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Turbo Normalizer HP Increase?


bbakerco

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Hello All,

My M20J has a turbo normalizer from M20 Turbos (defunct) using the Rayjay turbo via Hartzel Engine Technologies (CF600573-0000) and I am wondering how much additional horsepower it adds to the IO-360 A3B6D?  I cannot find it in any of the literature with the system.  I've seen estimates of turbo HP increase of 5%-10% but looking for a more specific answer and in regards to a turbo normalizer.

Thanks.

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The turbonormalizer should not add "horsepower" per se, but rather add additional Manifold Pressure so that sea-level MP is available as you climb, to whatever the critical altitude is. For instance, cruising at 10,000 msl I generally have ~20" available at full throttle. A plane with TN will have more than that.

An important difference between "turbocharging" and "turbonormalizing" is that the TC engine will develop MP above sea level atmospheric pressure, while the TN is intended to maintain that sea level MP for a while as you climb. If you hear / read about someone cruising at 32" or 34", they have TC. Your TN should maintain ~28" as you climb, check your paperwork for how high. That lets you keep all 200 hp, while at 10,000 msl I have lost fully 25% of my engine power [WOT = 74.7%]. That is the extra horsepower that your turbonormalizer delivers, and that is also why you won't find a "number" anywhere.

Happy flying! Wave as you go by . . . . .  ;)

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3 minutes ago, Hank said:

The turbonormalizer should not add "horsepower" per se, but rather add additional Manifold Pressure so that sea-level MP is available as you climb, to whatever the critical altitude is. For instance, cruising at 10,000 msl I generally have ~20" available at full throttle. A plane with TN will have more than that.

An important difference between "turbocharging" and "turbonormalizing" is that the TC engine will develop MP above sea level atmospheric pressure, while the TN is intended to maintain that sea level MP for a while as you climb. If you hear / read about someone cruising at 32" or 34", they have TC. Your TN should maintain ~28" as you climb, check your paperwork for how high. That lets you keep all 200 hp, while at 10,000 msl I have lost fully 25% of my engine power [WOT = 74.7%]. That is the extra horsepower that your turbonormalizer delivers, and that is also why you won't find a "number" anywhere.

Happy flying! Wave as you go by . . . . .  ;)

Great answer.  Thank you Hank. So then you would not consider a 200hp TN to be High Performance (>200HP)?

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Just now, bbakerco said:

Great answer.  Thank you Hank. So then you would not consider a 200hp TN to be High Performance (>200HP)?

No, you would need a K or later model. Or any A-J with an IO-390.

But even my little 180-hp C flies like a High Performance plane, and walks away from 235hp 182s . . . . From when I got my HP Endorsement several years ago in a 182, my C handles and lands better, too. So I'm "ready" for a stronger, faster Mooney, if only my bank account was ready!

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1 minute ago, N201MKTurbo said:

If you read the operator manual supplement, it says to use the original power charts for sea level. 
 

I don’t believe it, I think the turbo has to extract some power from the system, so the power output must be lower than the factory charts. 

TANSTAAFL.

[There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch, a long-standing American principal]

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1 hour ago, N201MKTurbo said:

If you read the operator manual supplement, it says to use the original power charts for sea level. 
 

I don’t believe it, I think the turbo has to extract some power from the system, so the power output must be lower than the factory charts. 

At high altitudes, I imagine the turbo would rob a measurable amount of power by producing exhaust back-pressure, but at low altitudes, the turbo would mostly just freewheel and be along for the ride.  Still, a significant part of the power it takes to run the turbine is energy that was not going to be used anyway

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1 hour ago, jaylw314 said:

At high altitudes, I imagine the turbo would rob a measurable amount of power by producing exhaust back-pressure, but at low altitudes, the turbo would mostly just freewheel and be along for the ride.  Still, a significant part of the power it takes to run the turbine is energy that was not going to be used anyway

At all altitudes the turbo will use power from the engine to compress the intake air. That power comes from the exhaust flow and heat recovery from the exhaust. Some of the heat recovered would normally be wasted. But there is no way to ignore the exhaust restriction caused by the turbine. It takes engine power to push that exhaust flow through the turbine.

