Straight from the halls of EICMA, here’s a super-cool add-on that could offer a turbo-like performance boost for far less cost — the Impulse Drum Charger, from Alter Ego.
Loz Blaine put together a very detailed explanation of the Drum Charger’s inner workings over at New Atlas, but we’ll sum it up here, in case you’re too lazy to click the link (the video’s subtitles also provide a handy walkthrough of the system).
In short, the Impulse Drum Charger uses exhaust gas to pressurize a carbon-fibre membrane, which then pushes cold air into a cylinder’s intake. Alter Ego reckons a 4.35 psi boost, or 8.7 psi with a unit with two membranes.
That’s a mild boost, but considering the cost savings and reduced complexity, this system could still be very attractive to owners of small-displacement bikes, especially for single-cylinder models.
The Drum Charger design requires one unit per cylinder, and the units are bulky, so thumpers and twins get the most benefit from this gadget.
The future?
The people behind Drum Charger do not seem to have a final plan for bringing this invention to market. In his New Atlas piece, Blaine says Alter Ego is hoping to sell the design to an OEM. If that plan falls through, it’s still likely there’d be enough demand on the open market to sell these things directly to end users, although (as always) pricing would ultimately determine its success.
I want one.
Back of a napkin calculations leave me very skeptical that this would work. It takes a significant amount of power to compress air. I am almost positive you can’t get that much power from an exhaust pulse. It is the same reason those bolt-on electric “superchargers” are a joke, they simply are not powerful enough.
Plus since this is essentially a speaker, I suspect that the thing would be very loud in operation.
Low revs on a single would fill the air with a glorious FAP-FAP-FAP.
Remember, kids: Loud FAPs Save Lives. 😛
A fancy computer animation doesn’t mean it’s going to work. There’s plenty of stuff like this out there looking for gullible investors. If the proponent actually set about building this gadget, they’ll have some hard lessons to learn.
John Broderick check this out?
Perpetual motion machine ?
Remember SWARUP ?
Don’t waste your money.