Mad Max's Supercharger: Possible?

[rbattelle]

Remember the movie Mad Max (the first 2 parts, anyway)? He had that car with the switch-activated supercharger. I've always wondered, has anyone ever built an engine that was actually set up like that? I imagine it would take a lot of custom plumbing.

 

[Torque King Jay]

Switchable blower?

It does look cool in the movies, but for real life applications I would think that this would present some problems. Remember that it's a roots style positive displacement blower. Stopping the blower also stops all air movement to the engine.



I thought about this once and the only way you could do this is to have a two path induction system. Path one through the blower path two through some sort of an intake runner system that has the capability to open up during blower shut down and close during blower operation to prevent back flow.



Carb tuning would be a nightmare to work with both the positive displacement induction and the nornally aspirated flow path. Ya, I know I digging deep, but I don't think you could tune a carb for both circumstances. Maybe switchable fuel injection. Shoot anything is possible in the movies



Jay R.

 

[Proram]

Maxes car

Want the whole story on the car and the fake blower setup? he's the Link. http://www.madmaxmovies.com/cars/interceptor/history1.html



T. K. J. , another way that has been thought of is a clutch Built into the main shaft of the Blower,(simaler to a A/C clutch) when it's disengaged the Rotors spin free, the belt stops untill the clutch is activated.

Don't know if its been tryed yet though.



Scott

 

[jtisdale]

Thats what we thought about too. Having a fuel injection system for when the charger is off, and then via a few solenoids and a different fuel pump system, the carbs would feed the charger when its on. The air intake would take some engineering, however. Maybe this would be a good challenge for Monster Garage. (Let someone else foot the bill for the R&R)

 

[rbattelle]

It just looks so cool! And now there's a Mr. Clean Autodry commercial with another car that does the same thing.



I know it's just movies, and had anticipated the trouble with the roots system. But if you could overcome those problems, man you'd have the baddest car on the planet (IMHO).

 

[jtisdale]

It would be pretty doggy with out the charger on. You could use nitrous for make up the difference.

 

[Shovelhead]

Chuck Norris in "Lone Wolf McQuade" drove a Ramcharger with a "Switchable Supercharger" too. "

 

[Bova]

The other thing to consider is that blower motors (on the street anyway) are low compression 8:1 without that blower turning it would run like a 76 vette. Add the two 850 Demon carbs to that 8:1 motor with the monster heads and... well you see were this is going.

 

[rbattelle]

So cool, yet so impractical. A man can dream, can't he?

 

[midlife crisis]

"I've always wondered, has anyone ever built an engine that was actually set up like that? I imagine it would take a lot of custom plumbing. " Actually its done all the time. Volvo's 32,42,43,&44 series marine engines all have an electronically controlled (Roots) s. c. While the first 3 look at rpm as a controlling parameter, the 44 is ecm controlled, so as a cold weather aid as well as a load sensing ability can also control blower operation. The first 3 can all use a helm switch to bypass the rpm signal to eliminate the s. c, for trolling or whatever, but you would not want run the s. c up high, as speeds are 3-4x crankshaft speed. All are plumbed the same- basically you have 2 outlets from the aircleaner. The first goes thru a flapper valve, directly to the turbo then the a. c. -you know the rest. The second goes to the supercharger, then to the turbo, on the back side of the flapper, so when there is pressure there, the flapper is pressed closed, thus causing all the air to be drawn into the s. c. Simple! All this was really done to offer high torque from idle on up, When the blower goes off around 2500, the turbo comes on, and you have a sweet band thruout. ... . Now somewhere around here I just happen to have a s. c and all kinds of hood clearance. . more on that later!!

 

[rbattelle]

Mad Max was on TV a couple weeks ago, and I got to thinking about that car again. I was looking at all the pictures over at www.madmaxmovies.com and it dawned on me that the car has no carburators, which led me to the thought "well, you certainly wouldn't need a carb on a diesel!". Imagine this: instead of twin turbos on your Cummins you could have one turbo and a clutch-activated supercharger plumbed in! Obviously, it would need to stick out the top of the hood just like the Mad Max car, but it could actually look authentic since you only need to provide air to the engine. You'd have a solenoid valve system that would bypass the supercharger when it's off (so the engine would run like a stocker with just 1 turbo). Then with a fueling box that comes on when you flip on the supercharger you could go from "stock" to "Mad Max"!



Oh, man... that would be so



-Ryan

 

[JoshPeters]

Check out some of the old Detroit V engines. It's been 8 years since I took my Diesel Training in Tech school, but..... as I recall Detroit ran this set up. They had a pretty big turbo on top, and a super charger on the bottom. The supercharger had outside ports kind of like

( O )



So when the turbo came up it just bypassed the "o" (rotors for the charger)



My instructor said they did this because the supercharger would get in the way at Higher RPM's, so the the turbo comes up later and takes over.

Josh

 

[Mike Ellis]

Now don't go slappin' those mid-70's Corvettes with the low-compression smog-queen engines, I drove a '77 model with L-48 for several years and it was a fun little car with a massive 180+ hp! They were real high quality horses too, not the Shetlands that they are pumping out nowadays :-laf :-laf



In fact, my car DID have a switchable blower setup on it - the air conditioner. When it was on, the 5-10 hp that it sucked away made a noticeable difference in the car's performance, I used it to sucker people in similar-vintage Firebirds and Camaros in drag races. "Mike, he's starting to pull away!" "No problem dude, switch off the AC!" vrooooommm WATCH OUT WE'RE GONNA HIT 75 mph! :-laf :-laf

 

[JR2]

I know this has been talked about before and if I remember correctly there where at leat two guys who did it. One of the trucks was built for the owner of Dave Smith motors and the other was a guy in the South somewhere. He used to post about having 5 psi at idle.



The whole blower/turbo thing is very interesting to me, it just seems like it would be much more complicated and expensive than a real nice set of twins.



JR2

 

[rbattelle]

it just seems like it would be much more complicated and expensive than a real nice set of twins.



JR2

True... but so much cooler than twins. And twins are pretty darn cool!



-Ryan

 

[nickleinonen]

heck out some of the old Detroit V engines. It's been 8 years since I took my Diesel Training in Tech school, but..... as I recall Detroit ran this set up. They had a pretty big turbo on top, and a super charger on the bottom. The supercharger had outside ports kind of like

( O )



So when the turbo came up it just bypassed the "o" (rotors for the charger)



My instructor said they did this because the supercharger would get in the way at Higher RPM's, so the the turbo comes up later and takes over.

no 2 cycle detroit diesel has ever had a supercharger... they are blowers [that is the proper term for them]. if you get a naturally asperated version, it still has a blower on it, but it's only function is to provide a positve flow to scavanange the exhaust out... if you snap a quill shaft that drives the blower, the engine will die right there... if it is a charged version, and you snap a quill shaft, you will be ok as long as the engine is loaded [and the turbo is spooled] once you come off load, the engine will stumble and die...



they did have the bypass valving around the blower to keep it from getting in the way once the turbo was spooled and it works well...



i don't really want to come across sounding like an arse, but it is a pet peeve of mine when people call the blowers on 2 cycle diesel engines "superchargers"

 

[JoshPeters]

Ok yes, I know exactly what your saying. By technical defination a blower and a supercharger are the same thing. Anything that is belt driven off the engine is a supercharger. I don't have my D-pad book infront of me right now... . but that's what I was told, and have been told since. I could be wrong... . but it makes sense.



Josh