Is NOS old news ?

[Spirit]

One for the experts out there, take a look at this - posted on another website forum and thought would interest you guys:

http://www.alphamaleperformance.com/pages/1/index.htm

Quote from website:

"The ELECTROCHARGERTM by Alpha Male Performance (AMP) is the most significant advancement in automotive performance in the past 100 years. It is the newest technology in engine performance adders such as Turbochargers, Superchargers and Nitrous Oxide systems and can be utilized in conjunction with the conventional power adders as well. The ELECTROCHARGERTM is a power adder that takes the place of your alternator and runs in parallel with the engine and all of it's modifications and adds instant torque (about 100 lbft) to the crankshaft, flattening out the torque curve and providing faster acceleration and power right off the line or any time you punch it. The ELECTROCHARGERTM is coupled to the crankshaft through a special drive belt that allows for quiet reliable operation under all driving conditions. The ELECTROCHARGERTM is powered by a Super Capacitor Battery Pack (SCBP) that is located in the trunk of the vehicle which provides 48 volts and 350 amps of juice to the motor instantly on demand. When the energy in the SCBP is depleted, the ELECTROCHARGERTM switches to generator mode, thereby charging the SCBP back up to it's full State of Charge (SOC) making it ready to help you annihilate the competition once again. Under normal driving conditions, the SCBP can be charged back up in as little as 8 minutes. An optional stand-alone charger is available if your into drag racing and need a faster charging time without cruising around."

[enigma]

Lets look at the evidence!!!

350A at 48V......that is an input power to the motor of 16800W or 22.5HP

Now your average DC motor is 85% efficient so this reduces to about 19HP

As we know the transmission saps about 30% of the flywheel HP so there goes another 6HP leaving a grand total of about 13HP at the wheels (assuming there are no losses in the drive belts and gearing etc)

Now this may be a significant improvement if you only start off with 100HP, but when you already kick out ~300HP I doubt you would notice it (apart from being $3500 plus shipping, import duty and vat poorer!)

Also it is worth considering the extra weight, anyone care to think how much the battery weighs? Or the motor itself? Essentially you could get the same effect by engaging your starter motor, and as you all know from experience this is fine at moving you at low speed, but do it when you are moving and it goes unnoticed (OK, only me done this! :-D )

Just my opinion! ;)

[Spirit]

LOL - thats why I passed it to you experts ;)

[neil and bob]

Well, the theory's there. Some manufactures are already using a more advanced version of something like this to supplement the cars internal combustion engine. The problem is, even if it does work, most people will think it's snake oil, and won't want to fork out the money to a company that appears to have some kind of chimp as it's mascot! Having said all that, if somebody could show me one, working on my local rolling road, and it did give 100 lb/ft of torque then I would have one straight away, the only way to get that kind of extra power out of a normally aspirated engine is to turbo or supercharge it, which is very involved. The set up shown drives the crank, so no extra load is applied to any of the engines internal components, this is surely the most attractive aspect of the whole thing, if it works! If there is a UK rep out there who can prove it works i'll buy a unit and develop a kit for Mitsubishi V6 non turbo engines at my own expense!

[enigma]

If electric motor technology is able to provide a motor that can add 100lbft of torque, why not ditch the heavy VR4 engine and transmission system and put one of these little motors at each corner? :p

[Nick Mann]

As far as I understand it, power is proportional to torque multiplied by rpm.

An electric motor has a near constant power output regardless of speed, so at low rpm the torque is high, whereas at high rpm the torque is low. Therefore torque supplied by the motor could well peak at an astronomical value, but would dissappear at a phenomenal rate as you accelerated.

I can't quantify this yet as I am still looking for unit conversion factors!

I also agree with BDA that the gains don't appear to be worth more than a few quid!

[Nick Mann]

If electric motor technology is able to provide a motor that can add 100lbft of torque, why not ditch the heavy VR4 engine and transmission system and put one of these little motors at each corner? :p

I think the big problem of electrically powered cars is energy storage, not motor size! Hence all the invetigation into fuel cells. They can provide a large quantity of electricity from a much smaller storage volume and mass than a battery.

[enigma]

As far as I understand it, power is proportional to torque multiplied by rpm.

An electric motor has a near constant power output regardless of speed, so at low rpm the torque is high, whereas at high rpm the torque is low. Therefore torque supplied by the motor could well peak at an astronomical value, but would dissappear at a phenomenal rate as you accelerated.



This was kind of my point but in more technical terms



Essentially you could get the same effect by engaging your starter motor, and as you all know from experience this is fine at moving you at low speed, but do it when you are moving and it goes unnoticed (OK, only me done this! )


Interestingly it doesn't say how long a 'boost' you get, it does mention 8 minutes to recharge though, so I am guessing not long!

I'll stick with my NOS thank you very much!

If I really want a hybrid car I'll go buy a Honda Insight!

