The topic has been beat to -death- on other forums. For all the data, conjecture and attitude you could possibly stomach, look here:

http://www.digest.net/bmw/archive/v7/threads.html

To cut through alot of the crap, read the various debates by Kibort and Conforti.

If you have time to kill, check out threads with subjects "dyno", "eram, and "electric supercharger".

 

I read the archive. Here's what it comes down to:

Someone claimed they made it and it works.

A bunch of people who didn't test it said it didn't.

There is a rather humorous side thread on hamster-driven compressors (you need to visit the shop if you see a puff of fur out of your exhaust).

But what it came down to was no one would really change stance......

Seems the objective comments were open minded, and thought that it might have a life as a WOT power adder.

There were a couple of concepts that are worth passing on:

The basic idea here is that while the fan takes energy to run (increasing engine load), the fact that you get to burn more gas drives the gain. (And if gas wasn't a nice high energy density medium, we'd all drive around with Duracels in the trunk, and not have to stop for 350 miles). Many of the commenters neglected that point, and got stuck on "how can you get more power out than you put in?" kind of questions.

Some other pointers:

Really bad spelling can get you flamed.

Really bad formatting can get you flamed.

Pissing contenst on chat rooms seem to annoy as many as find it entertaining.

Most lead with opinion, and very few with science.

Many that try to use science need to go back to school. (not for being wrong, but for not considering a whole system approach).

Many used "seat of the pants" estimates that have data that skews the conculsion.

All in all, the threads on the Bimmer site are a perfect example of how to not learn much in lots of time .

It seems that many unconvetional ideas get slammed before anyone would work the numbers. I guess that's human nature.

On another thread here, someone used the same idea to create a way to run air through the intercooler as a way to reduce heat soak.

Anyway, I hope that they want to test a Mini to show what it can do. My wife just delivered our first child on Wednesday, and I'm taking a month off work. So with luck, maybe we can see some real numbers....

Matt

 

Well stated Matt...and congradulations on your new baby

 

I had an e-mail conversation with the guys who make this. They get burried in this crap all the time, and have a stock postition. Here it is......

----------------- begin cut&paste section ----------------
In an internal combustion engine, Added pressure = greater air density = more fuel added by the engine management system = more HP. That is a physical law that cannot be messed with. With all the power coming from the battery (like your starter motor uses), there is no drain on your engine to generate the electrical energy through the alternator, so all hp gains from the e-RAM go directly to the driven wheels. Over 1 HP of electrical energy from the battery to produce 10hp on a 200hp engine. Also, since the e-RAM is 3.6" inside diameter, even when it is not energized, it creates NO RESTRICTION, as the effective area of the e-RAM unit with the motor in the center is the equivalent of a 3" free-flow tube. We even dyno tested and posted the results on our web-site showing the e-RAM mounted to the intake but NOT energized at all VS. a free flow intake with cone-filter, and the before and after graphs were identical, proving no restriction when not powered.

This is not some cheap plastic boat bilge pump fan or other knock-off that is being sold on the Internet & violating our patents. We are the originator and patent holder of this technology, and there is no-one on the planet that can provide 1psi, and 1.7 psi (e-RAM and Super) using an axial flow fan unit. Axial flow fans are great at developing high flow rates, but weak at developing pressure. This is why we are producing a mild psi boost of only 1psi, even with a high power draw of close to 800 watts.
All other "wannabe competitors" are just ripping people off and soiling our name (as well as our technology). We spend a good deal of time going after these companies to shut them down, but the Internet is a shady place with plenty of places to hide, and a patent is only as effective as the dollars you have to enforce it, so we just do the best we can with the resources we have available. All we can do is provide our real dyno results, and lab test results, and let those things speak for themselves.

There are only two other companies that produce "REAL" electric boost technology:

1) Thomas Knight: the Thomas Knight Supercharger, and it is a sound concept. However, it is a couple of thousand dollars, not $600 like our Super e-RAM 1.7psi unit. It also requires a separate and heavy battery supply (upwards of 70 pounds) and the weight of the "roots" style blower driven by three 6HP starter motors, as well as many engine management changes to accommodate the added boost. 20 psi is produced at 0 cfm, and as engine RPM increases, air-flow requirement increases, and thus the pressure generated by the unit decreases. However, it is a solid concept, but is not well suited for a daily driving and is more geared toward drag racing. It draws roughly 15,000 WATTS of electrical energy (18 HP of electrical energy) for short duration, and after a few activations requires a wait period for recharging the battery supply to prepare for more drag runs. Again, a valid concept if you are using it for drag racing.

