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Someone mentioned about electric supercharging at some point.

http://reviews.ebay.com/ELECTRIC-SUPERC ... LISTINGS:6

bit of myth busting.

..... but properly designed ones work:
http://www.treehugger.com/cars/electric ... by-20.html

That's sad Andy, I was so looking forward to fitting a old 12 volt camping hair dryer onto the Falco!


Being serious it looks very interesting, it is surprising what you can do with electric motors these days.
When I first looked under Terri's Mitsubishi Colt to investigate this new fangled "electric" power steering and saw what looked like a wiper motor, I laughed to myself. My mate at the MOT centre laughed louder, as it was the first one he had seen.

My latest motor a BMW 123D has the same system and I reckon all power steering will be like this soon.

Whilst talking about the BMW it does not have an electric supercharger, but it does have two exhaust driven turbos, which make it brilliant on performance and economy.
Older turbo diesels, even modern high performance units, (like my current car and Previous Alfa 156 JTD), have always had smooth torque and power low down but then run into a brick wall as everyting stops quickly once the revs build up.
This Beemer has twin sequential turbos with a small one for low down power and another for the top end.
This means power comes in from 2000 rpm and goes seemlessly all the way to 5000 if you want to use full power, although in normal use you just change up much earlier and it is really economical.
Replacing the small turbo idea with an electric supercharger for more normal diesels may be a cheaper more reliable way to do this on many more cars in the futture.
Watch this space.

Now where can I fit the 12v camping hair drier on the Falco.

Im not entirely convinced that the hair dryer approach would work and remain working
How would an electric turbine harmonise itself with engine speed and required pressure ?
Im no rocket mechanic but Im sure they (superchargers) have been direct drive from the motor for very good reasons
With regard to electric power steering pumps,less of a power drain on the motor ( air con pump supposedly robs 10/15 % )
Snake oil for your credit card !

The hair drier comment was obviously meant as a joke, (can you imagine the thrust provided by a 12v hair drier on high speed !?), but a custom made electric blower, (like the one Andy mentions), would be totally controllable via the ECU, and similarly to electric power steering an ultimately cheaper way of providing low down grunt with less power loss than a supercharger.
I seriously reckon this could be the future on all more normal cars, possibly leaving the twin turbo and combined super/turbo charger options for the real high performance options.
They would also probably give much better life than a turbo and be cheaper to replace if that was needed.
Lets wait and see.

Likewise with the hairdryer thing.
Guess Im just too old school,sceptical about that there modern thinkin thing.
I mean them ECU/EMU thing, they do that dont it