Insight Specs (http://www.hondacars.com/models/specifications.asp?ModelName=Insight)

Interesting to see they claim only 6 extra BHP but 13lb.ft of Torque that appears way low down in the rev range. Their motor is about half the power of the AMP one and this certainly seems to tie in with the views of the 'experts' as Pete refers to us! Shame Honda dont show the 0-60 times with and without the electric motor! ;)

Hold on.....just found that Car and Driver tested it

Full charge
10.6s

Partial charge
12.3s

Zero charge
13.3s

That is certainly some improvement!

Do I start eating my word yet? Nope.....I still dont think so!

[neil and bob]

For what it's worth I agree with BDA. The wheel at each corner thing is being tried, but battery technology holds it back. As for the electrocharger or whatever it is, if it did give a boost I suspect it wouldn't last for long, but who knows, maybe i'm slagging off the next great automotive breakthrough!

[colVR4]

Just for comparison purposes, how much space does a NOS setup take and how long does a standard bottle last?

Do you use NOS for the entire acceleration period or for a particular part of it? Would the electric motor be used in a similar fashion (i.e. particular rev range)?

[neil and bob]

A nos six port kit like the one I would fit to a V6 would be about £1100 fitted, the bottle would last about 3mins. continuous use with 50bhp jets in. The system is set up to activate only at full throttle as this is when you need it most! IF the electrocharger works, then I would like to see it working on the same basis, but with some sort of relay switching device on the brake pedal, so that it would charge its own batteries when off throttle and under braking. We sell nitrous for £3.50 p/lb, and the above calculations are based on a 10lb bottle, so with this in mind the electocharger seems too good to be true, hence all the scepticism!

[enigma]

Depends how big a bottle you use! I will be using one a similar size to a fire extinguisher, but a soda stream size cylinder could be used too!

Apparently a NOS refil would be about £30-40 for a 10lb bottle and could be expected to last for between 1 and 2 minutes! However you only use it at full throttle, and only at higher RPM (3000+) If you imagine a 1/4 mile taking 12 seconds (if only!) and the suggest that you would only need it for 8 seconds of this it means you get a fair few smiles!

The under bonnet installation is marginally bigger than a fag packet!

[KiwiTT]

This discussion has put me off NOS as well.

Why, it only lasts 1-5 mins. Enough for, a bit of acceleration, however, not much use in day-to-day driving.

But that said, I have learnt a lot from our experts again. Any performance questions are really well answered here.

[Brind]

Still, the best thing about nitrous is that you only use it when you want to, how often do you need that power other than to shake off a so called faster car, I'm sure you wouldn't hit the gas for a constant 3 minutes as you would be at top speed long before that, and no one is really that stupid enough to do that on the public highways (well...).
The rest of the time, strain on the engine is nothing different, parts wear the same as you still run standard, fuel consumption is the same so it still has many plus sides.

[colVR4]

From the description it sounds like this is basically an very powerful alternator that also acts as a motor when the power is reversed..is that right? If the torque is available at low revs, rather than high revs (such as NOS) wouldn't that improve your 'off-the-line' performance? Couldn't it then be used in conjunction with NOS as the revs increase? Think of the grin facor :-D

[Spirit]

It does say it can be used in conjunction with your "conventional" power adders, so I guess you can use it with NOS too ;)

[colVR4]

What we NEED is someone to trial it for us.....but who.....erm.....

BDA?

[Spirit]

LOL - sure Dave would but not at $3500 + shipping/VAT etc :sad3:

[neil and bob]

Don't be misled. Nitrous gives extra power in the mid range as well, it's just activated by full throttle. Nitrous can give a massive increase in cylinder pressures, and this is why most kits are on a throttle switch, if it was activated by a button on the dash and you used it while driving up a hill in fourth at 1500rpm, then your engine would not last long. Sorry, I posted this reply without reading the second page!

[Nick Mann]

One more point. The power that the motor gives you has to be first taken from the engine. In other words, once the motor releases its energy, it has to recharge from the engine before it can be used again. This is okay if you are launching of a set of lights and then cruising for a distance before the next set of lights. For use on a track day it would be a nightmare getting the power release/charge right. Even if yuo could use some charge from braking to re-charge the battery for the motor, it would still be very awkward. I think to be used effectively (Even if it is effective, which I'm still not convinced of!) the electronics of when to charge and when to release would have to be very clever!

[neil and bob]

Somebody get me some more information and if it looks promising then i'll consider trying it. I have e-mailed for info. but can't find any independant opinions on it.

[KiwiTT]

The rest of the time, strain on the engine is nothing different, parts wear the same as you still run standard, fuel consumption is the same so it still has many plus sides.

No strain on the engine ? Why ?

I would have thought if you increase the power, you need to strenghten other parts. A little bit like pulling on an elastic band too hard (it will break). Or is that only for constant increase e.g more PSI in the turbo, you need to strengthen other parts.

[Nick Mann]

This sytem applies power direct to the crank. The power therefore does not directly put strain on the pistons etc. It would still add strain to the gearbox and diff etc.

[Brind]

"The rest of the time" the car is running at normal tune, therefore nothing is different.