October 8, 2014 at 2:54 pm by Don Sherman | Photography by Michael Simari, Illustration by Chris Philpot
When you want a potent engine or a sturdy gearbox for your fantasy supercar, Ricardo ought to be your first call. This U.K.-based engineering firm has roots reaching back much more than a century and branches that cover Europe, Russia, Asia, and the U.S. of A. Ricardo’s expertise can be discovered across the business. Among its recent projects is the HyBoost, a Ford Focus fitted with an electrically driven supercharger. Ricardo constructed this HyBoost with 2 objectives in thoughts: topping Toyota Prius fuel efficiency even though skirting the expense, bulk, and weight of the Prius’s 2 electric motor/generators and battery pack. The experiment is a timely one—every carmaker sees 2025’s 54.5-mpg CAFE requirement looming, and most need to have help meeting it. To develop the HyBoost, Ricardo replaced the original 1.6-liter 4-cylinder engine with a 1.-liter EcoBoost 3-cylinder and augmented that engine’s turbo with a Valeo electric supercharger. 2 years ago [“A Genuine Electric Charge,” January 2012], we speculated that BMW may possibly use an electric supercharger to sharpen throttle response at low engine speeds. Even though that has yet to come to fruition, Audi has one particular under the hood of its RS5 TDI concept car.
Primarily a turbo’s compressor mated to a DC electric motor, this supercharger can spin to 70,000 rpm in significantly less than .4 second, supplying 77 psi of enhance ahead of the HyBoost’s bigger exhaust-driven turbo wakes up. Ricardo met its aim of rising the Focus’s fuel efficiency from 39 mpg to 59 in European test cycles. A switch permits acceleration testing with or without the electric blower operating. We employed 4th-gear acceleration from 30 to 50 mph and from 50 to 70 mph to gauge the supercharger’s effectiveness. Goose the HyBoost’s throttle and there’s a shuffle beneath the hood accompanied by a modest enhance in forward surge as this device goes to work. The key word is “modest.” The supercharger trimmed the 9.-second 30-to-50-mph run by only .3 second. In the upper speed variety, there’s significantly less advantage due to the fact there’s sufficient exhaust flow above 2800 rpm to spin the turbo. Regardless of the HyBoost’s poor displaying on the test track, we’re enthusiastic about the Valeo supercharger due to the fact it runs cool and can be mounted nearly anyplace under the hood. Count on seeing this device on production models soon. Hyaboosta: Ricardo’s mpg particular ditches the Focus’s 1.6-liter for a 1. and its 5-speed for a 6. It has an electric supercharger and a quit-begin method. The blower gets its juice not from a battery, but from 10 supercapacitors that capture power throughout deceleration.
The 24 Hours of LeMons Traveling Circus has returned to The Ridge Motorsports Park in Shelton, Washington, for the 4th annual Pacific Northworst 24 Hours of LeMons. Due to scheduling troubles with the venue, we had to do the vehicle inspections starting at oh-dark-thirty on Saturday morning and then drop the green flag for the race itself right away afterwards. That signifies we’re mashing the classic inspection post into the standard initial-day-roundup post, in significantly the exact same way that a Corolla can be mashed into an MR2 to develop a twin-engined race auto. Right here we go! In honor of a nicely-identified Washington-based firm, the traditional BRIBED stencil incorporated the face of Clippy the Workplace Assistant. Junkyards are full of low-cost superchargers these days the easiest to uncover is the Eaton unit installed on numerous GM automobiles with Buick 3800 V6 engines during the 1990s. Here’s one on a Buick 215-cubic-inch V8. Fast, guess the auto! That’s appropriate, we’ve got the third Rover SD1 to make its LeMons debut throughout the summer time of 2014. This 1 attributes an Eaton blower, draw-by means of carburetor fuel-delivery system… and a spot in Class C. We anticipated Team Odin’s Rover to spray many pounds of finely granulated engine parts out the tailpipe within several laps of setting tire to track, but that’s not what happened. By the finish of the day’s grueling race session, Group Odin was in P34 general (out of 63 entries) and second in Class C. Top Class C was the Saturn SL2 of Team Automobile Error Panamericana, a