Ok, So It's Stupid-Now Tell Me WHY It Won't Work!

[John Burk]

I remember the squeal of Grantham's slicks at the the 62 Indy Nationals . His original steel air tanks were terribly heavy . HRM said he later found some lighter magnesium ones .

[oz]

A non math way of doing it would be attach a huge balloon to the exhaust and run the engine for 3 miles WOT, you then can see how much "air" you would need before adding the supercharger. I am going to guess, a WHOLE lot.

The misconception here is boost is equal to flow.  What causes boost is the engine's inability to use the air that is presented or it's restriction.  You can take 366 CID engine, install a supercharger make 600 wHP with 9 psi of boost.  Then remove the head/intake track and properly port them.  When you put the same engine back together it you may only see 7.5 psi of boost but the engine could make 675 wHP. It's the flow that matters not the amount of boost you see.

I think more than one balloon may be nescasary I would suggest the long thin ones as round ones would cause more drag (the engine would have to work harder  to overcome the drag making the test inacurate) plus the kids could have fun making toxic animals with the then over inflated test equipment.

[Ron Gibson]

  IIRC   One of the mags ran an article on Mickey's. The engine started and ran NA with a barn door flap that closed with boost. They had trouble with boost pressure regulation. As soon as the boost hit, it would blow the tires off. Maybe new tech regulators might work.

  I think the Doll-Fox-Christophersen Camero ran inter-cooled NA. They did very well setting numerous records.

Ron

[38flattie]

I sent an email off, to the 'powers that be', to see if it will be allowed. Here is what I sent.

I have looked up the definition of supercharged in the rulebook, and it specifies "an artificially aspirated engine with a mechanically driven supercharger".

On my future project, I wish to 'supercharge', or add 14 PSI boost, with previously compressed air. I wish to run in a modified ALT or Comp Coupe class.

I find nothing in the rule book allowing it, nor prohibiting it, save the wording in 4.FF.

Is there a category/class that I could run this in, or would the car be deemed time only, after passing tech?

Would this be a 'gas' class, or 'fuel',because of the difficulty of certifying the compressed air?

I'm not real hopeful, but we'll see!

[dw230]

"I find nothing in the rule book allowing it, nor prohibiting it, save the wording in 4.FF."

I think you answered your own question.

DW

[jacksoni]

I sent an email off, to the 'powers that be', to see if it will be allowed. Here is what I sent.

I have looked up the definition of supercharged in the rulebook, and it specifies "an artificially aspirated engine with a mechanically driven supercharger".

On my future project, I wish to 'supercharge', or add 14 PSI boost, with previously compressed air. I wish to run in a modified ALT or Comp Coupe class.

I find nothing in the rule book allowing it, nor prohibiting it, save the wording in 4.FF.

Is there a category/class that I could run this in, or would the car be deemed time only, after passing tech?

Would this be a 'gas' class, or 'fuel',because of the difficulty of certifying the compressed air?

I'm not real hopeful, but we'll see!

But does the "mechanically driven supercharger" need to be connected to anything? The power consumption is mostly though not totally due to compressing the air. Run the blower to the air vents you put in and add your tanks. 

[dw230]

Do we really have to add more words to make this any clearer? Please!

I coined the phrase "same rules, more words" for this very situation.

I must be too old for this.

DW

[38flattie]

Naw, Dan, you're fine-there already is more- I just didn't type it all, as I was simply using it as a reference.

"an artificially aspirated engine with a mechanically driven supercharger and/or exhaust-driven turbocharger powered by the primary engine. The supercharger or turbocharger must pressurize the intake above atmospheric pressure."

There is a little more, but this is the 'meat'.

[jacksoni]

Aw Dan, just funnin' with ya!

[Buickguy3]

   Well, Here comes that "Infamous spirit of the rules" again. I think that you'll find that the previously compressed air was done with an outside power source hence it would be considered as a second engine and probably only allowed for time only, since the power source couldn't be quantitatively sized for classification, I doubt it could even run in special construction. I could be wrong, but I'll bet the "Spirit" will come into play here.
    Doug

[Dean Los Angeles]

Instead of compressed air why not run oxygen. It isn't specifically allowed or prohibited either.

Ok, So It's Stupid-Now Tell Me WHY It Won't Work!

Stupid isn't the category. Thinking outside the box is a well established way to gain on your competitors.

In most forms of racing specific rules would prohibit out of the box thinking. NASCAR has VERY specific rules. Teams find ways around them.

