Spool Device

[ChrisD]

No one with a 4 cyl yet, still trying to find testers etc. I can only speculate on the gains on one, but we'll just have to have someone try to see

Haven't thought of using a massive turbine housing, but if I had a dyno here and some time to test all the different options it would be great to get everything mapped.

It would be even easier if I had a FWD or RWD buddy that installed one as rwd dyno's are all over the place around here, but AWD are hard to come by.

Shoot me a PM with the details on your setup and when you're looking to build it, maybe we can work something out.

So has anyone used one of your devices on a 4 cylinder? I would think that the gains would be more pronounced with a larger turbo on a smaller motor, because with the v6 with every rpm increase you are flowing progressively more air than a 4 cylinder would in an apples to apples comparison (based on displacement). Or to put it another way your area under the spoolup curve would take longer so your gains would be accentuated.

I am working on building up my 2g for next year (god willing) and have a gt42-76 with a 1.15a/r and this sounds like it would work well with my set up.

I was planning on just using the old standard of nitrous to get things going but this looks promising as well. Maybe we could work some sort of deal out or something;-) I had to try.

I also had been wondering why someone has not thought of this sooner. VGT/VNT is not new by any means.

Lastly had you considered trying this on a really large turbine housing? Basically using more of the device and less wastegate; more like a true VGT? I guess the limiting factor would be that you could only half the a/r with this set up. Still as you scale it up you should see more of a benefit, correct?

Either way this is a great idea.

[Pete Tomeo]

Just as another datapoint: SoundPerformance has been making these things for a little bit and did some back to back testing recently. Here's the link: SupraForums Link

If you can't see the link- Cliff Notes:
3.0L 2jzgte/TH400
GT4294 Journal bearing .9 a/r
SP Long Tube Race header
SP Quick Spool Valve
SP 4" Downpipe/midpipe
SP Boost Activated Exhaust Cutout
Top Secret Titanium exhaust

Picture of their Spool Valve

~+150 whp in the middle of the pull

I'm definitely considering this thing now.

[ChrisD]

I'm still working on getting some more numbers from last year and a bad tune.

The snow has cleared up, but it's 37 deg out still, so just waiting for it to warm up a bit before I'm back at the dyno.

Not sure if I posted it up before, but I was hitting ~700 awhp at 20psi and only 7000 rpm.

The interesting thing is how small their a/r on that turbo is. I will definitely have to try a housing out at .9 a/r. Mine right now is at 1.15 and I picked up almost 100ft/lbs of torque down low on a bad tune.

You're going to get more torque than HP with these usually as your spool will happen below the 52XX rpm number. Unless you have a very very large turbo.

[JasonS]

This looks very awesome, but at $500 you could get better performance out of a shot of nitrous.

[Dave K]

This looks very awesome, but at $500 you could get better performance out of a shot of nitrous.

having to use nitrous every time you want to eliminate lag gets old. Also causes issues with classes at events. I will be testing one of these very soon. I already have very solid "before" data and will be doing a back to back with and without comparison.

[ChrisD]

having to use nitrous every time you want to eliminate lag gets old. Also causes issues with classes at events. I will be testing one of these very soon. I already have very solid "before" data and will be doing a back to back with and without comparison.

Exactly. You also never have to refill and pay for nitrous over and over again.

[Kevin Jewer]

I didn't do a lot of class racing with the RWD, but everytime I looked into it I got stuck in some two power adder outlaw class because of the nitrous. Which was aggravating, since the nitrous shut off before the launch and did nothing to add power. While the nitrous worked well for the street night racing I was doing, I was still highly motivated to get rid of it, which then provided the motivation to get the compound turbo setup working. The other thing that pissed me off more than once was the nitrous guy not showing up to the track redering my solid low 9 second at 150 mph car a solid 16 second at 140 mph car.

Nitrous is cheap, easy, and it works, but it's not always ideal.

[JasonS]

This is very true, as I look at their design I think that I may give something like this a try with an old WGA I have laying around. Making the other parts should not be an issue either.

[Brady McElmurry]

So you are saying you would rather jut rip off a member instead of paying him the money to supply you with a working tested product.

[Wayne K]

I have the 3000gt that was doing some testing with Chris' spool device that he mentioned in this thread last Fall. I intended to do a variety of dyno testing with BW S400-frame turbos using different turbine housings, so testing the spool device at the same time was a win-win. My selfish primary intention was to see how spool and top end flow on my setup would differ with a couple different a/r housings. My hope was that a large a/r housing with the spool device would exceed or match the characteristics of the small and large housings separately.

