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| finally some pictures, click on them to enlarge |
| I have finally decided to take this seriously. i'll use this page to chronicle my turbocharger turbine projects. hopefully i can help other crazy people like me with their own turbines. if you have any questions or if you want to tell me how bad my designs are please email me [email protected] About 8 months ago i was reading about turbines on the internet and i stumbled across a page about turbocharger based turbines. i was instantly addicted. for the next few months i learned as much as i could about them and made my own plans to build one. i think it was about june 2001 i finally found a decent turbocharger in the junkyard. it came from a ford t-bird , i don't know what year. it had a little bit of play in the shaft, (later i measured it as 0.017") but it seemed alright for my purpose, and it cost about $50. since i am a poor college student, cost is an important factor. now i could really begin construction. by far the most difficult part to make was the combustor which wasn't so hard as it was time consuming. i used exhaust pipe and some steel scrap. a 4"x10" piece for the outer case, narrowed at the turbine end. i welded flanges on both ends. i had just bought a welder and this was my first real project with it, so the welds don't look so pretty but they work great and don't leak. the flame tube inside was a piece of 2 1/5". after looking at lots of other people's designs, i guessed a hole pattern and started drilling. in the primary zone i cut three vanes that i could bend in or out for tuning. i used hose clamps to cover holes in the secondary zone. and made lots of holes near the end for a dilution zone. after lots of testing i find it works best with the primary vanes nearly closed and most of the secondary holes closed off. i also ended up drilling many more dillution holes. the next major part was the fuel injection. for now i am using propane simply because it is so easy, but I (like everyone else who builds these) would like to eventually use a liquid fuel such as kerosene. propane is just so much easier because it comes out the injector as a gas that readily mixes with the air. i used a ball valve and 5' of high pressure hose that went into an injector assembly consisting of a brass fitting with a small piece of copper tubing sticking out. the end of the tube is crimped except for a small hole. i then made an ignition system using an automotive ignition coil and module triggered by a simple oscillating circuit i threw together. with all of these things put together i could begin tuning the combustor. using a leaf blower borrowed from a friend i blew air into the combustor to simulate the turbo compressor. it made a pretty wicked roar once i got it burning good. now it was time to bolt it to the turbo. first i had to provide lubrication to the bearings. i am using fuel pumps from various GM cars (i get a lot of these for free from work along with a lot of the other parts i am using). i tried a few different oils and found that automatic transmission fluid would give me the best pressures and would probably hold up well to the heat. also it is much cheaper than the lightweight synthetic stuff i got. i have had some problems with the pumps, as they are not designed to withstand much heat or viscosity, but they make anywhere between 20 and 50 psi and last long enough that i'll just keep using them (since they are free of course). finally i can try to start the engine. i turn on the oil pump and the ignition. then i turn on the leaf blower and very slowly turn the fuel valve. nothing happens so i hold the blower back about a foot to slow down the flow of air a bit. once the blades slow down there was a very loud bang and flames shot out the turbine. i quickly put the blower back, and as the blades started spinning again i could hear the flame go up inside the combustor. it took several attempts and flame tube/injector changes to get it to run on it's own. finally i had done it. i sat nervously with my hand on the fuel valve for about a minute. after reading so many other stories i was amazed at how quiet it was. the leaf blower made more noise. i thought perhaps it wasn't going very fast. so after impressing my friends and parents and scaring my neighbors, i decided to make the fuel injector hole bigger. the next weekend (by this time it was mid august) i made some modifications and started it up again. i started by getting it to idle for a little while then cranking the fuel. instantly the turbo started speeding up and getting louder. the high pitched whine kept getting higher till it turned into a decent roar. at this point i wished i had put on some ear protection. the sound was so beautiful. i decided that i really needed some way of telling how fast this thing was spinning. my tachometer consisted of an infared diode and photo transistor pointed at the cold side of the turbo shaft which was painted half white half black. i used a meter with a Hz setting to display the speed. at idle i found it was running about 40,000 rpm . at wide open throttle i was reading 2055 Hz. that's 123,300 rpm!! at this speed i wouldn't leave my post at the fuel valve, but my friends told me that the fins on the exhaust side were not glowing at all. this is a good thing. after running it for several seconds i shut it off. as soon as the excitement started wearing off, i realized just how fast it was going and decided to never run it nearly that fast again.HA HA HA just kidding. of course i will. even though it ran just fine at that speed, i am now a little scared of it (as i really should be) now it is october and i am still playing with the turbine. i built a nozzle that will hopefully someday have an afterburner. i was also just asked to give a demonstration to a few guys from the utah salt flats racing association. i'm kind of nervous about trying to explain my little turbo turbine . they also gave me a very generous and dangerous gift for doing it. i got a 10 lb bottle of nitrous oxide! i sure hope i'm never crazy enough to try and run it in my turbine. cold weather and too many projects have been taking up all of my time, but i did manage to make an afterburner. it didn't seem to work very well so i'm just going to take it apart and start over. i'm also planning to build a grilling attachment just for fun. i already tried cooking a hot dog with it and it seems to cook pretty good. i have abandoned my oil pump idea because they just kept burning up and not doing a very good job. the problem with that is i have to make a new oil pump. but i got an oil pump from a pontiac 455 that my friend has. i'm in the process of connecting it to a motor. with school and everything else i have a hard time finding the time and motivation to work on it, but i plan to get it running again with an afterburner real soon. ok now i have the pump working and the afterburner sort of working. i say sort of because it shoots some wicked flames but they are completely outside of the nozzle. i guess i'll have to work on that. i can't believe how much fuel the afterburner uses. it will go through a quart of kerosene in no time. now i'm starting to think about other projects, like a tesla coil, hydrogen peroxide rocket, wind turbine, etc.. so i don't know how much else i'm actually going to do with this thing, but it's been a fun project. well that's about it for now.... if i can be of any help to anyone who wants to try doing this themselves, please feel free to send me an email. i hope to put some pictures on here soon. a bigger turbo? i seem to have come across a couple bigger turbos for free. i think i'll maybe perhaps kinda start to think about making another one. and remember when i said i wouldn't be crazy enough to run nitrous through this thing? i'm planning to do exactly that in a couple of weeks during a demo. this should be fun! QUANTIFY ME! ........... seven and half quarter cheese + gandalf + 100000 volts + 4 spoiled seal eyes + 12 kg Fe oxide + 10 billion years + a dirty casket + 5 green army men + constant burning hatred + pinball |
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| 123,300 RPM with my home made turbo turbine |
| I think i'll dedicate this page to the memory of our dear departed friend. you will live on in our hearts and our commuter cars. goodnight. "THE BEER BARON" |
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| salt is some pretty cool stuff...... yeah.... |
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| click on some of my other toys to see big pics. |