The M20Turbos system like the early 231s has a fixed waste gate and the turbo is actually working the hardest at low altitudes. The system just dumps excessive compressed air overboard from the compressor side pressure regulator. It is regulated at 32 inches ahead of the throttle plate. As you go up in altitude, the turbo compresses less and less air because the air density goes down. If everything is adjusted properly, the regulator will be completely closed at 19,000 ft. and the turbo will be unregulated above that. I can tell you it is a bit unstable above that, not only does the MP drop above critical altitude, but it will change with attitude changes. Not a huge deal, but you will notice it.

But the fact that the engine will maintain sea level engine power to 19,000 feet is a tremendous advantage at higher altitudes. My feeling is that this turbo setup makes less power than a NA 201 below ~6500 feet and more above that.

Edited by N201MKTurbo
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2 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

At all altitudes the turbo will use power from the engine to compress the intake air. That power comes from the exhaust flow and heat recovery from the exhaust. Some of the heat recovered would normally be wasted. But there is no way to ignore the exhaust restriction caused by the turbine. It takes engine power to push that exhaust flow through the turbine.

The M20Turbos system like the early 231s has a fixed waste gate and the turbo is actually working the hardest at low altitudes. The system just dumps excessive compressed air overboard from the compressor side pressure regulator. It is regulated at 32 inches ahead of the throttle plate. As you go up in altitude, the turbo compresses less and less air because the air density goes down. If everything is adjusted properly, the regulator will be completely closed at 19,000 ft. and the turbo will be unregulated above that. I can tell you it is a bit unstable above that, not only does the MP drop above critical altitude, but it will change with attitude changes. Not a huge deal, but you will notice it.

But the fact that the engine will maintain sea level engine power to 19,000 feet is a tremendous advantage at higher altitudes. My feeling is that this turbo setup makes less power than a NA 201 below ~6500 feet and more above that.

Fixed waste gate?  Yikes, there's definitely no free lunch there...

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It’s all in the name...

Turbo normalizer... 

There isn’t much different about a turbo charger... except for the fact that it will run MPs above standard SL 29.92”...

So... the turbo normalized Mooney maintains the sea level MP, and keeps the standard compression ratio... this allows you to fly at higher altitudes where there is lower air densities, while producing SL power... 

results: go faster using the same engine....

Challenges: Burning more fuel because you can... CHT control because the cooling medium is thinner....

 

The TC’d Mooneys take advantage of mechanical efficiencies and alter the compression ratios to go with that....

Don’t get confused with the Acclaims claim of being TN’d.... they also changed the CR a bit because they can...

 

One odd challenge that comes with TC’d engines that the modern TN’d engine doesn’t really have...

turbo failure at altitude... may require descending to a lower altitude to re-start the engine... a function fo the CR without the TC.  Not really an issue unless the rocks below you are taller than the re-start altitude...

The TN’d birds are not as sensitive to this issue...

 

A common mis-belief... early on... it sounds like a TN adds power at altitude as some form of a miracle...  the increase of FF that comes with it gets learned as you dig into the documents...

The TN doesn’t add power... it maintains power... (some more word trickery)

In the 70s... turbos always meant more power... car companies wouldn’t mention the engine size... they just wrote turbo on the side of the car... and hung a whale’s tail on the back...

That all worked fine until you see a tiny car.... where the turbo is for ultimate efficiency...   

So... lots of use of the word turbo... and plenty of fine print to go with each one...

 

The really cool part of some TNs on NA Mooneys... the knob that controls the waste gate... is kind of like an on/off switch for the turbo... some days you want to use it... it is there... if you don’t you can operate it as the original NA engine... with extra expensive unused weight on the nose... :)

PP thoughts only, not a mechanic...

Best regards,

-a-

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The TN maintains HP to altitude to give you a better TAS, maintains Sea Level Performance to Altitude hence "Turbo Normalizer"..

