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Planning Stage

A project log for Electric Turbo

A lag free, high performance, low cost turbo solution that is customizable and provides about 8-10 pounds of boost (about +200hp).

matthew-carlsonMatthew Carlson 01/07/2015 at 19:460 Comments

The car that this will be first installed and developed on is still being worked on (a 2004 Nissan 350z) and the engine block is currently being machined and cleaned at a local shop. Until then we can plan out.

After some discussion and some back of the envelope math, we have come to the conclusion that a 1Kw motor would be required to get to the levels of boost that we want (up to 15 lbs). The average car only can handle about 5lbs and a nicer car can handle up to about 10. Those with reinforced or modded cars can go up to roughly 20 lbs before things are getting really complicated (or if they don't care that their engine has a large likely hood of bursting). Aiming to capture as large of a market as reasonable, we decided that 15 is a good upper limit for us.

The main problem that this introduces is that your average car battery can't handle 1kW motor. We estimate that if we use a 24v or 48v motor, we can probably get by with a beefy battery of continuous boost for about a minute. The micro-controller would have to accommodate this and be able to measure the battery voltage. In order to charge the larger battery, a better alternator would likely have to be installed.

With a electronic turbo and a micro-controller it is possible to have dynamic turbo curves. A bluetooth module on the micro-controller allows someone to change it and check on various car stats as well as adjust it (whether to respond to throttle position, RPMs, or a combination of the two).

For now, we'll be looking to battery options as well as the merits of different micro-controllers.

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