Using hybrid batteries and motors to electrically supercharge the engine?
 

For instance a Prius engine could be only 1 liter displacement.

For traffic jams only the electric motor is used.
For boulevards the gas engine is turned on.
For extreme power demand situations, like uphills or when passing tractor trailers the electric engine could be used to supercharge the engine.

Its because a supercharger makes the engine produce more power than the power the supercharger takes to rotate.

Supposedly this is the reasoning behind 2014 Formula 1 turbo engines, switching and clutching between electric generator and motor for the supercharger.

Isent this what all the Toyota Hybrids are allredy dooing today???
Mine do!

Sounds more like a kers system than typical hybrid.

Now are you saying to incorporate an electric supercharger to the gas powered engine? Its running a pretty high compression, so it maybe hell on wheels to go ethanol 85 conversion and bump the cr a little more. :eek:

Except F1's are using exhaust driven turbos.

In theory a turbo sort of already does this, it won't boost until your in the upper part of the rev band and need the extra power (depending on turbo sizing of course).

Problem is electricity isn't free in a car (and you need a lot to drive a supercharger), while exhaust gases are just waste.

Id like to do what another member did here, but with some modifications. He took a prius engine and put it in another car and added manual control to the vvt to make it either a low or high compression engine. Id like to modify the engine and cam to make low mode the highest compression you can run moose piss discount gas on. Then the 2nd mode is a high compression that needs at least an e50 fuel mix and alters the injectors for increase flow as well as performance.

This way you can have like a real dual fuel engine or a weekend racer. :thumbup:

Depends what you mean by "supercharging". Since hybrids already use electric motors to increase power, I assume you mean "driving a compressor for forced induction with an electric motor".

There are plenty of "electric superchargers" on the market. They are all scams. Superchargers are both expensive and need plenty of horsepower (I think some of the stock Mustang superchargers used ~30hp to run).
There has been at least one honest attempt to build an electric supercharager. It required its own full-sized lead-acid battery, a fairly powerful motor (although due to the available electricity, a starter motor was probably enough), and an additional alternator (to charge the battery), and all this was on top of the ordinary supercharger it turned (this whole kit would run >$10k, unlike the hundred dollar scams that tend to clog ebay).

In the end, it would make the most sense to simply use the supercharger in the normal configuration (driven by the gas engine). Nothing would prevent you from using the electric engine (and a hybrid electric engine should certainly be powerful enough, should the engineer be stuck with nowhere to run the belts, but this would require even more control software, while the gas motor would mostly regulate itself).

As far as the prius motor in the MR2, I'd certainly like to see a supercharger on it. I'd like to believe that it could be supercharged back to at least MR2-level power (only the second generation turbos really had power, this wasn't one of them) and still get great gas mileage (provided you didn't feel the need to race a miata).

It would be nice if we could get some clarification. With the use of MIMA you can force the honda IMA system to give more and full assist til the power is used up in the pack, but thats like 13hp. In the whole grand scheme of things the power stored, used or generated by the hybrid systems isnt as much in relation to a super, turbo or NOS.

The supercharger wumpus described, the Thomas Knight kit, made around 7 psi of boost, giving an additional fifty to sixty horses (forget exact figures, it's been a looking time) in very short bursts on a big four pot motor.

Took 15 HP of hand-wound, exotic high-speed electric motors to run. And the batteries only held thirty seconds of boost. An actual clutched supercharger would probably be better. Simpler, too.

The Knight system wasn't very efficient. esp. after you added to extra weight of the batteries you had to lug around all the time, wasn't setup as a regen system either. The batteries were charged by the cars alternator.

Old Honda brainstorm I had....

On Honda D&B series with intermediate shaft, add a cogged pulley for a belt drive to a motor tucked under the intake manifold. The motor could generate power when used as a brake assist much like the Prius does. When extra power was needed, you'd switch it on manually (boost button!) say if you needed just a little extra power to get up a hill without changing your accelerator position.

This is what he is talking about

Inside the 2014 Renault F1 engine with Scarbs: Inside the 2014 Renault F1 engine with Scarbs - YouTube

Yeah, well, F1 turbines aren't electrically powered. The turbos are used as generators. While the electric generator can be reversed to spin the turbo, this is used as an anti-lag measure, not a power-boosting measure... to keep the turbo "spooled" while off-throttle, so you don't have to wait for the boost to come back when you get on the gas again.

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An actual belt driven supercharger doesn't have lag issues. And on a street car, converting mechanical drive into electricity by connecting the alternator to the crank pulley, then back into mechanical drive, by sending electricity to the supercharger, is rather pointless, when you can simply connect the supercharger straight to the crank pulley, in the first place.

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A compound hybrid turbo as on F1 cars, on the other hand, makes more sense. You're still recovering waste heat and using that to spool the turbo, but you're also using excess exhaust energy to generate electricity. No need for a wastegate... the electric generator acts as a brake, slowing down the turbine and converting excess boost into electricity, instead. Then you use that electricity to prevent lag (not to generate steady boost, per se) and perhaps to power other accessories.

Well if you get rid of the lag it boost power on low end

The main issue that I see with this is that it's going to be a huge pain in the ass to actually do. The F1 engines were designed with an electric-turbo in mind, a Prius doesn't have any form of forced induction. There are electric superchargers around that can be powered with 36V batteries that aren't too expensive that give you a solid 10% boost, but you'll need to figure out the tuning, the plumbing changes (EGR, PCV, etc.), where to put the thing, etc. The only effort you save is that you can pull energy directly from the Prius battery instead of installing a drive belt or secondary battery system.

It would be neat just to run a turbine just to charge batteries

I got it. How about a kers system that is activated by a push to pass button? :eek: