Dennis,

 

 First let me say that you and your brother apparently have too much spare time on your hands (just kidding!). Actually I'm pretty impressed that you'd take the time to do this and document it.

 

 Having said that, I think Al makes a couple of good points - you could conceivably make up a significant amount of the measured difference with a good ram air system in flight.

 

 And finally, while you are right - that you cant buy much of a turbo for $500, it wouldn’t take much of a turbo to get an additional 1.2". This looks like a lot of work ( and added complexity, failure modes, etc...) for not a lot of payoff.

 

Mike

Guys,

There are a lot of schemes using an alternate source to provide boost. One that comes to my mind was used on a White Lightning that tried to run in one of the first Sport Class races at Reno. They used a conventional supercharger driven by a small 2-cycle taken from a kart. They never got this complex system to work safely. While turbochargers are expensive and costly they are the best way to recover lost energy from the exhaust and make the engine and aircraft more efficient. I don't mean to be a wet blanket, but if you want to go faster using another engine, build a twin!

Bill Jepson