Thinking bout forced induction the other night I came across a few ideas.

The idea of turbo/charger/nos is to get more oxygen into the cylinder.

Anyways so why not hook up a compressed air tank with a fancy control valve to keep the pressure regulated. Hell just use the standard bov/wastegate to regulate pressure.

It could be used like a nos tank or hooked up to fire at a certain RPM.

Then it could be refilled once empty, costing next to nothing.
Setup you would need no custom manifolds etc so cost would be extremly cheap.

Also why not make some kind of centrifuge that takes advantage of the weight difference between O2 and the other elements in the air.
As the centrifuge spins certain layers will be more oxygen rich as the heavier objects gravitate to the outside and lighter on the inside.

The air could then be sucked out and injected into the engine, A rich oxygen content will proved the same effect as a turbo, except this way their is no compression, so you dont have to worry about intercoolers etc.

Also another advantage compared to a turbo is, A turbo compress air which is only about 20% oxygen. So its still using the other 80% of air which we dont want.

By using a centrifuge we are increasing the oxygen content, so that means less of the other stuff we dont want, so it will be increasing the quality of the explosion inside the chamber in more the one way.

Sounds good in theory............

I'd imagine if it were going to work in practice - then it would have already been invented.

In terms of your centrifuge idea - what are you gonna use to generate the rotation??? Any idea what speeds would be required to seperate oxygen from other gasses in the air?? - I'm guessing 100's of thousands of RPM.

I was under the impression that this was the reason pure oxygen can't be fed into the cylinders instead of nos, the bangs are just too big for metal to handle - be it forged or not. My only thoughts are the MAF getting really confused, and the air being too cold (gases cool as they expand rapidly). I'd be worried about tiny condensed water droplets getting into the cylinders.

I suppose the only way you can find out for sure is to build a prototype, just be prepared to possibly kill an engine.

I could be totally wrong but....

The heat generated would be a lot more and may have material troubles. Eg oxy-acetylene, in air its good for toasting marshmellows, add oxygen and u can happily melt through steel plate.

Energy for driving the piston is created by expanding gases. Less gas/air, less expansion, less power at the crank.

The compressed air idea is interesting tho.....

*EDIT* ignore this dribble....i skimmed over the original post and didnt read it properly

Isn't what youve just said, pretty much what Nitrus injection is?

I personally don't see why you couldn't use oxygen injected into the intake in the same way as a nitrous oxide setup ie adding the oxygen to the air being sucked into the engine. The only problems that I could see are in determining how much oxygen you can add without causing damage. I assume that the NOS systems would change the flow rate relative to the engine rpm so that part would be easy, but for initial testing you'd want to use an engine that you really didn't care if you blew up.

Also due to combustion temperatures you wouldn't have to worry about any water droplets forming, but you probably would want to make sure that the cooling system is up to the job

The reason why you couldn't do that is basically you would have a blow torch scenario.

NOS is NO2, two parts oxygen, one part Nitrous which breaks down under combustion with fuel.

Adding pure oxygen, especially an injected / highly compressed form would create a living blow torch in the engine.

The theory is right, but ultimatly it woudl massivly lean out the engine due to rapidly altering the air/fuel ratio.

That is why NOS is so good, and so dangerous but it is controllable.

What about asymmetric turbocharging? It has previoulsy been used in a Saab Griffin in a 3.0 v6. Having one suitably sized turbo running only off the front bank. It would only be for low boost but it would certainly bolster torque and would be much cheaper and simpler than twin turbos. Also the space constrictions are not nearly as bad.

What about asymmetric turbocharging? It has previoulsy been used in a Saab Griffin in a 3.0 v6. Having one suitably sized turbo running only off the front bank. It would only be for low boost but it would certainly bolster torque and would be much cheaper and simpler than twin turbos. Also the space constrictions are not nearly as bad.

In magna engine bays - space is the least of your problems when planning a turbo upgrade - either twin or single. If you've ever seen pics of daves twin turbo engines - you'll see that the turbos mount in nice and close to the block on both sides, and dont protrude out much further than the rocker covers. And there's heaps more room at the back of the V6 engines (fire wall side I mean) than the front - so no problem fitting a larger turbo back there for a single turbo application.

What your suggesting is feasible - but I think you'd find the price difference between such a setup - and a twin or large single turbo setup would be such that on a power vs dollar scale, the more convetional turbo setups (large single, or twin) would be much more attractive.

