"Homemade Turbo"???

[gbpattersonjr]

Hey everyone. I just saw a YouTube video the other night where a guy took the right side heater hose on his Type 1, connected to the fan shroud, ran it to the intake, and called it a "Homemade Turbo" (or something to that effect). Rather than letting the carb suck air as normal, this set up allowed the fan to force air through the filter. At first I thought this was totally off-the-wall, but hey after 7 decades of global ownership (and modification), I doubt this is the only occurrence.

Any merit?
Pros/Cons? Of course this could only be a summer mod for those of us in colder climates

It seems to me it would make for interesting carb adjustments to say the least.

[Floating VW]

Yep, lot's of people have tried this over the years. I think I may have even done it myself once when I was in high school.

It's a terrible idea, don't do it.

P.S. Welcome to the samba!
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[gbpattersonjr]

I figured as much. If it were really a good idea, the VW engineers - smart bunch that they were - would've done it!

Thank you very much for the response to my curiosity and welcome. Much appreciated.
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[finster]

it worked on the old fiat 500

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[Abscate]

[KTPhil]

Ramming unfiltered air down the carb? Not sure how long the rings would last...

[Floating VW]

I think the problem is two-fold: unwanted turbulence is created inside the fan shroud, and a lot of dirty air is blown at the carburetor.

If the fan shroud and air cleaner were intentionally designed to blow air into the intake, such as the Fiat 500, both of these problems could be eliminated and then it might not be such a terrible idea.
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"It's time you started treating people as individuals, rather than mathematically predictable members of an aggregate set, regardless of how well that works."

[olspeed]

There was a thing in Hot VW's years ago about doing this and they showed that there was an increase in performance to the stock engine but the unfiltered air thing was a major problem.
I will admit that I tried it too with my 66 Ghia when I first got it with the stock engine, I would only switch it out from the air-cleaner when auto Xing and had a setup that used both heater tubes... it was a little rich at idle but it ran pretty good out on the track but I also think that it was the reason I had to build another replacement engine a year or two later.
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66- Ghia
76-Beetle

[Pruneman99]

This comes up at least once a year. Normally it gets poo-pooed right away.

Obviously Fiat thought it was a good idea. I seem to remember a thread where someone actually Dino'ed it, with marginal improvement. But if you were to do this, you would need to filter the air so you didn't destroy the engine rings in the process.

So maybe you can do it and engineer a filtration system (or use one off a Fiat) and get a 2-3 up bump for all your efforts.

Or maybe you can just work on something that gives you actual HP bumps that are tried and true.

If this was a "free" HP gainer with no downside, I'm sure people would have been doing it for years as this isn't a new idea.

I'll just keep my heat in the winter, and what I think is a heat sink (air flowing through the heater boxes) in the summer.

[VOLKSWAGNUT]

Ive done it years ago as an experiment .. it does add some pep the ole VW step..
An engine is an air pump... making it breath easier.. makes power.

[gbpattersonjr]

Everybody keeps talking about unfiltered air, however my original post described the tube being run from the fan shroud to the intake on the air filter. The air is still filtered, just being blown in from the fan shroud rather than being sucked from the engine compartment.
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Education ceases if the educated fail to educate others.

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[Abscate]

Jesus, please kill this thread and make it unworthy of a Resurrection.

LHOP.
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.ssS!

[gbpattersonjr]

[Glenn]

Please post some dyno numbers. If it ads 1/4hp @ 4000rpm i'd be surprised.

I think HotVW did a test in the 90s and it was a bust.

How about an electric turbo?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Universal-Electronic-Car-...Swk69fWdL6
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[olspeed]

I knew I had it... right under my "Brewing beers like those you buy"
Test #1 is a stock 1600 dual port for reference it's test number 6 by the way, it's from winter of 1989. The pic that they show is almost exactly like what I had done but instead of welding up some aluminum tube I used black PVC because it was cheaper.
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66- Ghia
76-Beetle

[kpf]

It would be a supercharger, not a turbo.
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1971 Super Beetle

[jeffrey8164]

I’ve seen a bunch of videos on YouTube where they try to use leaf blowers as superchargers and they just can’t build enough pressure to be effective.
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[KTPhil]

Someone posted cooling fan performance figures, maybe that included the pressure inside the shroud? If we know the psi capability of the fan/shroud, we could estimate how much boost it could give the engine. I am guessing just a few psi at best, not enough to matter.

[gbpattersonjr]

[mark tucker]

probably works great for blowing the fuel back out of the carb.