I mean, even without watching Top Gun the retractable wings were the coolest thing ever for a kid. It was the aviation equivalent of Mad Max flipping on the supercharger on the V8 Interceptor.
(I know, I know. You can’t actually spin up a supercharger like that, but it’s still fuckin cool.)
(I know, I know. You can’t actually spin up a supercharger like that, but it’s still fuckin cool.)
Technically you could design a supercharger with a clutch (like the one for the car’s A/C compressor) , but it’d be dumb because there’s no good reason not to have it active all the time.
Superchargers come with massive parasitic losses, in many cases 10-20%, and there’s a decent handful of cars with clutches on the supercharger pulley. The MR2 is one.
This kind of makes me want a Previa. And not for the first time, either: it’s a thought I have at least once a year or so. Maybe I should finally act on it.
The main reason, aside from the fact that I actually kinda like minivans, is that I want to be able to tell people I drive a manual-transmission, supercharged, mid-engine, AWD car. And then after they try to guess what kind of Italian supercar it is, I can say “Nope! It’s an old Toyota minivan! 🤪”
It’s just unfortunate that AFAIK you can’t get all three of those features (manual, supercharger, AWD) on any single Previa – the trim levels were arranged such that they only ever came with at most two of the three. So I’d have to get a automatic '97 S/C AWD and then do a transmission swap on it.
I definitely haven’t spent countless hours thinking about how you could have a mechanically activated clutch on a supercharger pulley. Nope. Not at all.
Funny story. Nowadays you could feaseably run a dual forced air like turbo and super charging and use an electric clutch to disengage the super. But the intake would be convoluted with some way to bypass the stupid charger or the turbo depending on rpm. it just makes it not worth it.
Imagine you’re breathing through a big straw, and at the other end of the straw is a device that pumps air faster whenever you’re breathing faster, say when you’re running fast. If you turn off power to the pump, you can’t breathe through the straw anymore because the pump isn’t spinning, so you’d need a second straw that opens up only when the pump is off.
You are the engine, and the pump is the supercharger. When the engine doesn’t need to breathe fast, turning off the supercharger would conserve energy use at the expense of power output. But the design of the pump doesn’t let air bypass it when it’s off, so you’d need to engineer something (overly complex) to do it.
I’m told that I first learned to swear by watching Top Gun with my older siblings. Dad was impressed that I even used the words correctly in context. Mom was not happy at all.
To me it was F14. F15 is cool and all, but… I definitely saw Top Gun while way too young.
I mean, even without watching Top Gun the retractable wings were the coolest thing ever for a kid. It was the aviation equivalent of Mad Max flipping on the supercharger on the V8 Interceptor.
(I know, I know. You can’t actually spin up a supercharger like that, but it’s still fuckin cool.)
Technically you could design a supercharger with a clutch (like the one for the car’s A/C compressor) , but it’d be dumb because there’s no good reason not to have it active all the time.
Superchargers come with massive parasitic losses, in many cases 10-20%, and there’s a decent handful of cars with clutches on the supercharger pulley. The MR2 is one.
Welcome to the future
https://www.autoweek.com/car-life/diy/a1821861/if-you-want-actuate-your-supercharger-mad-max-heres-correct-switch/
This kind of makes me want a Previa. And not for the first time, either: it’s a thought I have at least once a year or so. Maybe I should finally act on it.
The main reason, aside from the fact that I actually kinda like minivans, is that I want to be able to tell people I drive a manual-transmission, supercharged, mid-engine, AWD car. And then after they try to guess what kind of Italian supercar it is, I can say “Nope! It’s an old Toyota minivan! 🤪”
It’s just unfortunate that AFAIK you can’t get all three of those features (manual, supercharger, AWD) on any single Previa – the trim levels were arranged such that they only ever came with at most two of the three. So I’d have to get a automatic '97 S/C AWD and then do a transmission swap on it.
I definitely haven’t spent countless hours thinking about how you could have a mechanically activated clutch on a supercharger pulley. Nope. Not at all.
Funny story. Nowadays you could feaseably run a dual forced air like turbo and super charging and use an electric clutch to disengage the super. But the intake would be convoluted with some way to bypass the stupid charger or the turbo depending on rpm. it just makes it not worth it.
In real life conversation I’d laugh and pretend I understood that. I’m glad the internet makes ignorance more comfortable.
I also didn’t understand that.
Imagine you’re breathing through a big straw, and at the other end of the straw is a device that pumps air faster whenever you’re breathing faster, say when you’re running fast. If you turn off power to the pump, you can’t breathe through the straw anymore because the pump isn’t spinning, so you’d need a second straw that opens up only when the pump is off.
You are the engine, and the pump is the supercharger. When the engine doesn’t need to breathe fast, turning off the supercharger would conserve energy use at the expense of power output. But the design of the pump doesn’t let air bypass it when it’s off, so you’d need to engineer something (overly complex) to do it.
Hahah yeah, that stupid charger…
Me, an intellectual, bypassing the stupid charger
I’m told that I first learned to swear by watching Top Gun with my older siblings. Dad was impressed that I even used the words correctly in context. Mom was not happy at all.