auto that is been competing in West Coast LeMons races for a lot of years and has however to bring property a trophy of any sort for its group. With a enormous 33-lap lead more than the Rover, the Car Error Panamericanas appear to be in quite great shape, but you just in no way know what will come about in the most fascinating LeMons class. The ADO17 “Landcrab” of Silversleeves Racing was the quickest of the Class C entries, what with its Mazda V6 yanked out of a Ford Probe, but… properly, it is a Landcrab. Still, P46 isn’t so bad for a vehicle like this. We had high hopes for the 1974 Ford Mustang II of Low Road Racing, figuring that an automatic-equipped, 2.8 V6-powered Pinto sibling may have a shot in Class C, but there’s a reason that Mustang IIs sell for a tiny fraction of the price of slightly older Mustangs. P55 at the finish of the race session. The “Megadethdrap” graphic on the Mustang’s hood pleased the 24 Hours of LeMons Supreme Court quite significantly. We’d only had 2 Chevrolet Corvairs in LeMons prior to this weekend, and so the sight of the ’60 of Team Transcontinental Drifters was an thrilling 1. However, 54-year-old Detroit compacts with loose engines are not in their organic element on a road course, and the Transcontinental Drifters left an alarming trail of smoke behind their Chevy every time they limped onto the track. 27 laps, very good for 57th place out of 63. The group has all night to fix their Corvair, so possibly Sunday will be a much better day for Corvair race fans. The extremely Bondo-ized ’52 Hudson Hornet of Chase Race won the Index of Effluency trophy at the 2013 Pacific Northworst race, but a hub failure place the old Hudson on the trailer soon after a mere 84 laps on Saturday. Hudson parts aren’t simple to locate in Washington state on brief notice. The Flying Baldini Bandits thought they’d boost their chances in Class B by adding a Toyota Previa supercharger to their Honda Civic’s lackluster D15 engine. Sadly, the Baldinis neglected to do adequate study about the direction of rotation of their engine versus that of the Previa blower, and it turns out that their increase levels weren’t so high on a backward-spinning supercharger. In fact major Class B, and in an astonishing P3 general, the Jeep Cherokee of Petty Cash Racing proves that independent front suspension is overrated for road racing. On the identical lap as the Cherokee, the ONSET/Tetanus West ’89 Chevy Cavalier will not need to have considerably of a stumble on the portion of the Jeep group to take the Class B lead. We’ve seen numerous LeMons cars sprayed a quickie coat of pink paint and labeled as “Barbie’s Corvette,” but finally we had a team uncover a true Corvette (a C4, of course) and Barbie-ize it. The Silversleeves Racing ’84 Corvette (yes, this is the same team that runs the Landcrab) is the best Barbie Corvette, right down to its dreaded Doug Nash 4+3 transmission and its even-a lot more-more-dreaded Cross-Fire Injection fuel technique. Best of all, this Corvette comes with Barbie’s Racer Friend Kate, comprehensive with pink cardboard box! Regrettably, the vehicle had all the expected reliability issues you’d count on from a worn-out ’84 Corvette, and it finished the day in P36. Of the rapidly Class A automobiles, although, somebody wants to be top, and this time it is the old familiar Model T GT, a automobile that typically ventures to the LeMons races with smaller car counts and takes the “shark in the aquarium” role. This time, the LeMons Supreme Court issued a 5-lap handicap to the T GT, which the team managed to overcome by the end of Saturday. 4 laps back of the Model T GT, we’ve got the Ford Thunderbird of the Killer Whales. This Class A battle will come down to which team’s drivers are much better at avoiding black-flag-triggering errors. The Fox Mustangs? Most of them blew up in brief order. In truth, even more than the usual quantity of race cars were up on jackstands as the day wore on. Some will get back on the track on Sunday, some will not. Verify in later to see how this madness sorts out!
Hyaboosta: Ricardo’s mpg particular ditches the Focus’s 1.6-liter for a 1. and its 5-speed for a 6. It has an electric supercharger and a quit-begin method. The blower gets its juice not from a battery, but from 10 supercapacitors that capture power throughout deceleration. 