2009 was the first year I had my car running with the custom single turbo and I had a lot of bugs to work out over the summer. I bought and received the device in late September. As the end of the season approached I tried my best to properly adapt the spool device to my cramped setup. Unfortunately a variety of typical PITA kept me from being able to get the car running 100%. Early dyno data I collected had repeatability issues that I believe were partially caused by difficult BW turbine housing geometry and compromises we had to make with the device integration. By the time I fixed the turbine housing and had everything running the way I desired (end of race season) there was no longer time to get to the dyno so I headed to the track instead. A high crankcase pressure issue and coolant pushing ended my season with some minor/mild track carnage that is almost fully fixed now. I am starting to rebuild my headers to address a few packaging concerns and I hope to better test the capabilities of the spool device over the next couple months. The device has great flexibility and I do see it being a benefit to me. I'm trying not to get my hopes too high though, as I don't want to be disappointed...

Wayne

[JasonS]

So you are saying you would rather jut rip off a member instead of paying him the money to supply you with a working tested product.

You have never made your own anything that resembles a product another company offers? Performance company's build engines, am I an asshole because I built mine on my own?

[Greg Dombrowski]

You have never made your own anything that resembles a product another company offers? Performance company's build engines, am I an asshole because I built mine on my own?

And this is why all but a little slice of this forum is private.

[ChrisD]

I have the 3000gt that was doing some testing with Chris' spool device that he mentioned in this thread last Fall. I intended to do a variety of dyno testing with BW S400-frame turbos using different turbine housings, so testing the spool device at the same time was a win-win. My selfish primary intention was to see how spool and top end flow on my setup would differ with a couple different a/r housings. My hope was that a large a/r housing with the spool device would exceed or match the characteristics of the small and large housings separately.

2009 was the first year I had my car running with the custom single turbo and I had a lot of bugs to work out over the summer. I bought and received the device in late September. As the end of the season approached I tried my best to properly adapt the spool device to my cramped setup. Unfortunately a variety of typical PITA kept me from being able to get the car running 100%. Early dyno data I collected had repeatability issues that I believe were partially caused by difficult BW turbine housing geometry and compromises we had to make with the device integration. By the time I fixed the turbine housing and had everything running the way I desired (end of race season) there was no longer time to get to the dyno so I headed to the track instead. A high crankcase pressure issue and coolant pushing ended my season with some minor/mild track carnage that is almost fully fixed now. I am starting to rebuild my headers to address a few packaging concerns and I hope to better test the capabilities of the spool device over the next couple months. The device has great flexibility and I do see it being a benefit to me. I'm trying not to get my hopes too high though, as I don't want to be disappointed...

Wayne

Wayne! Getting a lot of familiar faces on NABR now, glad to see you on here.

Wayne and I have been working to get everything tested out on his car over the past few months and hoepfully he will have it back up and running soon. The BW turbo does have some weird geometry that we're trying to get to work, and I'm hopeful we'll get all of the bugs worked out on his setup once it's back up and running.

As always with the mitsu cars, it always seems it's one step forward two steps back when you have them all running nice.

I am about to get my car out here in the next few weeks as well and should have some more data. I'll keep you posted Wayne on what I find out as well.

[CraigKalin]

You have never made your own anything that resembles a product another company offers? Performance company's build engines, am I an asshole because I built mine on my own?

You're not exactly copying someone's design when you build your own engine. Most competent engine builders have "secrets" for longevity, and they keep them "secrets" for this exact reason. Almost anyone can "build" an engine, but if you want the good shit, you're only getting that from the experienced builders who put years of trial, error, and research into what they do.

What sets this forum apart from others is when a member comes up with an innovative design and the other members help bring that idea to fruition through testing and support. Most, if not all, of the active members here practice this philosophy.

[The Tex]

Wait a minute, just so I am straight here. How is this different then what Sound Performance has had around since 02'-03'ish. The only difference I can see is putting the mechanism in the turbine housing instead of in a plate above it. Did I miss something?

[Ed Marshall]

I think there's a bit of getting bent out of shape over nothing here; Jason came off as a douchebag, and I won't defend that, but there's a real point in there.

Speaking only for myself, and setting the specifics of this situation aside: I reserve the right to fabricate whatever I feel like for my own cars, and that will occasionally be inspired by somebody else's good idea. I'm not a "professional", I wouldn't sell half the crap I've made even if someone offered, but if I think I have the means to build something for myself cost-effectively, I'll generally take a stab at it. I'll occasionally suffer the consequences of that (bruised ego, broken parts, or just buying someone else's product at the end of it because my hacks didn't work out), but you learn by failing.

