Experimental Fun
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This is an extract from my original website which I made in 2010, so this write up may contain errors.
Your probably thinking why build something like this, well there is a couple of reasons they are: because I wanted something to do and because I can.
Now to get down to business, this may not be the same as a turbo jet that you
would find in a jet or aeroplane but it is the same principle. The oil pump was
where I started first because it was the most important thing to get right,
because if it were to stop working while the jet was in operation the bearings
would start to wear down very rapidly.
First I had to find a oil pump and oil filter so I looked on eBay and they where all over $60 and did not include an oil filter, I suddenly remembered that I had one sitting on the top of a cupboard. The oil pump and filter were off an old Subaru ute that had recently been destroyed by fire. I now needed to design an oil tank that could also have the pump bolted to it, I found some old rectangular pipe which did nicely. The pump needed a shaft to drive the oil pump, I used a bit of old bolt, some rubber pipe, a spring and a screw. I ended up getting it all to work with only minimal oil leakage around the oil seal. (The Oil pump/ reservoir can be seen in the image below)
Now to find a turbo charger. It took me a while but I found the perfect one after hours of being out bidded, I found a Hitachi HT-18 which sold for only $150 plus $20 postage.
The next thing I had to do was make a combustion chamber. To make the combustion chamber I needed two fire extinguishers, one with a 15cm diameter and the other with a 10cm diameter and some iron plates. The perfect place to get all this was a salvage yard. So I went to a salvage yard, and they had everything I wanted, and when I went to pay for the old fire extinguishers they wanted $60 for each of them, which was quite a big rip off. Now I had to find another place to get some fire extinguishers at a reasonable price, which would be quite difficult, so I thought it would be easier to find some pipe about that size. On my school holidays I went to my grandparents wheat farm, and while I was there I asked my grandfather if he knew where I could find some pipe about the size I needed, and he said he knew where there was some that I could have. So we cut some to the right lengths, and he also showed me where to find some iron plate that I could use as well.
Then it was time to put it all together which was tricky because everything had
to fit together almost perfectly. I first cut and drilled the appropriate size holes
in to each plate, then I welded two of the the plates to largest piece of pipe.
After that it was time to make the flame tube which was quite a timely job
because I needed to drill about 80-90 holes in the small piece of pipe. As soon
as I had finished drilling the holes in the small piece of pipe it was time to weld
one of the plates to it which would hold the gas injector and spark plug.
I then had to make sure everything fitted together and it did but there were a few things that needed to be adjusted. After I had made a few adjustments, I had to make the turbocharger adapter plate and a square box to go between the adapter plate and the combustion chamber. It was a bit harder than I thought it would be to make a perfect square but it would have to do. After that I bolted a few things together and the combustion chamber was done.
The second last thing to do on the list was to make an exhaust pipe. To make this I needed some pipe with a 5cm diameter and about 30-40cm long, and another piece of iron plate. After I had got the parts all I needed to do was cut a hole in the centre of the iron plate about 4.8cm in diameter, drill a few holes and weld the pipe to the plate.
The last thing to do was bolt it all together. After trying to put the exhaust on to the turbo charger I found out that I had welded the plate on the wrong way around, but that wasn't really that bigger problem. The square plate's sides were not vertical that's all. After bolting it all together and joining up a few water and oil pipes, I tried to start it with a blower but the blower wasn't powerful enough to turn the turbine in the turbocharger but it did ignite and self sustain. I happened to read on another site like this, that it will self sustain around 25,000 rpm on some turbos. So I needed to find something that spins that fast, easy an angle grinder with the head taken off.
Now the question is how to connect the angle grinder to the turbo. Now that I have worked out a way of connecting it I had to try it, so i tried my idea which did not work at all there was a lot of vibration and a flying socket. I had another idea, I tried it and it worked. Now all I had to do was get the Jet engine running. After ages of adjusting the speed of the angle grinder and the gas regulator I got it to self sustain but it stalled ): , so I tried again and it started with a loud pop and a flame out the exhaust. I cranked up the oil pressure and the fuel supply and the speed got faster and faster, then smoke started to pour off the turbo charger since it had been recently painted. I could say it easily got up to 80,000-90,000 rpm then I realized I had forgotten to turn the water supply on so I shut it down. After it cooled down enough I got my video camera to film it running but I could not get it running again, because the shaft on the angle grinder had worn down quite a bit when I was trying to start it. 22/7/10
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