turbocharged bx2200

Anonymous Poster · Feb 21, 2001

Ok, I found a turbo for my "Super BX2200" conversion project. It'll fit right on at the manifold outlet, no more room for that pesky muffler anymore though, heck the BX is too quiet anyway and a three inch stack out the center of the hood will be much more practical anyway. So I figure by my calculations I should be able to pump out around 50 psi boost, but now all that extra air won't do much without some more fuel to get the ponies goin', and I'm talking around 60 of 'em! YE HAW!!! one+ per cube, I can see the roostertails of dirt flying up already! That'll mean some modified injectors or at least a set out of one of the big M-series machines and definately some pump modifications too.
I might as well tweak the governor a little while I'm in there to take advantage of my radical new torque curve, 6500rpm oughta do. Now where's that BX tach set up when I need it. Darn, now I gotta go into the head and put in some heavier valve springs to keep the valves from getting too friendly with the pistons.... hey those valves could be a touch bigger too come to think of it. More research! I wonder if any of this'll affect my warranty? Nah, I'll just put it back to stock if something goes wrong before I send it back to my dealer, they'll never know! Besides my year is almost up anyway. Won't it look cool when I'm out snowblowing with the fountain of white rising up into the atmosphere just ahead of the column of of pitch black smoke erupting out of that big chrome pipe right behind the hood ornimant. Oooo.............wow.....I just had a thought.....this thing is going to be burning a lot of fuel. I might not have enough on board to mow my lawn without stopping for a fill...... Aww heck forget it. Thats too much trouble to hassle around with those extra jerry cans of fuel. Well, another scheming idea on the shelf for unforseen complications, D'oh!!!

JATO_RaT · Feb 21, 2001

Rusty, I was a little surprised to see your interest in putting a turbocharger on a relatively small engine. I am somewhat with the others as far as why it would be necessary, but certainly there are times it would warrant it, or at least the considerations to go to a larger tractor. While Dels remark about matching HP and weight have some value, they certainly don't address the lack luster performance normally aspirated diesels have in thin air. I realize that not all folks live at sea level and have the rated horsepower associated with tractor engine specs. Since the diesel as I understand was designed from the very onset to be turbocharged or at the very least have some form of positive air induction, its no wonder they work so well with it and with all light trucks now using it why folks wonder about its applications in other areas. I would certainly consider adding a turbo to a diesel to restore much lost power at high altitudes, but at some point practicality would come in. Diesels do so much better with turbocharged engines then would a gas engine mostly because of the fact that diesels are not stoichiometric, that is, they burn fuel at different proportions depending on RPM. Gas engines always, no matter what the RPM burn gas at 16:1, 16 parts air to one part gas. Diesels can go as high as 100:1 at idle to about 40:1 at full RPM. Thats alot more air needed for the diesel. My truck would benefit from some positive air induction when I go to Lake Tahoe, the resulting black smoke from the 7000' altitude is only part of the story, the performance of its normally aspirated diesel is lack luster at best and has me yearning for an aftermarket turbo like the Banks company makes especially when one prices out the cost of new diesel trucks. Its not so much that I want my truck to have more horsepower but rather have closer to the same horsepower it has when at 1000'. Lastly, I suspect that Kubotas decision not put a turbo on all of their diesels has more to do with cost then anything else. While I think they do make outstanding diesels, turbo'd or not, I can understand some folks need for them. I certainly admire ones thinking beyond the norm, especially when its not normal. Rat...

Anonymous Poster · Feb 21, 2001

Rat, I agree, I hadn't considered the altitude issue. As one who has attempted to push a gas RV across higher altitudes, I can attest to the severe power loss as you go up in altitude. My turbo Supra doesn't seem to care about altitude.

I'm sure any pilots on this board can REALLY attest to this air density and power loss situation.

I also agree it's a cost issue. I wonder how many lowlanders move up hill, buy a tractor without realizing the need to "up-model" to make up the difference.
del

Stephen · Feb 25, 2001

Re: turbocharged bx2200/hydraulic pumps

I'm a newbie myself. One of the attractions of a Kubota of any size to me are reports from users that they'll run 4000-7000 hours with no more than fuel, lube and filters and maybe one valve job.. I've never heard of an automobile turbo unit that would last even 1500 hours. Those high rpms in the induction vanes are very tough on the bearings. Even if you double that to 3000hrs you're halving the reliability of the engine and adding maybe a $1.5k repair expense at it's mid-life. No thanks.

I do have a different question though. There may be times or implements that could use more hydraulic power than a given tractor can deliver. Is it possible or advisable to replace hydraulc pumps with higher capacity ones ?

Pks · Feb 26, 2001

Re: turbocharged bx2200/hydraulic pumps

Stephen,

If you are asking about replacing the hydraulic pumps that supply the on-board hydraulics for the tractor, then I suspect it's not a good idea to go with higher capacity: flow rate or pressure or both.

