Propane to pre-spool turbo?
- Thread starter Dubwho
- Start date
Or, highly pressurized alky? But, would this initially drown a motor for a second before the boost builds?
It sounds as though you can inject a lot of propane at low boosts without ill consequence since it won't liquify again. It doesn't help, but doesn't hurt either and if it can be used to eliminate turbo lag, why not?
As for the alky idea, I think a heavy pressure squirt of alky would accelerate a compressor wheel nicely, but I would be afraid of initially drowning it.
It sounds as though you can inject a lot of propane at low boosts without ill consequence since it won't liquify again. It doesn't help, but doesn't hurt either and if it can be used to eliminate turbo lag, why not?
As for the alky idea, I think a heavy pressure squirt of alky would accelerate a compressor wheel nicely, but I would be afraid of initially drowning it.
there is a much easier way that works good as long as you don't get greedy or carried away. 100hp worth of nitrous on a throttle and hobbs switch. comes on when it sees full throttle and shuts off at 10# of boost. the turbo doesn't spool up faster (maybe a little bit, but you wouldnt' notice it) but insted you would have a chemical turbo to help you instantly. i've been kincing around the idea of doing it, but for the half a second it would get used i dont' think its worth it. No doubt it would help, i've heard people say they have droped 2/10's on their 60' time by doing that, never tyred it, but heard it works.
EclipseTurbo
New Member
- Joined
- Jan 15, 2003
I've heard there is someone who put a propane jet into the turbine, at the right spot and injecting propane it might work to spool the turbo.
- Joined
- May 28, 2001
spool this!
A company in AZ made and sold a kit specifically for this some 10 yrs ago. I think they were in Phoenix area. Instant spool was the claim.
There's an old magazine article about it. I may still have it somewhere here in the "Sanford and Son" operation.
A company in AZ made and sold a kit specifically for this some 10 yrs ago. I think they were in Phoenix area. Instant spool was the claim.
There's an old magazine article about it. I may still have it somewhere here in the "Sanford and Son" operation.
I know that the nos works when used as an anti-lag setup, but I have decided to play with nos last in my ongoing experiments. Its just a personal decision.
Using alky/water sounds quite possible if the correct amount is used to keep from killing the blades. I guess the guys spraying before the turbo already know this. I am still concerned about drowning the motor when you first hit the switch. As far as spraying at 100,000 turbo rpms, that wouldn't happen since I would use it to only spool the turbo at the low rpms and once boost was building and normal alky injection was needed, I would switch to spray at a nozzle closer to the tb.
Sounds like propane has not been discredited for this setup.
I appreciate the responces, any info that you guys find, I would be very interested!
Using alky/water sounds quite possible if the correct amount is used to keep from killing the blades. I guess the guys spraying before the turbo already know this. I am still concerned about drowning the motor when you first hit the switch. As far as spraying at 100,000 turbo rpms, that wouldn't happen since I would use it to only spool the turbo at the low rpms and once boost was building and normal alky injection was needed, I would switch to spray at a nozzle closer to the tb.
Sounds like propane has not been discredited for this setup.
I appreciate the responces, any info that you guys find, I would be very interested!
I've heard someone ask about injecting water at the turbine, before but I didn't see any real pro/con responces. I've heard of many people injecting nos at the turbine with great results, but freezing gas sprayed at a hot turbine, probably not going to last too long! What would be the cons of using water injection at the turbine. Maybe mount two pumps with a relay switching between the two. Connect your hobbs switch to the relay and use a cabin mounted trigger switch to fire the first pump. 1st pump shoots water in the turbine for presooler (adjustable as needed). Hobbs switch will flip relay and changes power so first pump off and 2nd pump on, which injects water in the intake as a usual system does. Could be fun!
i understand why you want to reduce the spool up times, and the alky kindof makes sence to me, but i'd have to say there are much better ways of doing that.
make sure your headers are in good shape, a crack will really hurt your spool up, just look at my 60' times i'm still only hoping to get 2.3's with the new turbo untill i get my cracked header fixed.
gut the cat, or put in a test pipe, huge difference you can feel. maybe go with a 3" terry houstom or art downpipe, or maybe just a ported stock elbow with a 3" pipe.
pump the exhaust, or get a nice free flowing exhaust. 2.5" dual or 3" straight will work. be sure the mufflers are 100% free flowing, it will help a bunch.
higher stall torque converter, i don't know what your setup is so i couldn't make any sugestions on how high to go. i'm looking to go 3000-3200 as soon as i can afford it.
duttweiler neck on the intercoler, or a more effecient inter cooler, don't expect huge improvements here but it will help.
