- Jul 21, 2005
- 2,169
- 145
- 155
stangbear427 said:What is a TW sgt1? I'm mental blocked on your abbreviations, but I think I get the picture. Glad you agree. This is not a flame! Bear with me here (no pun intended) Anyway, here's the deal. All an engine is, simply put, is an air pump. It sucks it in, compresses it, and spits it back out. The faster your engine is turning, the more air it needs. Just like the old muscle cars, the power band is starting to really crank at 80mph, and he has made it far easier for it to get the air it needs. The more efficient your "ram air" design is, the easier it is for the engine to suck it in- and the deeper in the power band you are, the more obvious it will feel.
Consider the internals of the operation: a crank is spinning at say 3000RPM so it makes 50 complete revolutions per second. And if we know that about the crank, we also know that the pistons are moving at that same speed, just in a different direction. If that is true, than the air in the chamber is being cycled at that same speed- every time the piston comes up to TDC and goes back down a set volume of air enters the chamber and is evacuated. If a hypothetical crank scribes an arc of, say, 4" radius, 50 times in a second, using a simple formula we can determine that if it were going strait instead of in a circle, it would cover over 657 feet per second, therefore over 39,438 feet per minute, therefore over 2,366,304 feet per hour, therefore over 448mph. Therefore, the engine is trying to suck air in at over 448MPH as well just to maintain the operation. How do you think that [air pushing air] into the engine at 80mph is going to affect that scenario? The only way to do it is with forced induction, and it isn't uncommon for a centrifugal blower to spin around 70,000 rpm. Compare that to the 3000RPM our hypothetical engine with the tiny 4" crank is pumping air, and see why they make so much boost. "Ram air" is a very cool sounding, yet inappropriate name for what is really just a more efficient cold air intake system.
You gotta give this man respect for knowing what he is talking about.
maybe i just read it wrong..idk lol