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#1
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Turning the supercharger on or off
As I grew up, there were various movies where the driver of the souped-
up car had a blower that he could 'turn on' when he needs a little extra 'push'. I think the first one I saw was Mad Max (1979) but then all through the 1980s there were other examples, I think my favorite being "My Science Project". Is this entirely a Hollywood Invention, or is there some historical reasoning behind this? I've never actually seen an example of a supercharger you can turn on or off in real life. Thainx |
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#2
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Turning the supercharger on or off
phaeton wrote:
> As I grew up, there were various movies where the driver of the souped- > up car had a blower that he could 'turn on' when he needs a little > extra 'push'. I think the first one I saw was Mad Max (1979) but then > all through the 1980s there were other examples, I think my favorite > being "My Science Project". > > Is this entirely a Hollywood Invention, or is there some historical > reasoning behind this? I've never actually seen an example of a > supercharger you can turn on or off in real life. > > Thainx Well the Hollywood version in Mad Max is a joke. IIRC it was a Roots style blower shown on a Holden. The problem is that it was a bare case with no internals. However a Roots type unit could be set up to work like that the Toyota MR-2 from 88-89 had that system. It used a clutch on the unit with a bypass system the engine used while the supercharger was off. The Crossfire uses a similar system as well. Use a Paxton style unit and you could do it even easier as it wouldn't need the bypass to operate, however it would have lag like a turbo due to the need to build pressure in the system. -- Steve W. |
#3
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Turning the supercharger on or off
phaeton wrote:
> As I grew up, there were various movies where the driver of the souped- > up car had a blower that he could 'turn on' when he needs a little > extra 'push'. I think the first one I saw was Mad Max (1979) but then > all through the 1980s there were other examples, I think my favorite > being "My Science Project". > > Is this entirely a Hollywood Invention, or is there some historical > reasoning behind this? I've never actually seen an example of a > supercharger you can turn on or off in real life. It was the Hot New Thing a hundred years ago: http://www.eaton.com/Eaton/ProductsS...gers/index.htm Still pretty neat. -- Andrew Muzi <www.yellowjersey.org/> Open every day since 1 April, 1971 |
#4
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Turning the supercharger on or off
On May 22, 2:12*am, phaeton > wrote:
> As I grew up, there were various movies where the driver of the souped- > up car had a blower that he could 'turn on' when he needs a little > extra 'push'. *I think the first one I saw was Mad Max (1979) but then > all through the 1980s there were other examples, I think my favorite > being "My Science Project". > > Is this entirely a Hollywood Invention, or is there some historical > reasoning behind this? *I've never actually seen an example of a > supercharger you can turn on or off in real life. > > Thainx <morbo> SUPERCHARGERS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY! </morbo> seriously, that ****ed me off about Mad Max because the blower appeared to be a Roots-type (positive displacement) unit, so if you put a clutch on the blower drive to disengage it (and it'd far more likely be on the blower itself anyway than on the crank pulley; so you wouldn't see that dramatic close-up of the blower belt starting to turn after Mel Gibson hits the red candy-like button) the engine would shut down from lack of air as soon as you disengaged the blower, as the only air that could be drawn through a non-rotating Roots blower is the leakage past the seals. I suppose it would be possible to do something similar to that with a Paxton-type (centrifugal) supercharger; in fact Studebaker did something sort of similar back in '57-58 with the variable ratio blower drive, but the supercharger was never disengaged (although the engine would have run fine with it disengaged.) nate |
#5
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Turning the supercharger on or off
"N8N" > wrote in message ... On May 22, 2:12 am, phaeton > wrote: > As I grew up, there were various movies where the driver of the souped- > up car had a blower that he could 'turn on' when he needs a little > extra 'push'. I think the first one I saw was Mad Max (1979) but then > all through the 1980s there were other examples, I think my favorite > being "My Science Project". > > Is this entirely a Hollywood Invention, or is there some historical > reasoning behind this? I've never actually seen an example of a > supercharger you can turn on or off in real life. > > Thainx <morbo> SUPERCHARGERS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY! </morbo> seriously, that ****ed me off about Mad Max because the blower appeared to be a Roots-type (positive displacement) unit, so if you put a clutch on the blower drive to disengage it (and it'd far more likely be on the blower itself anyway than on the crank pulley; so you wouldn't see that dramatic close-up of the blower belt starting to turn after Mel Gibson hits the red candy-like button) the engine would shut down from lack of air as soon as you disengaged the blower, as the only air that could be drawn through a non-rotating Roots blower is the leakage past the seals. I suppose it would be possible to do something similar to that with a Paxton-type (centrifugal) supercharger; in fact Studebaker did something sort of similar back in '57-58 with the variable ratio blower drive, but the supercharger was never disengaged (although the engine would have run fine with it disengaged.) nate ******* There used to be one that used a compressed gas cartridge or a fuel cartridge (dont remember exact details). Punch the button and you would get a few seconds of boost, but it was definitely not a full time unit. Used mostly by drag racers or street racers, I guess. Dont think it was ever too popular. I guess nitrous sprays are the modern solution to this problem. |
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