There's some pride to be taken in DIY, and be damned if I'll apologize for trying to build my own cars with some of my own parts.

[JasonS]

I think there's a bit of getting bent out of shape over nothing here; Jason came off as a douchebag, and I won't defend that, but there's a real point in there.

Speaking only for myself, and setting the specifics of this situation aside: I reserve the right to fabricate whatever I feel like for my own cars, and that will occasionally be inspired by somebody else's good idea. I'm not a "professional", I wouldn't sell half the crap I've made even if someone offered, but if I think I have the means to build something for myself cost-effectively, I'll generally take a stab at it. I'll occasionally suffer the consequences of that (bruised ego, broken parts, or just buying someone else's product at the end of it because my hacks didn't work out), but you learn by failing.

There's some pride to be taken in DIY, and be damned if I'll apologize for trying to build my own cars with some of my own parts.

Yea I could have worded what I said a bit better, but oh well life goes on. You hit the nail on the head, that was basically my point only you said it better than I did.

[ChrisD]

I would say go ahead and try to build one yourself if you can.

My design is cut out with a CNC mill and carbide cutters. It's not something you would easily be able to do with a die grinder and achieve exactly what I'm doing.

Hell, I made my first prototype several years ago with the turbo flange (actually 4 of them stacked together) and was able to do it with a die grinder, band saw, welder, and a LOT of time.

It still works, but it's an external device, which means you have to compensate with modifications to the header/exhaust.

The ones I have in production now have many new features over the prototype I made a while ago, as well as not having to go in there and do it by hand.

[ChrisD]

Wait a minute, just so I am straight here. How is this different then what Sound Performance has had around since 02'-03'ish. The only difference I can see is putting the mechanism in the turbine housing instead of in a plate above it. Did I miss something?

My spool device is inside of the turbine housing. It is not a "butterfly" valve and does not block part of the flow of one of the scrolls when not in use. It's a lot more efficient than the SP device.

And let's get one thing straight, none of these companies (including my own) were the first ones to come up with this idea. The idea was first patented back around the 1960's, and some even sooner. Myself as well as others have just developed the same thing 40-50 years later and decided to put it into production.

As far as SP doing it back in 02-03 I've never seen anything about that. The first time I heard of them throwing it on their website was 3 years after I developed mine (although I never said anything for a long while as I was inquiring about patenting it).

Long story short, it was patented a long time ago, and the one mine is most alike (albeit without some improvements) was from 1970 or so and is long expired.

I'm not sure if SP would ever get in trouble, but I'm pretty sure the device they are producing is still covered by a patent issued circa 1995 or so.

But anyway, the advantages to my device are that you don't have to have headers or exhaust designed/modified specifically to fit the spool device. It is inside the turbine housing and you can barely tell it's there. It also is more efficient than theirs in the fact that it doesn't just block off a scroll when it's turned on and stop the gasses with a brick wall.

Theirs also only works with an open header design. My device works with open headers or fully divided headers to ensure when the device is off and the turbo is spooled, the two scrolls stay completely separate and do not allow reversion from one bank of cylinders to flow back up the other bank (this is the whole reason for the twin scroll).

On top of that from a simple sense, mine isn't just a turbo flange with a hole drilled in it and being sold for $400+. I've actually spent a lot of hours in developing solidworks models and building the cnc programs to have it cut out. That, as well as testing it on my car continuously for ~4 years now.

Also, my internals are made from inconel (if you opt for that option) which are a lot more heat resistant than stainless and will help with the higher duty cycle cars (road racing etc).

[JasonS]

I would say go ahead and try to build one yourself if you can.

My design is cut out with a CNC mill and carbide cutters. It's not something you would easily be able to do with a die grinder and achieve exactly what I'm doing.

Hell, I made my first prototype several years ago with the turbo flange (actually 4 of them stacked together) and was able to do it with a die grinder, band saw, welder, and a LOT of time.

It still works, but it's an external device, which means you have to compensate with modifications to the header/exhaust.

The ones I have in production now have many new features over the prototype I made a while ago, as well as not having to go in there and do it by hand.

Yea, I have access to a CNC to cut the flange and the plate etc. I would never take someones idea and because I think I can make it cheaper at home, turn around and undersell someone. That was not my intention if that is how I came off. I don't always come up with every idea, however I do enjoy the challenge of making things on my own versus buying them.

[ChrisD]

I understand, that's how we all improve on somones design.

The only thing I usually find out is that I spent a whole hell of a lot more time and sometimes money as well trying to come up with my own version than to buy an off the shelf product.

