rpm? youd need ungodly amounts of air to presurize the intake anough to make power

if anythign is worth doing . . . its already been done :-)

but it is a good idea and if it does happen to work you can make fun of me and stuff for bein wrong

 

I actually thaught of that at one point, but I'm just too chicken to try it out. If it does give you any gains... then mad props to you and your bud Definetly keep us updated

 

ya i hope it works too - be awesome to have something that can give u some boost and perhaps not blow your engine like NOS?

 

i agree with liquid you need a lot of cfm

 

I agree with that as well, but...

No matter what tank size you've got, I think the only needed thing would be a tank that is pressurized at his maximum right. Of course you couldn't run the tank 24h a day. But a race usually last 15 to 18 seconds right... So if you only use that pressuriez tank for races, I think youo should be okay.

Let says you've got a 20lbs tank that takes 30 seconds to empty it-self at "wide open tank ", you should be able to boost up a bit for at least 15 seconds. Even if it's only 2 or 3 pounds of boost, that is still alot better than stock.

Am I correct, or am I completly off?

 

but if he's boosting 2 to 3 psi... how much horsepower is he going to get 12whp take or give a few... is it even worth it.... the tank will probably weigh him down and cancel out the effects of the extra horsepower

 

see, I've thought most of this out and done some tests already. First off, tanks is 112CI and hold 5000PSI. I understand that the engine uses a bunch of air, thats why I said it could only be used when you needed it, we would be using Volume of the air rather than all that pressure. running through a regulator dropping to about 50 PSI (needed to compensate for the volume difference the tank can run for a good 30 minutes just letting the air come out, if you wanted to see any gains though you would be looking at something like 100 PSI, which would drop the tank in roughly 10 minutes (its not proportionate). This IS NOT the boost level, just the pressure of the air as it comes off of the regulator. As for the weight of the setup, all the gear we have now is less than 50lbs. the tank is not a steel scuba tank. Though you could hold more air, its to heavy, so we are using large High Pressure Carbon Fiber paintball tanks. so you got the CF cool factor =P. the hose is all steel braided, and the valves, at the moment are all custom made, along with the BOV. at the moment the intake its made of PVC but we hope to move it to aluminum very soon if we see some good results.

You all have very good points about air consumption, but take into consideration this. Regular atmospheric air is compriesed of only about 21% oxygen. With my system, I can control how much oxygen is put into my tank. Scuba shops can do super high concentrations for deep sea diving, being higher than 50% in concentration. With this being said, the air, even if not pressurized would provide boost just because it contains more oxygen to burn. I will upate you guys very soon with how things are going.


*edit*

also, about fuel compensation, using a chip like the one from RRM, which is turbo compatible, will allow for more fuel when needed, more so since you will want to be running premium gas anyway if you are trying to boost. we are also running some basic tests right now to see how many PSI we can accomplish without emptying the whole tank in only a few seconds, and if all else fails, I believe that dumping higher concentrations of oxygen straight into the intake, along with the air it is sucking in could produce some good yields for those who want to stay N/A.

-Justin

 

You gotta keep in mind, not to raise the Oxygen level too high though. Cause if it's too high, it will just blow up in pieces when it gets sparked.

 

very true, that why I am testing on a POS civic lol, don't want to hurt my baby, but if I can produce something promising and not hurt the engine, I will make it for my Lancer.

 

tweak u said, " Scuba shops can do super high concentrations for deep sea diving, being higher than 50% in concentration. With this being said, the air, even if not pressurized would provide boost just because it contains more oxygen to burn"

are you sure about that higher o2 content... at depth o2 becomes poison... and i think for deep diving they run some kind of nitrogen... anyways to my point... i dont know if a dive shop will fill up those paintball gun tanks unless you know the owner b/c most, not all, wont fill up not cert tanks... in other words only dive tanks that have been inspected and passed, so you may have to switch to a heavy *** dive tank.

 

they will fill the tanks aslong as they are still under spec and have been tested approporately. AKA, any PB tank that is purcahsed online or instore which is made for high pressure air is certified to be filled. And no, CO2 tanks will not hold enough pressure to to be used for this sort of thing. Though the people filling them can refuse to just because it is not a scuba tank, but I have never had that problem with any of the local shops, because they are alot cheaper than the PB stores. if all else fails, you could go to welding shops to get pure oxygen in smaller bottles, this would add to the weight, but as long as you can have it mix in proper proportions you should be fine.

I mainly mentioned this here because I am looking for others to think of things I might be missing so I can see what needs to be done to keep this plausable, cheap, and safe.

-Justin

 

Ok... first of all your going to need to get the concentrated oxygen to boost for about 15 or more seconds at least... otherwise it wont last a full quartermile... the equipment and refilling of the O2 tanks might cost you more in the long run considereing how fast the 02 tanks can be emptied under boost. You might need bigger fuel injectors to compensate for the heavy concentrations of 02, because more 02 means more fuel -> more horsepower... I'ld be pretty impressed if you can run that set up and receive about 2 to 5 whp per boost... anywayz i am rooting for you... and one more thing... how are you going to trigger the boost when you want to? You might wanna try to raise the concentration of the o2 to high levels and then feed the intake manifold little amounts of 02... therefore giving you more time to boost... but only at lower psi's