Turbo?

[gizmo83]

A friend of mine told me he hooked up a leaf blower to his air intake hose and used it as a turbo and it actually noticably incressed his power. would that actually work? I've read how turbos work.... By incressing air pressure into the engine, which that in theory would be doing so with a proper seal.

[Conman]

I've heard rumors of this before but I don't think it is very practical or worth the time and effort

A 5.0 at full throttle will suck in an awful lot of air and while a leaf blower can blow a fair bit of air I don't think it is near enough to build any pressure to be a big gain

turbo's can spin at like 50,000 rpm and develop between like 10-20 psi, or even more depending. A leaf blower can't even compare

and besides, imagine this, you are out on a friday night cruising around town and you pull up to a red light with a camaro already sitting there, he revs his engine and wants to go, you jump out of the car, open the hood, give your leaf blower a pull start and jump back in the car and are ready to go. The light turns green and you blow away the camaro like he's standing still, wait a second, he is standing still because he is laughing so hard he can't even drive

give it a try and let us know how it works but you won't see a leaf blower on my car

[gizmo83]

Originally posted by Conman
I've heard rumors of this before but I don't think it is very practical or worth the time and effort

A 5.0 at full throttle will suck in an awful lot of air and while a leaf blower can blow a fair bit of air I don't think it is near enough to build any pressure to be a big gain

turbo's can spin at like 50,000 rpm and develop between like 10-20 psi, or even more depending. A leaf blower can't even compare

and besides, imagine this, you are out on a friday night cruising around town and you pull up to a red light with a camaro already sitting there, he revs his engine and wants to go, you jump out of the car, open the hood, give your leaf blower a pull start and jump back in the car and are ready to go. The light turns green and you blow away the camaro like he's standing still, wait a second, he is standing still because he is laughing so hard he can't even drive

give it a try and let us know how it works but you won't see a leaf blower on my car

thats true about a 5.0 sucking too much air. but i have a stock 4 banger 2.3L and if i were to do so i would use an electric leaf blower to a big power inverter with a switch in the car, so i don't have to look stupid pull starting it under the hood becuz i would start laughing myself lol.

[Conman]

well if you are bored some day and have a leaf blower kicking around give it a go

there is only one way to find out

just a thought before you waste your time, you should somehow try to see if the leaf blower can build pressure if it just moves air

you will probably want some pressure for it to work good

[gizmo83]

Originally posted by Conman
well if you are bored some day and have a leaf blower kicking around give it a go

there is only one way to find out

just a thought before you waste your time, you should somehow try to see if the leaf blower can build pressure if it just moves air

you will probably want some pressure for it to work good

Alright i'll do that... I'm tryin' to get my hands on a leaf blower at the moment, when i do ill give it a try and post a reply on here. laterz

[1hot5.0]

You would sound like a rice burner. I would just get a turbo.

[Coupe5oh]

speaking of turbos, saw this dude at the track running tonight with a "pro turbo kits' turbo, on a 306 88 coupe, edel heads, and ported cobra intake, stock cam, it ran 11.1 @ 121 on e.t. streets, he was just tuning, just thought id mention that, btw good luck with the leaf turbo.

[gizmo83]

Originally posted by 1hot5.0
You would sound like a rice burner. I would just get a turbo.

i'd love to have a turbo, but i can't afford $1,000....

[PKRWUD]

gizmo83-
I know for a fact that this idea won't work on a V8, and I seriously doubt it will work on a 2.3L, but it's your project.


Coupe5oh-
This is the way to go:



Take care,
~Chris

[gizmo83]

Originally posted by PKRWUD
gizmo83-
I know for a fact that this idea won't work on a V8, and I seriously doubt it will work on a 2.3L, but it's your project.


Coupe5oh-
This is the way to go:



Take care,
~Chris

II'd love to have that... is there any car i can look for at a junk yard to get a turbo off of that will work with my 87 2.3L? like an older mustang turbo or a turbo t-bird? and how hard is it to install a turbo?

[Coupe5oh]

twin turbo huh? cool, the guy im talking about has a single, pro turbo kits actually paid half for the installation because they sponsored this dude, he is about 18-19 yrs old, but he has to wear the sticker on his back window, get this, this guy had the turbo installed on a combo with boost friendly 8:5:1 compression and a Z-camzilla? i know i dont have to tell you pkrwd that would just blow the boost right out the exhaust valves, being that cam is for n/a strokers and such (overlap), so with the stock .h.o cam back in he ran a whole lot better.

[PKRWUD]

Any turbo T-bird will work, and there are quite a few in the junkyards. An '87 would be best, but it's not mandatory. You want everything from the head up, if you can. You should also get the ECM, the engine wiring harness, and as many of the sensors as you can. This one I have is off of a '84, I think:



Take care,
~Chris

[Coupe5oh]

yea i seen a page about a guy using t-bird turbos, why use the harness? id rather just save up for an s-trim anyways, and trust me, there is nothing of that kind around our junkyards hear in town, you'd be lucky to stumble across one, these vultures out here snatch up anything they can, heck they probaly even pick and pull the stickers off wrecked ricers lol.