Quick spool boost controller, i'd say its a must have. really makes adjusting boost simple, no more playing with e-clips and hot a hit wastegate arm, and its hard to get high boost with the stock wastegate anyways. you turn a screw by hand, to adjust the boost, and it spools up quicker. i'd never have a turbo car without one.
if that there doesn't all but eleminate your spool up time then look into the complicated and potentally dangerous (to the turbo) alky setup or propane, or just go with nitrous to get you going.
make sure your headers are in good shape, a crack will really hurt your spool up, just look at my 60' times i'm still only hoping to get 2.3's with the new turbo untill i get my cracked header fixed.
gut the cat, or put in a test pipe, huge difference you can feel. maybe go with a 3" terry houstom or art downpipe, or maybe just a ported stock elbow with a 3" pipe.
pump the exhaust, or get a nice free flowing exhaust. 2.5" dual or 3" straight will work. be sure the mufflers are 100% free flowing, it will help a bunch.
higher stall torque converter, i don't know what your setup is so i couldn't make any sugestions on how high to go. i'm looking to go 3000-3200 as soon as i can afford it.
duttweiler neck on the intercoler, or a more effecient inter cooler, don't expect huge improvements here but it will help.
Quick spool boost controller, i'd say its a must have. really makes adjusting boost simple, no more playing with e-clips and hot a hit wastegate arm, and its hard to get high boost with the stock wastegate anyways. you turn a screw by hand, to adjust the boost, and it spools up quicker. i'd never have a turbo car without one.
if that there doesn't all but eleminate your spool up time then look into the complicated and potentally dangerous (to the turbo) alky setup or propane, or just go with nitrous to get you going.
As far as I know only nitrous will reduce spool time. I don't see how propane or alky will help at all. My friend with a SVO Mustang with a 60-1 went from horrible lag to instant spool with a 100shot. Just got to make sure the wastegate is up to the job of controlling the extra airflow.
I second that cool84
Some of these ideas are kinda hard to visualize, but I can tell you from experience that injecting liquids into the inlet of a turbo compressor will make it spool slower and have less output than if it only has to compress air.
Not to mention loading the intercooler with flammable liquid which could be hazardous in the event of a backfire. In general only nonintercooled turbo installs would inject liquids on the inlet side of the turbo. You certainly wouldn't want to inject alcohol there as you would waste the cooling effect of the alky by trying to cool off the hot turbo.
If you're thinking about NOS, you won't believe how fast the boost will come on when using it. Just put a fogger in the up pipe the way everyone else does, tap into the fuel rail for fuel, follow Mfgrs recommendations for jets & NOS pressure and don't try to mastermind the thing.
Try it, you'll like it.
Some of these ideas are kinda hard to visualize, but I can tell you from experience that injecting liquids into the inlet of a turbo compressor will make it spool slower and have less output than if it only has to compress air.
Not to mention loading the intercooler with flammable liquid which could be hazardous in the event of a backfire. In general only nonintercooled turbo installs would inject liquids on the inlet side of the turbo. You certainly wouldn't want to inject alcohol there as you would waste the cooling effect of the alky by trying to cool off the hot turbo.
If you're thinking about NOS, you won't believe how fast the boost will come on when using it. Just put a fogger in the up pipe the way everyone else does, tap into the fuel rail for fuel, follow Mfgrs recommendations for jets & NOS pressure and don't try to mastermind the thing.
Try it, you'll like it.
I'm not denying the effects of nos, I am just getting the gears turning to investigate other methods for anti-lag. Many people have accidently loaded their intake with propane and THEN started the motor (easiest time to back fire) with no explosion told of yet. If you know of someone who has made this mistake and blew up the motor, please let me know. This is just a testament to propane not being as backfire dangerous as most people fear when set up correctly. There is a thread on here that I read the reason why propane displaces the air and is not highly dangerous when installed correctly, even if backfire occurs. But this thread is not where I intended to discuss that (if you do know an actual occurance please respond, but speculation would be better saved for a different thread ). The point is that propane shot at the compressor wheel from the side to create a paddle wheel effect would spin the turbo, but what would the richness of propane at low boost (until the turbine picked up the slack) do to the overall efficiency of the engine output? Too much gasoline can quench the explosion but lower temps, can too much propane do the same? I doubt I will play with this idea any time soon. I have another idea for now with the water injection . I'll just blow my stuff up with this idea and tell you guys how long it lasted .