2) Turbodyne: Turbodyne uses a true turbocharger driven by a high power electric motor that produces 3psi, but only up to a flow rate of 100 cfm. After that, the pressure drops off dramatically. By 200 CFM, the total pressure is 1PSI... By 300 CFM, virtually no pressure is generated. Again, air-flow becomes the limiting factor. This electric Turbo requires additional batteries as a power-supply, and costs over $2000 as well.

Regarding other "Electric boost" offerings like cheap plastic "turbo" looking devices driven by a cheap electric motor: Again, the concept of using a true compressor for boost is a sound concept, the problem is that compressors are horrible at providing unrestricted air-flow unless they are constantly running at speeds that will also generate pressure. The "electric turbo" will have to be on all the time in order to not create restriction when not energized. This means it will have to use a low powered electric motor that won't draw allot of electrical energy so that it won't overheat if used in constant duty.... thus... it won't draw enough electrical energy to generate any boost and will ultimately just restrict air-flow.

Next, regardless of what PSI is claimed by ANY electric maker of electric boost technology, or what hp gains are claimed, the laws of flow dynamics require a specific amount of power to generate psi at a given flow rate. Air-flow is one thing, and Air-pressure is another. Combining the two in any usable amount for an automotive application requires allot of energy (electrical or mechanical, it doesn't matter). That is why traditional mechanical superchargers require 30-40HP driven from the car engine pulleys in order to produce 90 hp, or a net gain of 50-60hp. The laws of physics, flow dynamics, and Ohms Law (electrical power computation) would require that whatever device was used to generate 50+ HP based on that graph would require over 15,000 watts of energy using a true centrifugal compressor (like what is needed to operate the Thomas Knight roots blower). The e-RAM requires almost 800 WATTS of electrical energy to produce 1psi from 0 to 400 cfm. The Super e-RAM requires almost 1600 WATTS to produce 1.7 PSI from 0 to 400 cfm. The total air-flow capability of the e-RAM is 1000 cfm. It is the differential in air-flow from what the e-RAM is trying to flow VS what the engine is trying to take in that generates the positive pressure to the intake.

Regarding the e-RAM unit itself...

This is a high-impact, glass impregnated ABS plastic 3.6" diameter axial-flow fan (light inertial load). Mounted inside is an exclusive, high-performance, rare-earth magnet motor drawing 791W, 57A at 13.88 volts from the car battery in a pre-charged condition (battery provides the high amperage load, while the alternator keeps voltage at 13.88V). The resulting RPM is 25,300 RPM, and the resulting pressure is 1 PSI + with our new Generation 4 motor. This is an extremely expensive motor. This amount of electrical energy in any other motor (other than our Gen 3 motor) results in catastrophic failure within just a few seconds of operation. We can't even count how many cheaper motors from every motor manufacturer in the R/C and industrial automation markets we burned up and melted in our development test process back in 1996. If you ask any of our so-called "competition" about how much total power their motor draws...... You will get no response, or you will get an answer of around 30 to 100 watts.

Summary: Anyone claiming to do what we are doing [Axial-Flow (in-line) fan used to generate HP on an internal combustion engine] is most definitely in violation of our patent. Also, anyone claiming ANY HP gains on a car engine without a power source of at least 700WATTS is LYING, and just ripping people off.

----------------- end cut&paste section -----------------

 

well, there you go... answers my question about how much compression a fan can reasonablly produce.

Good job on doing the leg work

Now for someone to get one of those setups and put it on a MINI

 

yes, please, someone get one of these and post before and after dynos. here is the website, knock yourselves out:

http://www.electricsupercharger.com/eram.shtml

 

All that marketing and writing for just 1psi... too much time on their
hands.

 

Hi Kenchan,
What's up? One PSI on 15 PSI is pretty nice improvement! A bit under 7% Rough math gives about 10 hp to an S. At half the price of an exhaust system. While you may not want one of these, what did it do to earn scorn? I'd say thoughtless comments are a sign of too much time, not an excessive defense of the technology behind a small business. That speaks to dedication.

Everythink I've learned in over 25 years of physics education and over 10 years working as a paid scientist says this is a better concept than many power adders out there. Much more cost effective, too!

If I had a grand, I'd add one of these to the new M7 air-gain, and smoke some serious rubber!

Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

Matt

 

Matt,
Congrats to you and your wife on the new addition to the family!

As to your offer to e-ram...did they bite?

IIRC, it was e-ram who promised a unit for testing over at one of the naturally aspirated Subaru boards a year or so ago...they were a no show even after weeks of banter and promises. I believe the science behind it (kudos to you and others who have the patience for numbers and formulas!), but having it installed in MY CAR in the REAL WORLD is what counts.