The M20 STC states to use the manufactures performance numbers for reference.

The M20 STC also tells you to change the timing from 25BTC to 22BTC which helps in protecting it from detonation and reduces HP a bit.

The M20 STC limits the takeoff power to 3 minutes to protect the engine from overboots, 30in mp 2700rpm.

If you are limited to 257RPM than you have the older version, "Turbo Bullet", 33in mp 2575rpm.

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On 12/7/2020 at 10:54 AM, N201MKTurbo said:

If you read the operator manual supplement, it says to use the original power charts for sea level. 
 

I don’t believe it, I think the turbo has to extract some power from the system, so the power output must be lower than the factory charts. 

The guys at TAT did some testing seeing if the turbo took away power from the IO550. The conclusion was that with the TN, 305hp was created on a 300hp IO550B. 

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42 minutes ago, Niko182 said:

The guys at TAT did some testing seeing if the turbo took away power from the IO550. The conclusion was that with the TN, 305hp was created on a 300hp IO550B. 

I don’t doubt what you say here, but there isn’t enough data to fully evaluate the situation. They could have easily been boosting the engine above ambient pressure. 

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There is plenty of excess power available to the IO550s, it can get 500+HP with right hardware to support it...

I’m not even sure the 310hp IO550 is really only 310...

 

Welcome aboard Johnny R!

Where are you getting your numbers from?  Is this first hand info?

Check your details... looks like Siri dropped a digit from one of your numbers...

Best regards,

-a-

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Yeah, there is a little problem with the idea that a turbo (turbonormalizer) will add horsepower, and that is the engine is not rated for more horsepower. You would definitely need an STC to do that. Doubtful the FSDO would go after you unless the engine is rated for more than 200 HP, or there is an STC that raises the rated HP over that number.

That raises an interesting question though. How is the HP rating of a normally aspirated engine determined? Hypothetically, if it is determined using a standard day sea level pressure (29.92) and you take off on a day where the pressure is 31” the engine will generate more than rated HP. No doubt the Lyc rating system allows for a little more on some days. But the reg. on training for high performance aircraft does not use the term “rated,” it just says “an engine of more than 200 horsepower,” so hypothetically, you J guys can’t fly without an HP endorsement on a day when the pressure is really high.....

I wouldn’t worry about that too much. I somehow doubt that any instructor would give you an HP rating by flying with you in your J only on high pressure days when it is producing 201 HP on takeoff.

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There is one case where we need to be extra vigilant about not exceeding rated HP...

When the DA drops deep into the negative numbers we magically get extra air molecules in the same volume... kinda like a natural TC... or is that a TN... :)

Even when flying an M20C... the increase in power registers in the seat of the pants dyno...

The result has been documented around here as cracked cylinders or the top of a cylinder fallen off...

 

There may be some guidance on ops in cold environments... (?)

PP thoughts only, not a CFI...

Best regards,

-a-

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Our engines are very conservatively rated with an emphasis on reliability. 
 

You could take a Lycoming IO-360, cut about 6 inches off you prop, and set the governor to 3500 RPM, you could probably get 300 HP out of it. Your CHTs would be very high and your engine would be toast after a few hundred hours, Everybody wants to hot rod their engines, but they should respect them for what they are, a highly refined engine perfectly suited for its intended purpose.

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2 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

Our engines are very conservatively rated with an emphasis on reliability. 
 

You could take a Lycoming IO-360, cut about 6 inches off you prop, and set the governor to 3500 RPM, you could probably get 300 HP out of it. Your CHTs would be very high and your engine would be toast after a few hundred hours, Everybody wants to hot rod their engines, but they should respect them for what they are, a highly refined engine perfectly suited for its intended purpose.

What I heard was, with the right chop saw and screwdriver, I can go 200kts in a C model. 

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My numbers are from the STC and what they don't show you can be found at the FAA, certification letters showing that you could get over 220HP from over boosting. 

I bought a Turbo Bullet a while ago and being an A&P/IA I had plenty of questions myself so I started digging.

Both systems work great if used correctly.

 

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