Turbo Jet Engine

Getting a little closer every day, here's a picture of the adapter to connect a piece of 1 3/4" tubing to the discharge of the compressor, the material was a cut-off from one of my other projects, and had been dwelling in my "little pieces of steel" bucket for a couple of years. The OD was the right size so I didn't have to turn it, and it already had a hole in it, all I had to do was bore it to the right size. I really like the video of the snow blower, I could have used it last week

IMG_0354.JPG
 
And I'm going to be needing that big snow blower tomorrow. This is the clamp that holds the adapter onto the compressor discharge one of the rings has a taper that enguages the taper on the discharge neck, and the other ring holds against the adapter. A hose clamp holds the two halves together. I'm waiting on the welder to complete this assembly so I will start on the next part, the burner. Some 2 1/2" exhaust tubing left over from my grandson's muffler job gets it's ends belled so it will fit tight into the 2 1/2" schedule 40 pipe. The ring on the right has a taper that matches the lower taper on the burner can and the ring on the left has a ring of 3"schedule 80 pipe welded to it, this will hold the burner in the center of the burner can, and the flange will seal everything together, with the help of that real good 3-M stove cement. Isn't 3" schedule 80 and 2 1/2" pipe the handyist stuff ever?

IMG_0355.JPG

IMG_0357.JPG

IMG_0358.JPG

IMG_0359.JPG

IMG_0362.JPG

IMG_0361.JPG

IMG_0359.JPG

IMG_0363.JPG
 
When I lived in Fontana CA I used to listen to an LA station KMET. My favorite show was "Light the burner with Mary Turner" I don't know what kind of burner she had in mind but here's my version. Measure the compressor inlet area and lay the holes out as follows; 20% of the area in small holes near the air inlet, 30% of the area in larger holes near the middle and 50% of the area in bigger holes near the turbine inlet. Thanks to Colin Fruze. This is the reinforced bottom section of the burner can, I turned down a piece of 2 1/2" pipe and pressed it in. I serves to protect from the heat and keeps the burner in place. The Welder cometh, here's the finished clamp holding the adapter on the compressor discharge

IMG_0364.JPG

IMG_0366.JPG

IMG_0367.JPG
 
One thing I do know is that you will want to have an EGT for your turbine wheel. If I recall, getting it above 1100F at startup would constitute a hot start and it will need to be immediately shut down to avoid damage. I constructed one about 15 years ago and it did alright. By far, the greatest challenge will be getting the flame holder to work correctly.

On google, look up "building a turbocharger turbojet engine pdf ". It should be about 50 pages. It's the best guide to building one of these engines that I know of.
 
Thanks for the info, Jake, I'll try google, do you know that GOOGLE has scanned every book in the world, not for humans to read, but for computers to read. I don't have an EGT, but I'll keep it in mind, is the flame holder the part that I'm calling the burner?
 
Thanks for the info, Jake, I'll try google, do you know that GOOGLE has scanned every book in the world, not for humans to read, but for computers to read. I don't have an EGT, but I'll keep it in mind, is the flame holder the part that I'm calling the burner?

Yes, the flame holder would be the inner burner can with all the holes. If you make an error, error on the side of the holes not being big enough, rather than too big.
 
I went to the website Jake suggsted, http://www.john-tom.com/JetTurbinePlans/TurbochargerJetEnginesSpringerSm.pdf it's about 50 pages and has a lot of information, I can see that I'm on the right track, but I've screwed up a little also, oh well, I've decided to "stay the course" and continue the project. The last part I have to make is the collar that holds the two halves of the turbo together. A look through my "little pieces of steel" bucket yielded a part left over from installing an airbag system on a friend's lowrider. Add some 3" schedule 80 pipe and some fun on the lathe and mill, and there you have it. '

IMG_0369.JPG

IMG_0368.JPG

IMG_0370 (1).JPG

IMG_0372 (1).JPG

IMG_0371 (1).JPG
 
Looking good Eugene!

You may want to check out RC Don on both youtube and his own website. It may be insufficiently technical for your endeavour, but it is fun to see the iterations through which he went AND what he powered with it.

Have Fun
 
Thanks Sam, I checked out RCDon, facinating, and of course one website always leads to another, saw one of these , much larger than mine, powering a lawn tractor, gonna need ear protection for sure. Here's a picture of mine all fitted up and welded, looks just like all the others. One more problem to overcome, on the turbine discharge is the waste gate and a large cavity that extends into the nozzle. To keep the waste gate closed I drilled and tapped a 1/4"-20 hole, a jack bolt will hold it closed, and I filled up the cavity with stove cement, by the time I fire this thing up the cement should be dry. Notice how it smooths out the discharge nozzle, my wife was in the shop today and she predicted that I am going to blow myself up.

IMG_0373.JPG

IMG_0374.JPG

IMG_0375.JPG

IMG_0376.JPG
 
Here's the fuel nozzle, the small hole on the left will be pointed at the spark plug. The tubing with the holes in it was from one of those fold up chairs that are hard to get up and out of, the powder coating was really hard to remove. The nozzle tube is held in with set screws so I can experiment with different lengths and configurations. Whenever I single point threads I like to work off of an indicator, removing the feed charts on my lathe exposes a nice flat surface to stick a mag base. Here's how the nozzle and spark plug fit on the flange, I got to use my steady rest to adjust the length of the burner can in order to get compression on the flange gasket. The last picture is of the mine about three miles from my house, the orange stain is nitrogen oxide from an overburden blast that didn't detonate all the ANFO properly. We didn't have any wind so it hung in the valley for about two hours. It's toxic, and legend has it that birds have flown such a cloud and dropped dead to the ground.

IMG_0387.JPG

IMG_0380.JPG

IMG_0385.JPG

IMG_0384.JPG

IMG_0377.JPG
 
Back
Top