It's almost as intelligent as suggesting running a hairdryer and a 240v inverter. :bowrofl: :bowrofl:

In magna engine bays - space is the least of your problems when planning a turbo upgrade - either twin or single. If you've ever seen pics of daves twin turbo engines - you'll see that the turbos mount in nice and close to the block on both sides, and dont protrude out much further than the rocker covers. And there's heaps more room at the back of the V6 engines (fire wall side I mean) than the front - so no problem fitting a larger turbo back there for a single turbo application.

What your suggesting is feasible - but I think you'd find the price difference between such a setup - and a twin or large single turbo setup would be such that on a power vs dollar scale, the more convetional turbo setups (large single, or twin) would be much more attractive.


Space is obviously much more of an issue with the AWD. It would mean though that you wouldnt have to upgrade the fuel system and wouldnt kill the auto gearbox. Im just looking for more low down power not a top end rush.

"NOS is NO2, two parts oxygen, one part Nitrous"

Not sure if you made a mistake but its one part oxygen one part nitrogen (not nitrous), nitrous has a different meaning.

Okai, now let me put this more into perspective for those replies already here.

Well use these figures so everyone can understand, Air is 20% oxygen, No2 is 66% oxygen.

Now by injecting nos, we are introducing a gas which is THREE times as rich as air. (roughly)

Now say we inject 1 cc of No2, we are injecting 0.66ccs of Oxygen and 0.33ccs of Nitrogen.

Now with our centrifuge, for arguments sake we can obtain oxygen in nearly any purity we want. So say we have 100% pure oxygen.

We would only inject 0.66ccs of our mixture, hence 0.66ccs from our centrifuge is the same as 1cc from Nos. I hope you can understand this as it is very very basic maths just applied real world.

You can inject all the pure oxygen you want, injecting 6 parts of pure oxygen is the same as injecting 10 parts of nos because you are introducing the exact same amount of oxygen, so how can one be more explosive then the other.


Now this is NO different to a turbo, so the computer will just be tuned to this, when the air from the centrifuge is going in, more fuel is pumped in. In other words it will have pretty much the exact same effects as a turbo/nos system.

The only difference here is, we are injecting a cleaner form of oxygen without the other parts in the air. With NO compression. This means we can compress the mixture in the cylinder MORE because their is less molecules, hence a greater compression without the worry of detonation. Also since we are not compressing the air like a turbo it doesnt heat up. So elimanting the use of an intercooler.

Its all the pros of a turbo, without the cons.

I hope you can understand this as it is very very basic maths just applied real world.

You could have made the same point without being so condescending.

If you're idea is so scientifically, mathematically and mechanically sound - then what are you doing wasting your time trying to explain it to morons like us?? Go and build it for ****s sake!!

"NOS is NO2, two parts oxygen, one part Nitrous"

Not sure if you made a mistake but its one part oxygen one part nitrogen (not nitrous), nitrous has a different meaning.

The only difference here is, we are injecting a cleaner form of oxygen without the other parts in the air. With NO compression. This means we can compress the mixture in the cylinder MORE because their is less molecules, hence a greater compression without the worry of detonation. Also since we are not compressing the air like a turbo it doesnt heat up. So elimanting the use of an intercooler.

Its all the pros of a turbo, without the cons.


nos; nitrous oxide systems --> N2O; 33% oxygen; this 33% is a clear leap ahead of atmospheric oxygen content (~21% i think). No extra compression by the cylinder; the same amount of space in the cylinder; to put it simply just with N20 particles having more oxygen in that space than air would.

Remember all that nos is usually an additive so it still doesnt run purely; this means with only an oxygen content of about 25% maybe (i havent actually looked) and you can gain about 75hp or so.

Oxygen content of about 40% or more requires race fuels and i think methanol can withstand higher; someone who knows help --->

Any higher than the 25% or so in your street car and boom say high to your internals for me

Yes, sorry, i've been writing No2 instead of N20.

Still, same theory applies.

As i mentioned before, the oxygen content supplied to the motor would be selective, so you could supply a constant mixture of 25% oxygen if needed.

Atmospheric pressure is 101kpa which works out to be round 15psi.
So when a turbo is running at 15psi, because its relative to the atmospheric pressure not absolute, then this means the air being compressed by the turbo is twice as dense as the air oustide the car.

Which means the oxygen content of the compressed air would be twice as much normal air. Still same percent wise, just twice as dense so twice as much.

I studied applied science (chemistry major) at RMIT but got sick of it and now studying mechanical engineering, and now transfering into automotive engineering.

So hopefully one day I will be working in the research department of a car company.

Doesn't the nitrogen in NOS help with cooling after deternation, and if you just fed straight O2 into the engine there'd be nothing to stop it overheating and boom. That's what my thoughts were anyway.