Saturday, March 11, 2006
So much for "Supercharge any car"
You've seen those "Supercharge any car" ads on just about any automotive website that takes Google Ads. If you click on the ads, you'll see they are advertising a product that looks sort of like a fan - but no actual supercharger. A supercharger is basically an air pump, and while there are many possible ways to build an air pump, a pinwheel with no moving parts is not one of them.
Not surprisingly, these things don't fare very well when you try to test one on a dyno. Popular Mechanics tested one and had it fail miserably, but they didn't post very many details. Now "NirVTECn20" on the Honda-Tech.com forum has dyno tested one and posted his results online. The result is a loss of power throughout pretty much the entire RPM range. At one point, he's lost 3 hp. And interestingly enough, that's a better result than Popular Mechanics got with the Tornado Fuel Saver, which cost them 10% of their horsepower.
Not surprisingly, these things don't fare very well when you try to test one on a dyno. Popular Mechanics tested one and had it fail miserably, but they didn't post very many details. Now "NirVTECn20" on the Honda-Tech.com forum has dyno tested one and posted his results online. The result is a loss of power throughout pretty much the entire RPM range. At one point, he's lost 3 hp. And interestingly enough, that's a better result than Popular Mechanics got with the Tornado Fuel Saver, which cost them 10% of their horsepower.
