# Turbo Jet Engine



## eugene13 (Jan 1, 2018)

Sometime ago I watched a you tube video of a guy building a jet engine out of a turbocharger using only an electric drill motor and some basic hand tools.  Last summer one of my neighbors gave me a turbo charger, and now that the snow is sitting on the ground a foot and a half deep I have time to build my own verison.  Of course, since I have a lot of really cool tools how can I handicap myself?  By only using the materials I have on hand.  1 used turbo, a 1 5/8 mandrel bent 180, a random length of driveshaft tubing and some 3/8 steel plate.  I thought the best place to start was the plate to mount the burner can and some flanges to close the end.  I bolted the flanges together and used a hole saw to rough it out, here's the completed burner can. The guy in the video mentioned a relationship between the intake area and the fuel nozzle holes but i missed it and now can't fine the video.


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## Ed ke6bnl (Jan 1, 2018)

will be fun to follow, I have watched some of those videos and have an old turbo in the shed, but have a thousand other projects.


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## FOMOGO (Jan 1, 2018)

What, if anything, are you going to power with it? Mike


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## Z2V (Jan 2, 2018)

A Snow Blower!


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## eugene13 (Jan 2, 2018)

Z2V said:


> A Snow Blower!


Indeed, maybe a snow melter, I haven't thought about doing anymore than building it and making it run, but I'm open to any and all suggestions.


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## Jake2465 (Jan 3, 2018)

Make sure you


eugene13 said:


> The guy in the video mentioned a relationship between the intake area and the fuel nozzle holes



Colin Fruze made a couple videos about using a turbocharger with bare basic tools. I am always amazed at how much he can do with basic hand and power tools. But note, That video was about how it was possible to make a turbojet from a turbo charger with almost nothing on hand. If you were able to get 5 minutes of run time out of it, I would be surprised. The whole point of the video was just to prove it could be jerry rigged like no other and still function. Absolutely nothing about durability or safety. 

Fun project though!


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## kvt (Jan 3, 2018)

What, It's not OSHA approved?  But it does sound fun.  I saw where one guy put a pulse jet on a bicycle, but snow blower sounds more fun.


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## eugene13 (Jan 3, 2018)

Colin Fruze,, I'll look for him on you tube, maybe I can catch those numbers, thanks


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## RandyM (Jan 4, 2018)

Z2V said:


> A* Snow Blower*!





kvt said:


> What, It's not OSHA approved?  But it does sound fun.  I saw where one guy put a pulse jet on a bicycle, but *snow blower sounds more fun*.



Well, here is one for ya.


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## kvt (Jan 4, 2018)

That would be my type of snow blower.    But SA does not get enough snow for one.    
Still want to see the Turbo jet run.


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## eugene13 (Jan 6, 2018)

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


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## eugene13 (Jan 10, 2018)

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?


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## eugene13 (Jan 12, 2018)

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


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## Jake2465 (Jan 12, 2018)

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.


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## eugene13 (Jan 13, 2018)

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?


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## Jake2465 (Jan 13, 2018)

eugene13 said:


> 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.


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## eugene13 (Jan 18, 2018)

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.         '


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## ConValSam (Jan 18, 2018)

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


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## eugene13 (Jan 20, 2018)

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.


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## eugene13 (Jan 29, 2018)

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.


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## eugene13 (Feb 3, 2018)

I finally built a mount so I can clamp it to something when I start it up, here it is assembled.  The tag on the suction end says; WARNING: Any  misuse or unauthorized modification of this turbocharger may cause damage or personal injury, use only as specified by manufactures name.  I will be using a Model-T ignition, and I need to build an oil system.


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## eugene13 (Feb 18, 2018)

Old man Winter has really kept me busy these past weeks, what with shoveling snow, coal, ash, operating the snow blower and taking my daily exercise I finally some time for my project.  I figured the best place to start on the oil system was the inlet and outlet flanges. The inlet flange was drilled and tapped something that matched none of the taps in my toolbox, my son thinks it used an O-ring boss fitting, I set it up in the mill and drilled and tapped two 5/16" X 18 holes.  the next two pictures are just for bragging rights, set up in my mill with no shims and alt-zeroed on table, close enough for the girls I go with.  A half hour dive into my "little pieces of aluminum" bucket yielded the material for the flanges and one of my coffee cans held the needed fittings, now I need a small pump, any suggestions?


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## eugene13 (Feb 20, 2018)

In my last post I didn't mention the chore of feeding wild birds and I didn't include photographic evidence of me doing chores or a representation of Old Man Winter.  There are 9 turkey's in "our" group, this is the first time we've had them, the whole group of about 40 came through our neighborhood this fall and cleaned out all the grasshoppers.


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## eugene13 (Mar 9, 2018)

Here's what I'm using for an oil pump, it's a Ford power steering pump, absolutely the wrong application but everything else I have is too big or small.  geared down about 2 1/2 : 1 should keep it from developing too much pressure, and having a built in reservoir saves me from procuring a tank.  I went a little overkill on the mount, but it's the only piece of flat stock I had that was big enough, and it already had holes drilled in it, I actually used the hole on the upper left.  I laid out the bolt circle, found the center and cut it out with a hole saw, then trimmed off the unnecessary metal with my band saw.  I opened up the top of the mount so I could remove the pump without removing the pressed on pulley.  I finally had to buy something, a nice piece of 10" channel for the base.  I didn't even halve to buy a v-belt as the one for my heating boiler is the right size, the boiler got the new one and my oil system got the used one.


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## eugene13 (Mar 12, 2018)

Final assembly of the turbine, I smeared stove cement (good to 2100 degrees) on all the mating parts, you can see how it squeezed out, this tells me I've got a good seal, I used RTV on the compressor discharge.  Here's a couple of views down the burner can to the turbine inlet, without the flame holder and with it in place.  I'll vacuum the sealant squeezes out before I close up the can.  Here's a picture of my friend 
Bill, he's building a flintlock muzzle loader and is using my mill to inlet the barrel tangs.


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## eugene13 (Mar 22, 2018)

I was going to use a Model-T coil for the ignition, but none of them worked, so I went to the dump and got a microwave oven out of the scrap pile, here's two pictures of the transformer, but I think it's why it ended up in the dump.  The primary side reads 0.3 ohms, and the secondary(?) the two black wires reads 0.7 ohms, the red wire reads 0.0 to the transformer frame. I hooked it up to house current and it hums but I can't get a spark out of the secondary.  I could use some help or suggestions.


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## eugene13 (Apr 16, 2018)

Well, here it is, we finally got some good weather and all the snow melted, my wife forbid me to try and start it in she shop so I set it up in my backyard for it's first attempt. Failure sucks, it won't run, it did leak oil all over my saw horses and the ground but I couldn't even get it to smoke.  Oh well, spring is here and my vegtable garden is calling, I'll find a place to store it and take another run at it next winter.


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## savarin (Apr 16, 2018)

Still on the theme of jets although not a turbo is Colin Furze's attempt to Fart at France. Loved it.
If you are anal with health and safety then definitely do not watch any of his videos.
He has quite a few pulse jet movies.
https://www.youtube.com/user/colinfurze/videos


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## ConValSam (Apr 16, 2018)

Eugene
Sad your effort ended without ignition; in addition to the garden, I suggest a go at the yellow Pinto in the background.  They so seldom appear anymore, the world needs more exposure to that apex of 70s automobile design.  And its the Runabout model with the Pacer sized window: seeing it has me jazzed for a trip down the road cranking the windows open  and closed by hand....


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## eugene13 (Apr 16, 2018)

Come visit Montana and you can take the Pinto home with you.


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