Maybe they will give us a deal on a unit for testing purposes (assuming they won't send a 'free' one). I don't have the money to buy one, but I'd be willing to toss a few bux into an experiment...anyone else?

 

A PSI doesn't equal 10hp on these cars. If so a 19% pulley would add 20hp+ over a 15%. Maybe a PSI equals 3-4hp.

 

More math:

Don't forget the engine power consumed by the alternator to power the fan. 791 W is a little over 1 hp and alternators are not 100% efficient. Also, what evidence is there that this product does anything at all? Are we sure that the fan doesn't impede airflow at a certain point? A normally modded MCS flows about 200 g/s at redline, WOT. How much heat does the fan add?

 

Yeah... this is what bugs me... 57 amps is a serious draw at 12 volts. Under optimum conditions it may not matter, but I wouldn't run it with the radio, A/C, sunroof operation, or at night - and make darn sure you don't have it turned on when you start the car! Bear in mind that while modern alternators have fairly high amperage ratings, they are not designed to run at full capacity all the time. Hey Andy, how well do computers operate during voltage brown-outs? Even quick ones?

Personally, I don't care whether the thing works or not, but from an electrical designer's point of view, I wouldn't touch this thing with a 15' line stick...

 

Surprisingly, most if not all of the computers in the MINI seem fine with occasional low voltage. The general rule of thumb for happy ECU's (DME's) is 12.5 V.

I accidentally left my lights in an airport parking lot for a few days. Needless to say, the electrical stuff on the car didn't work (considering all the computer controls, you'd think they would have load management that would detect drain and shut down consumers!). Anyway, the airport staff hooked up a partially drained jumper box and we tried to start it. The lights inside the car worked, but there wasn't enough juice to crank. A second jumper box hooked in parallel with the first finally did the trick.

Afterwards, there weren't any unusual fault codes or anything and the clock still remembered the time! I guess a tiny trickle was enough to keep it alive.

If this contraption works (which I highly doubt), it would be advisable to run it from a separate circuit that was isolated from the ECU. It would be pretty nasty to get into some e-boost only to find the engine management shut down. Capacitors could help in this case, by storing up energy over time, to be used in short bursts at a later time.

 

I asked, but they said no. But they did agree that if any buyer wasn't satified, they'd refund the purchase price.

Greatgo, 10 hp is an approximation, but thier web-site shows 10 hp on a 200 hp car, so 5%.

Andy, I'm baffled why you don't think this will work. You believe in your SC, and yet that is the EXACT SAME THING but designed to flow more air and drive a larger pressure gradient. And it takes more power to drive. Sure it takes a HP to drive, but you CAN have this hooked to a TPS and only use it when you're on the hammer. I think someone claimed a duty cycle of 20-40 sec a lap at Laguna Seca.

What's the deal? The science is sound.

Also for the comment about e-Ram having too much time on thier hands, the reception HERE to what is a sound idea leads me to belive the time they invested in authoring the response has been good, as it must be used over and over as everyone has a reactionary response, without doing any math to scope out the principle.

Also, for what evedence it there that this works at all, it's all over thier web site. You may not belive it and consider it marketing spin, but if it's that, it's pretty complete. And they show a dyno graph from a car where the benefit is marginal at best. This suggests either very detailed fraud, or a vendor hosnestly showing that some apps work better than others.

Whatever. I'd bet money that the ANY mini would show an improvement in peak power with this. Questions of alternator lifetime and other stuff are valid, and may be a real world consiquence, I have no clue there. But this should work when energized.

For the point that if one PSI is good for 10 hp then the 19% pully would get 20 more HP than the 15%, that is only true if you can compress the gas without heating it, and you're using a pump that can drive an infinite pressure gradient at zero flow. Eventally, ALL pumps stop flowing if they have to drive a pressure gradient higher than they can drive with no flow. So the boost benefit curve is a curve not a line. For small pressure changes, the temp increase due to compression is negligable. As the compression increases, so does the heating, which contributes to DECREASED molecular density. To get nerdy, linear approximations are only valid for small deviation.

Most of the time the participants here are pretty open minded and positive. I'm just suprised and baffled why this product is getting so much crap, and suffering so much scorn. The vendor never came to the site to say that their stuff was the best thing since sliced bread, there have been NO POSTINGS of anyone whith a mini who has even used this, much less bought it and found that they'd been had. And despite working REAL NUMBERS (admitedly, with a bit of slop, but that's what estimates are for), many of us are still saying this thing sucks. Let's just hope that others are a bit more open minded if any of us suggest something that's not based on "convetional wisdom".

