hey i'll beef up anything with a motor... ford, honda, lawn mower, gas powered scooter. or at least give hell tryin'

Why? It's only 1:30am here.

Take care,
~Chris

Okay, remember that it has to compress ALL the air going in, meaning that any air that enters the engine HAS to come through the compressor, which in your case would be an a/c compressor. First off, the a/c compressor couldn't possibly keep up with the demand, let alone create boost, and would end up being a restriction instead. However, if you had a larger a/c compressor, say the size of a round kitchen trash can, and it had a huge pulley on it, then it might be close. BUT, it would take an awful lot of energy to spin such a big compressor, and the end result would be spending more energy than you would be getting in return.

Take care,
~Chris

my clock says 4:09am right now. Damn time zones, always screwing with people.:)

It's only 11:20pm in Hawaii.

Just a matter of perspective.

:)

Take care,
~Chris

I somewhat disagree with you guys, I think the tank of air if engineered properly and compressed with a compressor before hand, could somewhat increase his horsepower for a quick burst. Once the air enters the Intake and mixes with air at 14.7psi, it will dissapate and drop in psi, but it will still supply more volume to his engine. After all, why do people put ram air kits or K&N's on there cars, or put radical cams in?? It allows as much air in as possible at 14.7psi, and for the cam it also does other things too. It is not meant to replace a turbo, or to supply "boost" in any way, but it will make sure the engine has as much air as can be crammed into the cylinder at that pressure. And you might end up getting some boost if the air in the bottle is pressurized high enough that when it comes out of the bottle an reaches the intake valve, it was not able to fully dissapate.
I also agree that it is not a practicle way to gain horsepower. The amount of time, effort and money would make it worth it to just go buy a nos kit. Nos is really doing the same thing, its just a more efficient way to store oxygen, chemically. But, if you wanted to do it just to do it, I think it might give you something, about as much as a ram air kit.

First of all, just to clarify, all a ram air kit does is permit cooler outside air, which does increase power potential. It does not "ram" the air in. That also is not possible. The speed at which the vehicle would have to be travelling would create a tremendous vacuum at the TB, and there's no way the "rammed" air would surpass that. You may not have been implying that, but I wanted to be clear.

As for this bottle of air idea, no way. It will never create boost unless it does the things I've already outlined.

PLEASE be my guest, and give it a shot! I would LOVE to be proven wrong on this one, but it aint gonna happen.

:)

Take care,
~Chris

Excellent idea in theory. Not very practical for a racecar. Checkout Ford's concept 'TONKA' truck. It has a setup very similar to your idea.


Blowers and turbos increase engine displacement??? Very interesting.

Think of it like this. A larger displacement motor pulls more air into the combustion chamber than a smaller displacement motor. Therefore if you're putting compressed air into a motor it will react like a larger displacement motor.

This would definitely works, however you need a high capacity
tank. If the tank flow enough and can make 10 psi of boost it
will be empty after few seconds. I am just guessing but i think
thats what will happen.

The motor could also surge and or die when trying to open the
tank. That s what it did when i was trying it few years ago with
my 5.0. There was just enough air for about 5 seconds at idle.
I did it for my personnal knowledge in a desert place. I would
be a little bit shy to do it at the track.

SC

I think that if the motor see 10 psi of boost
from a supercharger, a turbo or even an air tank
it will make almost the same difference. The motor
don t care about where this air come from. It cares
about its temperature and the amount of air provided.

It works in theory but not in practice;

-When you open the tank the car is not tuned to receive
the air. Tuning the car is almost impossible cause the boost
is there for few seconds.

-If the bottle flow enough, as i said, it will be empty before
you ll see the green light.

-The last problem is that the engine will need 2300 cc of air
at 10 psi for 4 revolution. It will be hard to flow enough
air to make boost.

SC

The ONLY way that you could make any hp with an air tank for more than a matter of seconds is if you had an air tank the size of your car plumbed into the throttle body. Do you know how much time and electricity would go into compressing all that air into that bottle only to get 30seconds or so out of it at best. but still, if anyone here wants to strap an air tank the size of thier car to thier roof and make some passes its fine by me, just be shure to take some pictures and post them here so everyone can laugh at you. End of story.

How it could work
 

Suppose your car flows 300 CFM and the tank that you describe has an additional 10 cubic feet of air inside of it (at 100 PSI). If (and here is the problem), if you could dump all of that air at pressure into the intake at one time then you could raise the pressure inside of the engine. The problem that you will run into is that you have 10 cubic feet of air that is flowing through a hose 1/4 or 1/2 inch from the tank to the intake. There is no way to get all of the air into the intake at once to increase the pressure to anything noticably above atmospheric levels. It is like trying to blow a straw into a 5 gallon bucket and expecting to increse the pressure in the bucket. Could you possibly make a difference? Yes, but it would be so small that it would not be measurable. Combine the fact that as your are trying to increase pressure in the bucket, new air is flowing in at atmospheric levels while your air is flowing out of the bucket and you are fighting a battle that can't be won. You also would run into a problem of the pressure in the tank dropping very fast as air came out. Your peak air would be at 100 PSI, but as air comes out of the tank your pressure would drop so your flow rates would drop as well.

Sorry this is kind of jumping around, but your question just got me to thinking.

Not many people here who have a good understanding of fluid dynamics. (PKRWUD and some others not included, you guys did a good job and I won't try to explainwhat you've already covered, too much ;) ).

You could NEVER add a pressureized bottle of air to a car for an increase in HP in any practical way, shape or form!

If you dump 100 psi from a tank into your TB (Let's assume that somehow the computer know about this additional air) Who says that the air is going to go into the engine??? It will go to the path of least resistance. And I'll tell you that the intake tubing leading to the TB is a hell of a lot less than 100 psi! Therefore you would have to ensure that the ONLY source of intake air was from this tank, which would at best last a few seconds, maybe longer.

As for the A/C compressor, ALL compressors are rated by "Flow@pressure". Assuming we solved the problem above (IE we're using only one source for intake air), if you could generate enough flow from that air compressor, please let me know, I work for the largest compressor company in the world, we'd like to have your technology :) And if you can provide the air flow, you won't have the pressure to go along with it. If it was that easy, someone would have already though of it. Remember the internal combustion engine has been around a LONG time!

Effort: A
Persistance: A
Technical Knowledge: let's learn from this one ;)

This is an article from a recent Car Craft magazine in which a reader wants to know why you couldn't drive a blower electrically, for free power.

Take care,
~Chris

Good article, Chris. It seems to rule out the possiblity of hooking up a vacuum cleaner and leaf blower, too. :)

Nitrous is definitely the correct way to use a bottle for power.

you were all right, i had some extra time on my hands and gave it a try. didn't do anything.

See PKRWUD, I told you he would try it anyway.:D

Wow, you actually tried? Did you take pictures?

lol yeah i actually tired it... you can either give me props for effort of hate on me for bein' stupid. as for pictures, i never got a chance to take any. although it was quite funny... try craming a 40 gal. air tank into the passenger seat of an 87' mustang. lol