Suzuki Turbo concept -return of the turbos?

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dricked said:
I wonder why Yamaha developed a supercharger for their 1049cc triple snowmobile instead of a turbo especially if they work that much better.

If they can't make the power from the turbo extremely linear on the bike there's going to be a lot of insurance write offs for sale.
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I'm not sure how much experience Yamaha has with turbocharging. The supercharger might have been an easier engineering exercise. Sometimes stuff gets decided by the marketing department, too.

For power delivery, nowadays it shouldn't be a problem to manage it. Turbochargers are better now than they were in the 1980's, but engine controls are enormously better, and we have traction control etc nowadays.

Automotive powertrain electronics have mostly (not completely) gone from the old throttle position / air fuel ratio control strategy to a torque-control strategy for modern engines. In the old days, the driver/rider commanded a throttle position and that was an input to the electronics. Nowadays, the driver/rider input is considered a request for a certain amount of torque, and the ECU commands the optimum gear selection (for auto transmission), throttle position (drive by wire ...), boost pressure, ignition timing, valve timing etc in order to achieve it. You can do stuff with this strategy that you couldn't do in the old days.
 
dricked said:
I'd look for a new dealer, my local one is clueless.
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Which one were you going to that is clueless? I've been going to Subaru of Brampton which is about an hour or more out of my way and whenever I have a problem they just tell me it's normal. Took my complaining about shifting for almost 2 years (probably complained at least 6 times about it) before they got a new guy in at service that believed me enough to look at it and found out the firewall had failed.
 
F1 is actually going electric turbo? Whenever that discussion comes up on any forum people say electric turbos don't work at all.
 
unL33T said:
F1 is actually going electric turbo? Whenever that discussion comes up on any forum people say electric turbos don't work at all.
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The turbos in F1 will not be electrically driven - rather the turbo itself can, at times, drive a generator instead of producing boost.
 
soto said:
I think the energy stored by that generator will be used to spool up the turbo.
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Nope, it goes into the KERS system
 
turbo/supercharger concept isn't new, but the technology to control it really is. It goes back to the 30's for motorcycles. But with the input coming from F1 and the small aircarft industry and assorted recreational vehicles the ability to have smooth delivery with no lag and no turbo snap will make this alot of fun. Now if insurance companies dont kill it in Canada......
 
crankcall said:
turbo/supercharger concept isn't new, but the technology to control it really is. It goes back to the 30's for motorcycles. But with the input coming from F1 and the small aircarft industry and assorted recreational vehicles the ability to have smooth delivery with no lag and no turbo snap will make this alot of fun. Now if insurance companies dont kill it in Canada......
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Insurance on turbo charged cars for me has never been much worse than non turbos. Could be different for bikes. Although putting an aftermarket turbo on a vehicle basically makes it uninsurable which I always thought was silly. Especially since putting an aftermarket turbo on a car usually makes less power than buying the production turbo model (if an option).
 
unL33T said:
Insurance on turbo charged cars for me has never been much worse than non turbos. Could be different for bikes. Although putting an aftermarket turbo on a vehicle basically makes it uninsurable which I always thought was silly. Especially since putting an aftermarket turbo on a car usually makes less power than buying the production turbo model (if an option).
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But the factory turbo should be tuned not to kill you. Throwing a huge turbo on with tons of turbo lag followed by huge power is a quick way to crash.

Hell, maybe people even did a good job installing the turbo, but they self-selected as a group and the group of people that want to install turbos is also the group of people that crash often.
 
GreyGhost said:
But the factory turbo should be tuned not to kill you. Throwing a huge turbo on with tons of turbo lag followed by huge power is a quick way to crash.

Hell, maybe people even did a good job installing the turbo, but they self-selected as a group and the group of people that want to install turbos is also the group of people that crash often.
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I suppose so although both my WRX and the SAAB 900se I had had a huge boost of power when you hit the boost, at least in 1st and 2nd. 944 turbo was known for this as well as far as I'm aware. My 2001 TDI had it a bit but not much. Just enough that you could tell the difference between boost and no boost.

Specifically, I was looking at a Suzuki SX4 AWD but it was a touch too sluggish. Found a turbo kit that was used by Suzuki themselves on a couple rally machines and even the dealership was going to install it and include it in the warranty and financing but I could only find one insurance company that would insure it and that was with a huge premium. From the brokers I've talked to almost no one will. It barely bumped the power up that much but seemed like just what that car would need to give it a bit more omph.
 
Because the saab and wrx almost has a properly sized turbo. No lag = undersized :p

Really, it's actually nice to drive most of the time without boost, then when you hammer it kicks in.


Sent from the future using my GOLDEN iPhone 30 SS
 
I owned a Honda CX650 turbo back in the early 80's....one of the best motorcycles I have ever ridden..if you rode it gently it was like a gold wing...if you dropped down a couple gears it was as fast as a sport bike and when you left it in top gear and opened the throttle the rush of the turbo powerband was fabulous!
Back then the insurance cost for a 1000 vs a 650 was huge..and the insurance companies never seemed to realize that the turbo turned the 650 into a litre bike.
 
unL33T said:
And lots of those turbos have been replaced around 150k... just saying.

Also, my WRX has loads of turbo lag. It also sputters and bucks around 4k when the turbo really kicks on. Dealership says that's normal behavior.
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0.0001 percent of bikes ever see 150K.

Get a new dealer, your Subaru's plenum or manifold has a leak in it.
 
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ITGuy said:
You're talking about a thermoelectric generator that would use the waste heat of the exhaust to generate electricity.

According to the article there is a significant weight penalty tradeoff for efficiency.
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The old Peltier-method heat recovery systems are heavy, but the experimental carbon nanotubes systems are not. HERS is on the radar of F1.

Gas engines, at best , are 30% efficient, they throw away a lot of energy as heat, which is then discarded.
Electric motors are >95% efficient.
One goal of generator-assisted electric cars is to develop HERS to use the gas engine as a generator and recover electricity from the heat.
 
BimmerMike said:
I owned a Honda CX650 turbo back in the early 80's....one of the best motorcycles I have ever ridden..if you rode it gently it was like a gold wing...if you dropped down a couple gears it was as fast as a sport bike and when you left it in top gear and opened the throttle the rush of the turbo powerband was fabulous!
Back then the insurance cost for a 1000 vs a 650 was huge..and the insurance companies never seemed to realize that the turbo turned the 650 into a litre bike.
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Those bike were also pretty reliable,and are now sought by collectors. Yamaha's turbo Seca had a tiny turbo, but they are now very rare.

<img src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRmkOGSmtA8" alt="" border="0">[video=youtube;CRmkOGSmtA8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRmkOGSmtA8[/video]
 
inreb said:
Heat is energy. I'm surprised somebody hasn't figured how to harness exhaust heat to the extent that icicles form on tail pipe.
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CafeRay said:
Gas engines, at best , are 30% efficient, they throw away a lot of energy as heat, which is then discarded.
Electric motors are >95% efficient.
One goal of generator-assisted electric cars is to develop HERS to use the gas engine as a generator and recover electricity from the heat.
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Ya, something like that. Do you have any contact deets so I can help speed this along?:cool:
 
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