Matt

 

Why do you care?

Honestly, is there any better way to determine if this product works on a Mini than to have a reliable source install and dyno the thing? Until that happens this thread should be incredibly entertaining, but probably not very useful in determining the usefullness of this thing.

 

I guess I just like to think that opinion is based on fact.

Here's a third party evals I found:

This one shows benefit, but at low end of estimate.
http://gawlowski.com/mr2/mr2_dyno.html

This one shows negligable benefit (but shows no negative effect of it in uncharged state)
http://home.att.net/~t.vago/gallery/...no_1.html#eram

This one shows good gains over the full rpm range.
http://www.team3s.com/FAQeram.htm

Satisfied caddy owner, but only butt dyno
http://www.caddyinfo.com/revieweram.htm

 

Opinions on this topic are as varied as people's perception of what is fact.

 

One of the places that offers it is www.boosthead.com , The company belongs to a guy named Thomas Knighthe is a very happy MINI Cooper S, and is the owner. They are based out of South Florida. I met him once, and had a very long conversation with him, not only is he a very skilled mechanic with his own machine shop so he is able to offer more services. I thought the whole concept was pretty cool, but the supercharger is only good for about fifteen secons of juice.



Hope this helps

Danny

 

I've been thinking about this some more, and I'm gonna try it. The math says that even if I add 16 lbs, I only need one HP to keep my power to weight ratio. So I figured out how to......

1) Install eRAM so that it's part of a CAI (may even look stockish).
2) Run it off a separate light weight battery (Braille or Odessy)
3) Have it NOT connected to the alternator when energiezed.
4) Have the spare battery charge when the car is NOT at WOT.
5) Have the spare battery help with capacity for starting.

I've got the schematics done, and will be doing an install over the next month. Don't ask for numbers, I'll post them when it's done. But this is just a teaser.....

Matt

 

Excellent! Looking forward to seeing your results.

 

I had a chance to spend some time chatting with Matt a couple days ago, and I feel that he has something quite worthy to evaluate here. This whole thing should weigh around 16 pounds, or less, and the battery could be added in the rear, which is nice for weight distrubution reasons...

Matt, with the Braille firmly in place, the Odyssey PC680 is on craigslist, and as you probably noticed, sitting in a box in the back of that car I was driving. Do you want it? It's yours to use for this testing if you like. So long as you charge it once or twice a week, I'd be happy to lend it to you. Just return it when done. I can bring it over later this morning. Let me know...

 

Hi all,
Here's how to hook up the eRAM.

This will
1)Isolate the standard electrical system during boost, don't worry about the ECU voltage dropping.
2) Only charge the extra battery during non-boost (less than full load) operation.
3) The second light weight battery gets to help with starting and normal electrical load operation when the circuit isn't energized.

Some other points.
a) using this "double throw" switch arrangement with a spare battery can be used to isolate ANY electrical load. I'm thinking of doing this with an electric water pump as well, so that there's no "pumping loss" during WOT.
b) You need to use some surge suppression caps because the current levels are rather high. If not, the contact on the relay arc during switching, and the lifetime is reduced.
c) I don't know if I'm gonna use a "stupid" switch or something with adjustable levels based on pedal position. The first is easiest, the second is nicest.....

All this should come in at about 15-18 lbs.
If you don't use the extra isolated battery, it's only 3 lbs or so.
1 HP increase preserves power to weight, anything else is just gravy!

Matt

 

So, how did the electric supercharger work?

There should be lots of happy users by now?

 

come on guys! if these things REALLY work dont you think everyone would be running one by now?????????

seriouly there is no way a fan can make the boost a compresor (be it in a turbo or a superchrarger) can.

if you want power instantly that you cna turn on and off you need to be looking at a N2O kit.

Chris

 

damn, I was just thinking about this on this am's commute!

I started thinking about the electric SC, but came up with an electric Turbo to reduce lag... yes was still hooked to the exhaust to harness power at high flow, but with electric assist... and when the electric motor spins it will help pull the exhaust out (via neg. pressure), before the exhaust pressure would then push (power) the turbine

and yes, I was thinking of it being powered by the alt.... which got me to thinking about the alt. powered by an exhaust driven turbine... which is nothing more than a electric motor 'running backwards' like when the exhaust gas is pushing the turbine, turning the electric motor, generating current, and compressing the intake air... which then led tp changing car electronics up to a 52V system to handle the extra load (hey its already changed once from 6V to 12V...) and then I got into work...:impatient