crazy idea
 

Watching a motorweek review of the new saturn hybrid suv I had a crazy idea. Their hybrid uses a traditional drivetrain with an electric motor belt driven to the crank. This provides them with electric power when the engine is off, I assume they use cylinder deactivation so it's not trying to compress the engine. I was wondering though, what would the implications of throwing an electric motor on our engines instead of a supercharger. This with a beefed up alternator and a spare battery or 2 could provide better gas milage as well as a minor performance increase. Anyone ever hear of this done before?

certainly never heard of it being done!

Converting the car to a Hybrid sounds hella nice! Is this basically the hypothetical question, "Is hybrid conversion a reasonable possibility?" Or is this really possibile for our cars?

I guess this question is some of both. I don't think I'd do it to my car since I want more performance. I also think this would be easier with an automatic transmission, so I could try to retrofit my wife's car. I'm not sure that I'd do it to any car since the cost may be prohibitive in the aftermarket. I just had the idea of it when I learned how the GM hybrids worked. Maybe when gas prices go up more people could use this to make $.

my gears in my head are turning... found this http://www.electroauto.com/catalog/accontrol.shtml

I'm going to research if it can control the spare 3 phase motors we use at work. I can get used motors for free, may dream up a new project here soon.

Its a interesting idea and it would be worth a try. I would never drive a hybrid though. I hate them, to me they stand for crappy econo boxes driven by people who dont care about performance. It would be interesting if you did it though. Prove me wrong.

the honda accord v6 hybrid is faster than their non hybrid car, so the stereotype of crappy econo boxes does not necessarily apply.

I think I'd get another car for this project instead of trying it on the ti, if I stayed in the realm of bmw it'd be an e30, otherwise I'd look for a vw gold or crx. I've also wanted to build an electric car for the longest time now, so that's still an option.

I like fast cars too, but I also like clean air to breathe and reduced dependancy on oil.

Hehehe, I like the 318 because it gets better gas mileage than the huge field of other BMW models out there!
:biggrin:
Truly, to each his own. I think the idea sounds pretty kickass. Its practicality would reveal itself quickly if we had a cost of implimentation. Then we could divide by the expected savings and see if we get a value less than one. If we're not to the point where we can even find a cost of implimentation it means we're too early to the punch, right? I've never personally heard of this but no doubt there's the potential for a small market here.

now I've answered my own question. Someone has thought of this before, doesn't seem like it's in production anywhere though

http://www.sigmaautomotive.com/elect...trocharger.php

I was at the philly car show the other day and was thinking about the fact that some day I'll be talking to my grandchildren about how much fun it was owning a internal combustion engine... they won't know what I'm talking about and that will make me sad.