SCTA doesn't need all that jargon. The good old boy network kicks in and decides if it fits with the good old boy way of thinking. Rules? We don't need no stinking rules!

That's why you better get it in writing before you do anything. Or hide it well enough that no one can find it.

[hotrod]

It would be a form of stored energy, just like putting a battery or a second engine in the vehicle making the displacement classes meaningless.
(ie you would be doing your air compression with "free energy" that was stored before the run.

There is an international unit of energy used to measure the energy contained in compressed air called the "liter atmospere"
One liter atmosphere would be a volume of one liter of air compressed to one atmosphere of pressure (ie 14.7 psi)



http://www.convertunits.com/from/liter+atmosphere/to/gallon+%5BU.S.%5D+of+automotive+gasoline

How many liter atmosphere in 1 gallon [U.S.] of automotive gasoline? The answer is 1300370.09623.
We assume you are converting between liter atmosphere and gallon [U.S.] of automotive gasoline.
You can view more details on each measurement unit:
liter atmosphere or gallon [U.S.] of automotive gasoline
The SI derived unit for energy is the joule.
1 joule is equal to 0.00986923266716 liter atmosphere, or 7.58955676988E-9 gallon [U.S.] of automotive gasoline.
Note that rounding errors may occur, so always check the results.
Use this page to learn how to convert between liter atmosphere and gallons [U.S.] of automotive gasoline.
Type in your own numbers in the form to convert the units!

Larry

[jacksoni]

All racing/rules issues aside, people have tried running or just adding pure O2 to the intake. I believe it has been found to be extremely difficult to control and has mostly contributed a lot of molten pistons to the scrap heap. N2O  of course basically does the same thing but with the buffer of the N2 becomes much more controllable as we all know. Using compressed air as a "supercharging" substitute almost certainly could be done, just a matter of the steady control of the "boost" and engineering of the supply. Whether worth the effort, time and money etc different question. To steal a tag line from another racer: "Impossible? Nah...just needs more development time" applies to all these things.

[McRat]

Compressed oxygen is extremely dangerous.  Even if you could get it to work without igniting the flammable metals like aluminum, etc, any exposure to oils or fuels prior to the combustion chamber could cause an explosion.

Nitrous was developed as a "safer" oxygen during WWII for high altitude supercharged aircraft.  Engineers could not get oxygen safe enough to use it for anything but cabin air assist.

I was working in a VW shop in the 70's.  The solvent tank for head cleaning got plugged up.  I tried to clear it with compressed air.  No luck.  "Johnny" our welder told me he could fix it.  He took it around the corner to the weld area.  A few seconds later...  BLAMMMMM!!!!  A bright flash of light lit up the shop.  The pump hit the ceiling (ex-aircraft hanger, so 20' tall roof), and came back down.  Johnny came back around the corner looking like a cartoon character.  His shop coat was shredded, his face was black, the hair on his face was singed off, his hair was blown back and singed as well.

He had tried to clear it with the oxygen bottle from the torch.  He was not seriously injured, but we hung is shop coat on the wall as a trophy.

Ironically, it fixed the solvent pump...

[jacksoni]

Compressed oxygen is extremely dangerous.  Even if you could get it to work without igniting the flammable metals like aluminum, etc, any exposure to oils or fuels prior to the combustion chamber could cause an explosion.

Nitrous was developed as a "safer" oxygen during WWII for high altitude supercharged aircraft.  Engineers could not get oxygen safe enough to use it for anything but cabin air assist.

I was working in a VW shop in the 70's.  The solvent tank for head cleaning got plugged up.  I tried to clear it with compressed air.  No luck.  "Johnny" our welder told me he could fix it.  He took it around the corner to the weld area.  A few seconds later...  BLAMMMMM!!!!  A bright flash of light lit up the shop.  The pump hit the ceiling (ex-aircraft hanger, so 20' tall roof), and came back down.  Johnny came back around the corner looking like a cartoon character.  His shop coat was shredded, his face was black, the hair on his face was singed off, his hair was blown back and singed as well.

He had tried to clear it with the oxygen bottle from the torch.  He was not seriously injured, but we hung is shop coat on the wall as a trophy.

Ironically, it fixed the solvent pump...
[/quote
Well, still needs a heat source ( spark or something) to light it off, is just a lot easier with pure O2 hanging about. An Acetylene torch doesn't light itself.  But point well taken.