Whoosh!

I looked@ the electric supercharger on the cartalk ad banner-do these things work? 5psi,really?-Kevin

It isn’t real, the size of a 12 volt electric motor needed to do that would be huge. Superchargers require 20, 40 or more hp to create that extra 50, 100 hp or more boost. A 20 hp 12 volt motor would weigh as much as the engine it is attached to.

It doesn’t help the reputation of Cartalk when they accept ads for bohohohgus products.

They work well only for the people selling them. Buyers will be hugely disappointed.

In addition to Mustang’s comments, understand that there are no free rides. Boosting intake pressure takes horsepower. Running a compressor with an electric motor means placing a greater load on the charging system. Added load on the alternator creates greater load on the crankshaft, 'cause that’s the source of power to generate electricity. Trouble is, every time you convert one source of power to another, there are inherent losses. Convert torque from the crankshaft to electrical power, and there are losses.

If you want more oomph off the line, the best approach is supercharging. But doing that involves a lot more than just bolting on a supercharger. You need to be knowledgeable enough to know whether the engine will withstand the extra boom, as well as whether it’ll be able to breath well enough to make the supercharger viable.

Turbocharging requires the turbo to get spun up by the exhaust stream, so it’s value “off the line” is minimal at best.

If you want a bit of extra oomph once you get moving, without large costs, complexity, or tradeoffs, I truly believe a ram air system is the best option. NOT a K&N cold air system, which I recommend against, but a true ram air system.

Googling turned this up: http://www.wildweasel.ca/HowTo/Auto/eturbo.aspx

Thanks Guys,there apparently is one that works,but its expensive(not the el cheapo ones)-Kevin

I’ve always wanted to do the old “leafblower supercharger” trick. I would expect little actual gain, and I’d expect drivability issues around whatever gains it might give, but at least it’d be fun to rig it up…which is more than I’d grant the electric supercharger.

(Really, Cartalk: I get “Russian Bride” ads in the banner! Shameless commerce, indeed!)

They now make variable vane turbo chargers.

The faster the turbo spins, the further out the vanes reach to provide more boost.

No turbo lag.

Tester

I’m sorry to interrupt the discussion, but since @meanjoe75fan‌ pointed out the odd ad, I thought the answer would be of general interest. I asked Doug, our Senior Web Lackey, about the origin of our ads. It turns out we don’t contract directly with the advertisers; we subscribe to a service called media.net, which is affiliated with Yahoo. In short, they look at people’s past browsing history and serve ads that way.

If you (or anyone, for that matter) see it again, could you please send us a screen shot and we’ll block the company? We have a threshold set that is supposed to keep out stuff like that, but it doesn’t seem to be foolproof. Thank you for bringing it to our attention.

Meanjoe, have you checked your program folder for popup programs? I found and deleted the following in my folder. It cleared up my problems.

Albrechto
findwide
TidyNetwork
highlightly
wowcaouupon
proshopperr
TR.adsplats.com
IB.adnxs.com
luckyeShopper

Ads on the internet are multiplying like tribbles. I just accept this as our current economy. A failing business is convinced that they just need more ads to survive. Look at K-Mart, Sears, JC Penney, and other former big names who are circling the bowl while increasing their very expensive ads. Advertising agencies are as bad as lawyers. They prey on the desperate!

Not to mention every dang newspaper on line now with all kinds of ads. So whats a program folder and how are you supposed to know what you can delete?

The program folder contains the program files. You should be able to find it in your control panel, which is under “settings”.

I listed those I know to be bad to hopefully make the job easier. There are others, and sometimes it takes googling the folder name to find out what it actually is. I did this with quite a few, including many that turned out to be legitimate. I maintain the list of those I find to be bad.

What MB suggests is doing things manually. While it does work for 80% of the spam and Trojans…Your best bet is to get a good anti-virus subscription. If you have Comcast…it’s free and works very well.

Some of you guys must lead flashy lives. The only two ads I have today besides Cyber Monday are Ford and Fiat ads.