Bills Turbocharger / Turbojet Project.
Text and pictures are taken from Bills E-mails. These pics are quite big so be patient!
This is my turbo jet, built in February. This was taken before its first teardown, after 4 hours of running time. The longest it ran at one time was 23 minutes at idle.
Another pic of the engine prior to teardown. The pump and motor are coupled together, and are from an old oil burner that i had i cleaned up. The pump is a single stage 100 psi unit. The only way to bring the pressure down was to use the bleeder nut to adjust the psi, this seems to work well. The oil is pumped at around 25-30 psi. Oil is Mobil1, the oil pump has a built in micro mesh filter and seems to be doing it's job well. This engine is started with a vacum cleaner. And the procedure is pretty much the same as all the other units that have been built.
Please note these turbos can be
extremely dangerous, take precautions to keep
yourself safe as well as the people that are near by.
Pic of new stainless flame tube
test. I was very happy that it started right up.
This was taken at half throttle, and full blower, start
air. My neighbors are now getting used to the sights and
sounds coming from my garage. After some
modifications to the gaskets and a paint job for the
complete engine I will
reassemble the jet. Next is the design of an oil cooler
and some kind of power turbine setup do drive a
model plane prop. This engine is going to the annual
car show and should turn a few heads I hope, a lot of people will
bring their steam engines, but I'll have a turbojet !
Looking into the hot end, inlet. That is a 2 1/2" pipe flange on the hot end with a nipple threaded onto it , the combustor then threads onto that . The whole engine is either bolted or screwed together, I didn't have access to a welder. This is not a big deal it's easy to pull apart and reassemble. This can be done in about 15 minutes. The can you see is my oil tank. Very high tech huh?
This is the fuel nozzle, it can be moved in or out for adjustment, for a better combustion burn. The Ignition is nothing more than a gas grill igniter, attached to a super long reach spark plug. The plug is an ignitor that came from an propane heater. This system works well and I have it set for a 1/4 inch gap.
Original copper flame tube and steel liner. I replicated the flame tube and it is now stainless steel. The liner was taken from an old oil burner.
Pic of new stainless flame tube
with flame retention head. This was an exact duplicate of
the copper one, and this has been tested and starts fine.
Next to it is the fuel nozzle this was taken from the oil burner
and I removed the strainer and fuel swirler that was inside the
nozzle. The nozzle tip was drilled out to 1/16th".
Fuel nozzles can be changed in a matter of minutes. I
haven't tried any newer type arrangements as of yet.
Hopefully I'll have my own site soon and will have more cool stuff in regards to turbos. My interest with these units stems back in the 70s when I worked on Hueys in the ARMY. My favorite engine was the Allison T-55 gas turbine it was a very rugged turbo shaft.
Thanks to all of you for the ideas and concepts that I have incorporated into my own turbo project.
email Bill on FLATkatzzz@aol.com