). The point is that propane shot at the compressor wheel from the side to create a paddle wheel effect would spin the turbo, but what would the richness of propane at low boost (until the turbine picked up the slack) do to the overall efficiency of the engine output? Too much gasoline can quench the explosion but lower temps, can too much propane do the same? I doubt I will play with this idea any time soon. I have another idea for now with the water injection . I'll just blow my stuff up with this idea and tell you guys how long it lasted .I wouldn't bother.....
Nitrous is at a MUCH higher pressure than propane. Try filling a nitrous bottle and a propane bottle. Run a hose to "paddlewheel" the turbo to spin it. The higher pressure of nitrous will far outspin what propane would do for the turbo. I'd liken it to spinning a turbo via fire hose vs. garden hose. It's apples and oranges, and not worth the effort imho.
As far as propane backfiring...that's quite unlikely unless you're defeating the system in an effort to get it to deliver propane. The Pro-Pain kit doesn't come on unless the car is running, and under boost. So unless the car stalled while under boost, there shouldn't be propane in the intake when the car is off. If you really want to test this...write a story where some redneck blew his car up by improperly installing a propane kit and e-mail it to a billion peoplr. When Mythbusters gets word of it, they'll test it and you'll have your answer.
Nitrous is at a MUCH higher pressure than propane. Try filling a nitrous bottle and a propane bottle. Run a hose to "paddlewheel" the turbo to spin it. The higher pressure of nitrous will far outspin what propane would do for the turbo. I'd liken it to spinning a turbo via fire hose vs. garden hose. It's apples and oranges, and not worth the effort imho.
As far as propane backfiring...that's quite unlikely unless you're defeating the system in an effort to get it to deliver propane. The Pro-Pain kit doesn't come on unless the car is running, and under boost. So unless the car stalled while under boost, there shouldn't be propane in the intake when the car is off. If you really want to test this...write a story where some redneck blew his car up by improperly installing a propane kit and e-mail it to a billion peoplr. When Mythbusters gets word of it, they'll test it and you'll have your answer.
Good idea HurstGN. I think they are running low on material after that rocket powered Impala failed to get airborn.
If you really want to know something about turbos and what works and doesn't, I'd recommend calling John Craig at Limit Engineering.
He did my TE44. He really knows his stuff and I guarantee he will take the time to talk to you.
Pete
If you really want to know something about turbos and what works and doesn't, I'd recommend calling John Craig at Limit Engineering.
He did my TE44. He really knows his stuff and I guarantee he will take the time to talk to you.
Pete
I seriously doubt there's anywhere close to the volume or pressure needed to spool a turbo with propane. I've used an air nozzle at work on the turbine side just messing around and even with that it doesn't make it spin up that fast and that's probably 10X the volume of propane.
Not to hijack the thread but the way I got my 64 to spool instantly was by retarding the timing. It was an accident at the time and it was seriously instant but it was so retarded the headers and turbo glowed at idle. If there was a way to retard it for just a second when you first hit the gas, that would be great.
Not to hijack the thread but the way I got my 64 to spool instantly was by retarding the timing. It was an accident at the time and it was seriously instant but it was so retarded the headers and turbo glowed at idle. If there was a way to retard it for just a second when you first hit the gas, that would be great.
if you wanted t retard the timming would it be possible to somehow send a flase signal to the computer that the knock sensor is going off? maybe at the push of a button. i'm not sure how the sensor works so i wouldn't have ny idea how tis would be possible.
but wouldn't you want to advance the timming? lower timming= lower power
but wouldn't you want to advance the timming? lower timming= lower power
Good info on the timing retard. Actually, I think a lot of chip manufacturers use this method when designing performance programs. Correct me if I'm wrong, but by overrichening the mixture, you dump a little gas in the exhaust manifold (bang-bang system?) which results in a whole lot of pressure to spool the turbo quickly. This is sometimes done between shifts to keep the turbo spooled. Downside as mentioned, the glowing hot turbo and the loss of initial power by a too rich mixture. However, the rich mixture lasts just long enough to build boost and then is flattened out. So you go from slow to go really fast, which feels impressive. Now of course without a decent intercooler or water injection, the extra turbo heat will saturate the compressor and heat your charge.
