had me a thought when talking to willwren last night... need to get the exact figures for a fan, the horse gains, and losses due to the alt having to make more power.... if it takes too much this thing is useless... mayber ty'* alt can offset it...

if its a big power drain, my thought was to replace the stock amp with a larger one (Ty'*, perhaps?). You would need a blowoff valve or something for when the throttle goes down, otherwise you might break something. A little bit of dryer-ducting ram air would really help this thing out. Build a custom box for it and put a big 'ol K&N on the end...

The biggest problem I see is trying to get the fan to change speeds when we want it to...Any thoughts on this?

they do make fan motor speed controls, where you can control the rpm at the twist of a dial. the cheapest one i know of comes in a kit and you build it yourself costing about 40 bucks. i dont know that they make one for the amount of current that would run through it to power a motor that size

was the dial for DC or AC? You could also only switch it on and off above a certain number of RPMs. I keep returning to the blowoff valve idea, if everything else fails that might work.

it would be for a DC signal.

now that i think about it, you could go with a AC signal using a power inverter then using a Variac, whcih lets you adjust the voltage volt by volt, but i dont know how it would work with a power inverter because most of them produce psuedo sign waves, and im not sure if a variac requires a true sign wave, lik ethe one that comes out of your wall. hmm..time to ask my dad....the real electrical engineer

how about if we ganked a switch off a box fan or something like that?

box fans have multi speed motors, it'* not variable. the different switch positions run different windings in the motor. looking at the flow of fans that would fit in the confines of the hood, i can't seem to find a variable one for a price i like. but what would the posible repercussions be for running it at full speed the whole time? it wouldn't be a sealed system so a blow off isn't needed. i figure it'll just chop air in place if it isn't sucked into the engine, probably not make enough pressure to break anything. but i think the current draw might increase during chopping... but running the fan at 450 cfm when the motor needs 100 might give a little better throttle response, meaning chirping easier off the line.

Anybody mess with this idea lately?

I really want this.... but i don't know all the equations needed....

I read in a magazine about a month ago that either VW or Volvo (I can't remember which) was working on an electrical supercharger for a prototype car. But it had to run on a 42 Volt system and would only produce 5 psi at full power, but it would be an instant boost in power as soon as you need it.

A VW guy at work told me about one that uses an electrical motor to turn a roots type blower. Still not as efficient as a CSC, roots, or Turbo of mechanical design, and quite expensive. The guy that told me runs a Neuspeed (eaton M45) roots on a Jetta. Fairly knowledgeable on the forced induction subject. I'll try to get more info from him and get you a link if there is one.