motomoron wrote:
These threads always go like this:
"I'm thinking of making X by some means other than conventional wisdom"
and a pig-pile ensues with everyone assuring the original poster a certain death, or at minimum, a painful failure following some huge and expensive effort. As someone who designs and makes things for a living and has supercharged exactly one car, were I to want to do this again I'd begin with one of the inexhaustable supply of Eaton superchargers that were original equipment on many, many cars. If I had to do some casting I'd make a manifold. Making the plug, cores, boxes copes and drags to sandcast that should only take maybe 100 hours. I have a big enough milling machine to face the mating surfaces. Then it's a relatively simple matter of making it all fit, sorting out the mounting brackets, belt tension adjusters, and remapping the ECU to work. Bigger injectors too if I'm going bigger than about 4-5 psi...
But not this time. Seeing as I've yet to see the fruits of a "Bonded aluminum tube and sheet Locost 7 powered by 2 V8s made of 4 FZR600 engines" or any of the other dreamer projects, I'm offering nothing but encouragement.
Cast your own centrifugal supercharger! Get started chop-chop and please keep us updated on the progress. If you complete it and can demonstrate that you made your own parts from your own molds and have a completed functioning unit on a running car making in excess of 4 pounds of boost, I will write you a check for $1000 USD. I'll give you 6 months to complete the project from 8-9-09.
I'm completely serious.
Actually threads go like this:
"I have little experience with metallurgy, and know very little about turbo systems, but I want to cast some of the highest stressed parts possibly out of a weak material"
And then people point out that he has little experience, and wants to cast highly stressed parts out of a weak material.
And really, what is the hard in letting him know? You bring up the example of a locus chassis... You ever built a car? If a couple random people on the internet telling you it cant be done is stopping you there is NO CHANCE YOU WOULD EVER FINISH DESIGNING AND BUILDING A VEHICLE FROM SCRATCH, the nay sayers are absolutely the easiest hurtle to jump.
4cylndrfury, please don't take any of that as an insult... I am taking it from your own words that you know little about turbos, and are a beginner on casting.
I am just trying to point out that its not like we are here just discouraging any and all ideas that aren't common... Hell, this is the only website I have seen where people drool over geo metro builds. Its just that a freshly cast piece of aluminum that may or may not contain inclusions or voids spun at the speeds we are talking is likely to go to pieces, and the pieces are likely to end up in his engine. If you know enough to know that that is a very likely possibility, its kind of messed up to sit back and encourage that to happen.
Going in the face of convention wisdom isn't a bad thing, but its best to go with the flow, until you have the experience and knowledge to go against it. If you don't know how to swim, you aren't going to make it very far up stream.