I would say try the flange thing if you want.

To do what I'm doing inside the turbo you would really have to model the exact turbo (most all turbos are different) and then build a CAM program to cut it out. By the time you do that you're going to have a lot of time in it.

[Adam West]

But anyway, the advantages to my device are that you don't have to have headers or exhaust designed/modified specifically to fit the spool device. It is inside the turbine housing and you can barely tell it's there. It also is more efficient than theirs in the fact that it doesn't just block off a scroll when it's turned on and stop the gasses with a brick wall.

Theirs also only works with an open header design. My device works with open headers or fully divided headers to ensure when the device is off and the turbo is spooled, the two scrolls stay completely separate and do not allow reversion from one bank of cylinders to flow back up the other bank (this is the whole reason for the twin scroll).

I do like how yours maintains the twinscroll and doesnt just have the exhaust running into the brick wall scenario. It also directs all air from a singlecroll down the correct volute with less turbulence. If the twin scroll works and your spool valve works as well as it should then that will help a LOT with larger turbos.
I think on smaller turbos like GT35r's people dont realize that getting them to spool too fast causes surge when the engine is incapable of flowing the amount of air needed to keep that size turbo happy. If I was running a 67 or larger this would be something I would have on my car.

Is your product available for purchase now and what is the cost?

[The Tex]

As far as SP doing it back in 02-03 I've never seen anything about that. The first time I heard of them throwing it on their website was 3 years after I developed mine (although I never said anything for a long while as I was inquiring about patenting it).
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Also, my internals are made from inconel (if you opt for that option) which are a lot more heat resistant than stainless and will help with the higher duty cycle cars (road racing etc).

I noticed it on Sound's site when I was buying a fuel system from them in the early part if 03' I believe. If I could find my login I think I read something about it around that time on Supra Forums too. As you stated earlier, the idea isn't that new even though your details are more thought out.
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Be careful when marketing this to Time Attack/Road Racers. The scenario I quoted previously in this topic is NOT make-believe. Road Racers are assholes to their cars/turbos. I'm not publicly stating this won't hold up but if it was me I would make sure I had plenty of testing on one before I'd market it that way. Being liable for turbine FOD would be a nightmare.
Additionally, I doubt any turbo manufacturer would honor their warranty with this thing in their TH.

[ChrisD]

I noticed it on Sound's site when I was buying a fuel system from them in the early part if 03' I believe. If I could find my login I think I read something about it around that time on Supra Forums too. As you stated earlier, the idea isn't that new even though your details are more thought out.
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Be careful when marketing this to Time Attack/Road Racers. The scenario I quoted previously in this topic is NOT make-believe. Road Racers are assholes to their cars/turbos. I'm not publicly stating this won't hold up but if it was me I would make sure I had plenty of testing on one before I'd market it that way. Being liable for turbine FOD would be a nightmare.
Additionally, I doubt any turbo manufacturer would honor their warranty with this thing in their TH.

Sure, I have yet to fully test one on a road race car, but that's what the inconel versions are for. I would find it hard to see the metal breaking into small enough parts to actually make it down to the turbine wheel as there are only 2 parts inside of the housing and they are quite large...but you always have to plan for the worst.

I know one of the guys at SP had thought of the idea before as well a long while ago and I'm not sure if he ever put it to use...but I definitely know their product they put out on their website only came out maybe 1-3 years ago.

Personally the first version I made was a larger version of the flange idea, but 4 stacked on top of each other and the nice diverter to direct the flow around. The problem was that it was 2" tall and hard as hell to machine...and then I found out the idea of putting the device in front of the turbo is still covered by patent protection. So I thought it would make more sense to put it inside of the turbo and then I didn't have to have all the shops for all the different makes of cars make headers/exhaust systems specifically for this. That was the big holdup for why I never came out with mine for 3 years is that I couldn't figure out a way to get shops to buy into making headers specifically for it.

[Luke Capitano]

Good ol Barney Navarro designed something similar back in 1971.
Linky

[ChrisD]

There are a ton more if you look around in the patent database.

I'm hoping to have some more on road testing here soon as the weather is starting to get a bit nicer up here in Ohio. It's still a bit cold, but the snow is finally gone.

[John Hischak]

Bringing this back from the dead, I saw that BW had a production-ready looking version of this at PRI on one of their smaller turbos. I believe a friend has pics of it, if anyone wants to see what it looks like.

I wonder if they plan to produce it, a 62-67mm EFR with this would be pretty killer.

[Kevin Jewer]

I saw that too on FB somewhere. I gave Chris credit for it, he was ahead of his time.