But if you are thinking about replacing PTO powered hydraulic pumps then you *might* be able to do it. Remember this: gallons per minute is the hydraulic equivalent to horsepower and hydraulic pressure is the force of that flow rate. You could put a high gpm pump on a PTO. But if the pump needs 20 hp and the tractor only produces 18 hp at the PTO then you gain nothing. If you go the other way and look at pressure, you certainly could operate with a high pressure pump. But if the cylinder seals or hoses can't handle the increase then there is a *dangerous* potential.

One must also consider the effects of increased hydraulic power on the implement(s). I would not want to see a tractor broken in half just because the hydraulic pressure to a backhoe unit had been increased by 20%.

Through all the emails and posts I have read, one opinion from the tractor population stands out in my mind-don't increase the strength of the hydraulics. The tractors are small, light and built for the implements they carry. The tractors (Kubotas in my research) have been known to break when used with backhoes that do not use a subframe.

Personally, I'm not certain about the amount of gain one could achieve by altering the power of these small tractors. Certainly the economics gain from time saved would be small. Even if a tractor had 20% more power and steel strength with the extra load in the implement, one could still flip the tractor due to the small footprint. Over all, I (IMHO) just don't think they are up to power increases when compaired to the safety risk and/or the economic costs.

Any one else have a thought on this???

Peter

ddl · Feb 26, 2001

Re: turbocharged bx2200/hydraulic pumps

YOU ARE RIGHT, THE TRACTOR SHOULD MATCH THE NEEDS, NOT MEET THE POCKETBOOK ABILITIES AND THEN TRY TO MAKE IT DO SOMETHING THE TRACTIR SHOULD NOT DO. iF YOU WANT TOUSE A LARGER ATTACHMENT, BUY A LARGER TRACTOR. tRACTORS IS ONE AREA WHERE ONE SIZES FITS ALL. Safety is also a part of it, when you start to go beyound the abilities of a tractor, you are also putting you and the tractor at risk.

Dan L

Anonymous Poster · Feb 28, 2001

After reading down the responses, I realize that the majority of the people out there are somewhat liberal when it comes to the subject of modifications done to small tractors. On some of the subjects I have to agree, for example when someone braught up the subject of increasing the output on their hydraulic pump, you simply can't pull higher numbers out of a pump if their is not an ample supply of power to run it.
Now when it comes to you question of turbocharging a small engine, I have to agree there is some merit. first of all increasing horsepower is not the only thing that a turbocharger does that is useful to an engine, especialy a diesel engine, like someone had pointed out you have less power loss at altitude. but The main thing that aturbo unit can help with is keeping an engine running cool, and if you working at high output levels in bad conditions, you can substantialy increase the life of your engine.

That brings me to my next point, turbocharger maintience,because all turbo chargers use fully sealed bearings,to cope with the exaust heat(on diesels up to 1000 degrees farenheight) there is virtually no maintinence, because all of the torque is transfered over to the compressor side there is very little strain on the bearings................. have a nice day.

Charliebrn · Feb 28, 2001

Ok, now you've lost me. I would have thought that the addition of a turbocharger would actually have the engine running warmer. After all, Instead of nice cool air coming in, you have hot exhaust. Not only that, you have the ambient air in the engine compartment sucking up all that heat from the turbocharger... (Thermodynamics in college was NOT my strong point) /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

JATO_RaT · Feb 28, 2001

The air coming in is not warmer, the only difference is that instead of air being pulled in by the pistons, it is now putting positive air pressure into the intake manifold so when the pistons pull in the air through the open valve, they fill the chamber with more air. The exhaust from the diesel simply turns one turbine connected to a shaft that spins another turbine that draws in outside air. Diesels differ from gas engines in that a leaner fuel mixture results in lower temperatures. In fact the RPM on the diesel is goverened by how much fuel is allowed to enter the chamber via the injector. When you increase the air in the chamber, efficiencies of the burn typically increase. Turbos for gas engines need to be very carefully monitored as the biggest problem on turbo charged gas engines is heat. Rat...

toddler · Feb 28, 2001

Interesting explanation Rat. RPM's will always be governed partly by the amount of fuel. But if you increase the energy you get from x amount of fuel, by increasing the oxygen, then RPM's will increase. This is assuming resistance isn't changed dramatically.

I remain one of the nay-sayers on this thread, because I still think the relative cost of a well engineered turbo, is far greater than the cost of increasing displacement on a small engine. And weight isn't an issue here, heavy tractors are generally an advantage. I'll also stick to my comment that the only real advantage a turbo would have on a small engine is the performance at altitude. Turbocharging a diesel vs a gas engine seems a more practical idea to me. Somebody pointed out that the air-fuel mix in diesel is highly variable. That means that to some extent, you can simply add more air, not increase the engine compression with both gas and air. So I'll agree turbodiesels are practical once you reach a certain engine size. They'll give you better fuel economy and retain engine performance better in thin air, but still, the turbines have to be engineered to spin fast and not toast themselves, and that costs. I'll bet it's more than 20-30 CI more displacement. Anyone disagree, or know the actual cost of turbocharging?? I'd be curious to hear from any engineers who know.

Todd