Turbine car runs...

[EddieWeeks]

Started up the turbine car today... I pushed a button on
the transmitter and the Jetcat P80 started right up..

I powered up a little and kicked it ran down the drive way
at about 5 mph... Turned it around and powed up even more
and still 5 mph...While it was running I pushed down the thrust
deflector to get more air down low... The turbine then started
to run hot, glowing in the back of the engine red hot... Not normal..

With the flap down I powered up to %50 and started moving perty good.
Then the turbine powered back on its own, becaus the ECU did not
like the high temps.

The bottom line is the, this designed is flawed. There is just way to much
air comming out the back of that turbine for the size of my box and
turbo charger... I need to build a larger box with a different kind of
windmill.. I tried to do this with out machining Inconel (very hard).

I'll be back..

[Mike Keeney]

Still plenty of time for R&D. Glad you didn't bust anything.

Hang in there.

Mike

[nitrosportrules]

yup there is still plenty of time but when it moves you should post some video!!

[CENthasizer]

yeah! even if it doesnt move fast, i got to hear that thing!

[studysession]

Still a good start.

[CENthasizer]

If this doesnt work out, can you for fun, take the turbine and use it as a direct thrust to see how fast it would go thrust powered? But if it does work out, which i hope it does!

[Matthew007]

You can't put a direct axle link to the middle spinning part turbine or somthing to use its pure rpm power? But what do I know.

[CENthasizer]

i think there would be a torque issue, right? the turnbine by itself cant move the gears and wheels and would probably blow up and look really cool, and very expensive!
I dont know either but there is my $1.23

[microrcdude]

isnt there suppost to be a place for the air to exit the chassis?

[EddieWeeks]

You can put a pully on the front shaft but your RPMs are limited to 80,000
This is less than half power, the turbine is designed to run at 120,000 rpms.
This link shows the same engine set up for flying a heli.

http://jetcatusa.sitewavesonline.net/hp5.html

There is no way to tap off anything turning 120,000 rpms mostly because of
balance problems..

My friend who owns a machine shop came over today and we came with a plan
to machine a 316 SS paddle wheel. 3 times larger than the turbo charger
and I am going to make a much larger air box with an ajustable flap on top..
All exhaust will exit strait up and the turbine will be moved further forward.

btw...This bitch is LOUD...

Eddie Weeks

[Icon_GTR]

Dude you're whole idea on this car is awesome man. I'm from australia, and i told a couple of blokes at work about ur idea, they were like "Sweeeeeeeet"

Keep up the good work, i'm watching ur progress BTW the sound of that turbo was super cool! hehe

[Speedtester]

Is a "bloke" a "friend" in Australian?

[StevePond]

Eddie - have you considered leaving the impeller in the turbo housing? I'm going to take a stab at it and guess that the current set-up causes much of the thrust to bleed off into oblivion and doesn't leave much for spinning the impeller. If the impeller was still in the turbo housing, almost all the thrust would be pass through the impeller and I don't think there would be as much thrust evaporating into thin air. That might introduce temperature issues with the turbine engine and the turbo, but my guess is, the key is to force more of that thrust through the turbo impeller.

Or, you could employ one of the transmissions currently used to install turbine engines into helis. Or maybe you just need a much higher ratio than you're currently using. You might have to get that impeller up to some serious rpm and the relative low ratio is preventing your set-up from "coming into its range." Just a though. I applaud your honesty related to the progress of your project and your inventiveness. Keep up the good work and don’t give up.

[CENthasizer]

A bloke is "a guy" its an english term, but because Aussies are of english decent, they use it too. And that my friend is our lesson in English grammer and slang for today.
I cant wait to see Eddi succed in this turbine project, its a very cool idea!

[EddieWeeks]

Thanks Steve... The housing from witch that turbo came from was about 40 lbs
and still did not have near enough volume to let all that air through without
back pressuring the turbine... The bottom line is.. it was worth a try.. the whole
Plan A. The use of a turbo charger cost less than $100 (bearings ect)..
Plan B. Will also be fairly cheap.. Below is Plan B.... My friend said I could use
his CNC mill to make this.. The only question is.. "What size to make it... ?"
and what gear reduction to use... ? Testing will solve the gear reduction question
but the more I think about it the more I just make this "Paddle wheel" Big..
Like 3.5 inchs long and 3 inch Dia... Even if it does not fit very well in the
5th scale body, I don't care.. As long as its works..

Also I learned, all hot parts, back half of turbine, the air box need to be insulated
to keep the heat in.. I will try Aluminum flashing shroud first, that should do it..

[jnorris52]

After looking at you cad image, I was thinking. Since the gases have to exit , why not change your paddle wheel into a screw impeller setup. Something like the old British Rootes system.
The system would be inline with the jet, so torque issues would be minimal. The system I am thinking of would use 2 screw impellers connected to an output shaft. Exhaust gases could exit over the rear diffirential and out the back.
Just an idea from a raving gear head
Otis
" I chase my dreams today, for tomorrow may never come."

[furnik28]

check out www.wren-turbines.com they sell a turbo prop jet motor if conect that to a angle grinder pinion gears these gears are ment to take a lot of tourqe from grinding metal. then you would have a killer car

[BALISTC]

I'm by no means a turbine expert, but I have been tinkering with turbocharged cars for a few years now..