[PKRWUD]

Originally posted by Coupe5oh
...why use the harness?

LOL. I had a customer that had an '84 turbo T-bird, and thought his turbo was bad, so he and his tweaker buddies took it all apart, and left it. He called me, and hired me to pull the head-up from an '87 turbo T-bird, and install it in his '84. It was halfway through this job that I discovered all the changes Ford made in the 80's. Each year had different sensors, and the connectors were different for the sensors that stayed the same. Had I known this, I would have yanked the harness from the '87. It would have saved a ton of time and Tylenol.



Take care,
~Chris

[gizmo83]

Originally posted by PKRWUD
Any turbo T-bird will work, and there are quite a few in the junkyards. An '87 would be best, but it's not mandatory. You want everything from the head up, if you can. You should also get the ECM, the engine wiring harness, and as many of the sensors as you can. This one I have is off of a '84, I think:


Take care,
~Chris

ok thanks man... now do i need to actually get the head itself? or just everything else? if so will the head work on my block?

[PKRWUD]

Originally posted by gizmo83



ok thanks man... now do i need to actually get the head itself? or just everything else? if so will the head work on my block?

I don't remember for sure, but it seems like the cam was better, and some of the parts were better with the turbo head. If it's not a big deal, I'd grab the head too. If you don't, you should still get everything else, including the intake manifolds (upper and lower), TB, etc. They changed over the years, too. In fact, the whole Ford turbo project reminds me a lot of the Chevrolet mechanical fuel injection of the late 1950's/early 1960's. Every year something was different, and it made it very difficult to mix parts together from different years. The easiest method would be to just get EVERYTHING from the head up, possibly minus the head.

Take care,
~Chris

[gizmo83]

after looking around the web i now beleave a leaf blower WILL work as a turbo.... i found this on ebay
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...tem=1846590987
its an Electric turbo kit, outputs 220 CFM which says it will give up to 60 more HP... and a leaf blower has an output of 270 CFM (for a cheap one).... I'm still tryin to get my hands on one to test.

[PKRWUD]

We were making fun of those in a thread in the BOL a few weeks ago. Let me tell you why it won't work. It claims to deliver up to 220 CFM of airflow. Your engine will be sucking in air faster than that. In order for there to be an increase in power, there has to be boost. Boost is when there is more air being forced into the engine than the engines vacuum, combined with gravity, demands. In otherwords, it has to be able to supply MORE than the engine requests. Whatever method you use to create the boost has to be the only method that air can enter the engine, otherwise any boost would be pushed back out into the atmosphere. In otherwords, this little gadget would have to be inline with the air intake path. At WOT, your engine should be pulling in at least 350 cfm. This "electronic turbo" can only move 220 cfm. That means it would actually act as a restriction, and slow you down.

Plus, boost is created by compressing air. This gadget is more of a fan, which pushes air, but isn't strong enough to compress it.

Now, let's say, hypothetically, that you were able to get a leaf blower that moved enough CFM, and had blades that were tight enough to compress the air, and that the path the air would travel was sealed, and it all worked, what do you think would happen when you just turned the fan on or off? To add boost safely, it needs to be added at a proportional rate to the rpm increase, which is why a system driven by the engine works so well. Blowers create more boost the faster the crankshaft spins, and turbos increase boost the faster the exhaust is expelled. This also gives the fuel system a fair chance to keep up with the increased air. How do you propose controlling the fans speed in relation to driving conditions? What happens when you have to suddenly stop? The fan keeps pushing at the same speed. You could have a wastegate of some sort, but with both turbos and blowers, their boost deminishes automatically right after the engine speed drops. How would the fan know when to reduce it's speed? It would need to be variable, in tune with the rpms.

Something else to remember that might make it all easier for you is this: The only thing a blower or a turbo do to your engine is increase the displacement. That's it. At sea level, 14.7 pounds of boost doubles an engines displacement, ie: turns a 302 into a 604. So, in order to create any power, your source of boost has to be strong enough to pack more air inside the engine than it would normally permit.

I hope this helps, and saves you a few bucks.

Take care,
~Chris

[mustangman65_79]

Originally posted by Conman
I've heard rumors of this before but I don't think it is very practical or worth the time and effort

A 5.0 at full throttle will suck in an awful lot of air and while a leaf blower can blow a fair bit of air I don't think it is near enough to build any pressure to be a big gain

turbo's can spin at like 50,000 rpm and develop between like 10-20 psi, or even more depending. A leaf blower can't even compare

and besides, imagine this, you are out on a friday night cruising around town and you pull up to a red light with a camaro already sitting there, he revs his engine and wants to go, you jump out of the car, open the hood, give your leaf blower a pull start and jump back in the car and are ready to go. The light turns green and you blow away the camaro like he's standing still, wait a second, he is standing still because he is laughing so hard he can't even drive

give it a try and let us know how it works but you won't see a leaf blower on my car

I about fell on the flor after reading this!!!



My '79 4 banger had hookups for a turbo, but never really wanted to stay with a 4 banger, so I went to the 302.