Worlds First 2-speed Supercharger
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Worlds First 2-speed Supercharger
New supercharger really shifts
05/05/2006
http://www.fastcar.co.uk/New_superch...nJoa2rmWw.html
05/05/2006
Imagine a forced-induction car with high boost all the way across the rev range. How'd they do that? By being damn clever, that's what: They bolted a tiny gearbox to a supercharger, with tremendous results!
It is bleedingly obvious when you think about it. When they discovered that internal combustion engines were only efficient at certain revs, they bolted on a gearbox to be able to drive a car at different speeds. So why has it taken so long to do the same to a supercharger? Beats us, but we're damn pleased that Atonov has seen the light, and paired a high-capacity supercharger with a tiny gearbox.
Atonov is showing off the world's very first two-speed supercharger, allowing the efficiency of the supercharger to remain high at all engine speeds. What they have done is to take a highly efficient centrifugal supercharger, and pair it with a tiny automatic gearbox. The result is a tremendous boost right from the lowest revs all the way through to redline, and no lag to get to the power, either.
The new supercharger setup ain't cheap (you are looking at between £3,000 and £4,000, once it's on the market), but it promises to pack a wallop of power unseen in this end of the market: Normally, you'd expect up to 50% efficiency out of a supercharger, but this setup promises up to 85%! According to the manufacturer, an engine with their two-speed supercharger fitted can exactly match the torque curve of a much, much larger naturally aspirated engine.
Car manufacturers are excited because it would allow them to use smaller engines to get better performance. We are excited, too. Bolt one of these ****** to a big-*** engine, and it'll send it flying like a pissed-off banshee. Wicked!
It is bleedingly obvious when you think about it. When they discovered that internal combustion engines were only efficient at certain revs, they bolted on a gearbox to be able to drive a car at different speeds. So why has it taken so long to do the same to a supercharger? Beats us, but we're damn pleased that Atonov has seen the light, and paired a high-capacity supercharger with a tiny gearbox.
Atonov is showing off the world's very first two-speed supercharger, allowing the efficiency of the supercharger to remain high at all engine speeds. What they have done is to take a highly efficient centrifugal supercharger, and pair it with a tiny automatic gearbox. The result is a tremendous boost right from the lowest revs all the way through to redline, and no lag to get to the power, either.
The new supercharger setup ain't cheap (you are looking at between £3,000 and £4,000, once it's on the market), but it promises to pack a wallop of power unseen in this end of the market: Normally, you'd expect up to 50% efficiency out of a supercharger, but this setup promises up to 85%! According to the manufacturer, an engine with their two-speed supercharger fitted can exactly match the torque curve of a much, much larger naturally aspirated engine.
Car manufacturers are excited because it would allow them to use smaller engines to get better performance. We are excited, too. Bolt one of these ****** to a big-*** engine, and it'll send it flying like a pissed-off banshee. Wicked!
Lexus Test Driver
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From: Maryland
This is nonsense. Two-speed superchargers were used in World War II, over 60 years ago, lol. They should have said world's first two-speed supercharger for an automotive application. 
in WWII, a lot of aircraft and especially fighters like the P-51 Mustang had two-speed superchargers. They ran them at the lower speed at low altitutdes, but then cranked them up to higher speeds above say 20,000 feet so that they could maintain performance in the much thinner air.
The problems with a two-speed supercharger and why it's never been used in a car before is probably due to the questions about durability of the S/C gearbox. On an aircraft you're really not throwing the RPMs around all over the place that much. A lot of them actually used constant speed props and just varied the prop pitch for power. That lets both the prop and the engine operate at a set optimal RPM for either power or efficiency and then you just vary the pitch on the prop and the load on the engine for throttling. Then when you hit a certain altitiude, the S/C switched up to the higher speed vs engine RPM. There really isn't a whole lot of switching going on, and it's very reliable.
Not so with a car though, where the RPMs are all over the place. You would need to have one incredibly robust and bulletproof S/C gearbox for this thing to have decent reliability ( >100k miles) on a car. Personally I think downsized engines with variable geometry turbos are probably the better way to go. Yeah you might have a little more lag than with a gear driven supercharger, but turbo engines operate more efficiently due to being operated off exhaust which is pretty much free power, vs a gear driven S/C which costs additional power to make more power.
in WWII, a lot of aircraft and especially fighters like the P-51 Mustang had two-speed superchargers. They ran them at the lower speed at low altitutdes, but then cranked them up to higher speeds above say 20,000 feet so that they could maintain performance in the much thinner air.The problems with a two-speed supercharger and why it's never been used in a car before is probably due to the questions about durability of the S/C gearbox. On an aircraft you're really not throwing the RPMs around all over the place that much. A lot of them actually used constant speed props and just varied the prop pitch for power. That lets both the prop and the engine operate at a set optimal RPM for either power or efficiency and then you just vary the pitch on the prop and the load on the engine for throttling. Then when you hit a certain altitiude, the S/C switched up to the higher speed vs engine RPM. There really isn't a whole lot of switching going on, and it's very reliable.
Not so with a car though, where the RPMs are all over the place. You would need to have one incredibly robust and bulletproof S/C gearbox for this thing to have decent reliability ( >100k miles) on a car. Personally I think downsized engines with variable geometry turbos are probably the better way to go. Yeah you might have a little more lag than with a gear driven supercharger, but turbo engines operate more efficiently due to being operated off exhaust which is pretty much free power, vs a gear driven S/C which costs additional power to make more power.
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