Looking at the design of the box, where does the gas go once its spun the turbine wheel? It looks like there is no clear path for the gasses to go, and this would be causing a LOT of backpressure.....which in turn, means the turbine wont spin as fast and it will heat up a LOT more.

It might be worth making an exit out the back of the box and having an exhaust pipe routing the gas past the back of the car..

Also, the idea mentioned about the turbocharger exhaust housing sounds like a good one...even though its heavy, it may work...and you can get around the flow problems by using a big enough housing and having the blades on the shaft back cut, just like they do with real cars to eliminate back pressure issues..

Another thing you can look into, to eliminate heat problems, is look at getting the metal parts coated.....now I'm not sure what its called in the USA, but in Australia its called HPC coating.

It involves coating the metal parts in a ceramic substance and it insulates against heat, to keep it all in....and protects the hot parts from being damaged in ultra high temperature conditions.

Whichever way you go with it, good luck, I really wanna see this baby fly!!!!

[thefasttrack]

Originally Posted by jnorris52

After looking at you cad image, I was thinking. Since the gases have to exit , why not change your paddle wheel into a screw impeller setup. Something like the old British Rootes system.
The system would be inline with the jet, so torque issues would be minimal. The system I am thinking of would use 2 screw impellers connected to an output shaft. Exhaust gases could exit over the rear diffirential and out the back.
Just an idea from a raving gear head
Otis
" I chase my dreams today, for tomorrow may never come."

i love your idea. but what if you made a housing like a turbo housin just for the inmpeler (SP?) like a turbo but able to handle a bigger volume. like a 4 inch riht angle tubing just stick the impeller in the middle and the turbine into the bottom inlet. and the gasses will shoot up up the top.

[Toyotatogo]

It looks like the turbine is sitting crooked on the chassis?

Maybe moving the turbine exhaust closer to the turbo charger fan would help? I do think you have it to far away to provide efficent wind current.

[furnik28]

add a clutch from achain saw and a diff to it.

[slackr612]

most air models that use turbines to spin somthing instead of providing direct thrust use a gear box... eg. a turbine powered heli is driven by a gearbox that is spun by the turbine shaft itself. the thrust pushing a fan type deal is not going to provide all the power that that turbine can put out. go gearbox. your gonna have to figure out some major gear reductions so that you dont spin the axel and the wheels apart (about 50k rpm). also you need a better intake... that would help with the overheating issues. think the batmobile from batman returns.. big intake on the front. just mount that sucker with an intake scoop in the winshield that will blow a direct flow into the intake of the engine. then run the gearbox from the output shaft.. im sure you could find something online on how to run the output directly to a gearbox instead of using the thrust....

[EddieWeeks]

"also you need a better intake... that would help with the overheating issues."

Wrong... As I stated before, the turbine started and ran nice and cool with
the flap up, but when the flap was pushed down to direct the hot gasses
into the bottom of the turbo charger the EGT temp shot up and it was clear
the turbine can not handle the back pressure I created.

Why do you think there is something wrong with the intake.. ? The turbine
was sitting out in the open, with no body on the car... Can't get any better than that..

Look I can think of 50 ways that can make this thing work better, but I am only
willing to put the effort and money to build 1 of them.. What would really work well
is a P200 turbine wheel as a second stage turbine. I could get all the power I needed.
The problem is mounting all that on a shaft and cooling the bearings then building a
housing to direct the hot (700 C) gases up... Then I need a ~4.5:1 gearbox... and
it has to turn the right way.. No.. too much trouble..

The paddle wheel housing is built, so are the bearing supports, just waiting for the
CNC mill to free up to get some time on it with the 4 axis..

Eddie Weeks
http://www.corpcomp.com/weeks1/

BTW... intake air is only moving at less than 200 mph and can be very turbulent..
The centrifugal compressor is not effected by minor pressure changes.

[tr918]

Eddie,
I have looked at your design. You have done very well. The new method should work. I still think you will have the same problem with the engine temps with the new design. After the exhaust flows over the paddle you have made it needs some where to go. I noticed directly behind the paddle is a dead end plate. In order to beat the rising backpressure and temps inside the exhaust paddle apparatus you need an inline exhaust outlet. I have been working with full size turbines for years. When you start to vector the thrust you create higher exhaust gas temperatures. They need a path to escape. If you cut a hole in the plate directly behind your paddle and make an exhaust duct straight back or slightly to the side it should solve your temp problems. Also if you cut the exhaust hole behind the paddle and then cover the top and bottom of your paddle apparatus it will force all air over the paddle and out the exhaust. Thus increasing the airflow over the paddle.

For your flap design cut a second exhaust hole that you can direct the exhaust to. Make sure that when you want the exhaust to be redirected by this flap that it has a path to escape. Also make sure that when you want the exhaust to go through the paddle that it can not escape through this second hole.

The trick to getting the paddle wheel design to work is making sure you have direct full force airflow over the paddle and having a direct escape route for the exhaust. Think of it like a paddle type water wheel. Regardless of how fast the water flows into the paddle, if the exit flow of water is blocked, the wheel stops turning.
Hope this helps
-TR

[FastR]

Eddie,
You need to look at this link!
I think it will speak for itself.
GOODLUCK!!

http://www.mhzusa.com/xtdoc/Details....uctCode=m-1520