Chrysler made some turbine cars back in the day. Fuel mileage in the late 50's/early 60's killed 'em. The tranny was interesting, just used a 727 torqueflite and removed the torque converter. The biggest issue was exhaust temps, they had to come up with some really trick ways to heat up the incoming fuel thereby cooling the exhaust (warmer fuel into the combuster happen to increase efficiency as well). The initial cars had exhaust that was so hot it would melt the pavement. And yes, it was hard for people to understand the throttle response issue. Chrysler did come up with a way to get the turbine to provide engine braking.

http://www.allpar.com/mopar/turbine.html

 

and on top of that, Chrystler had the initial contract for the M1 Abrams tank. . .all because they used a turbine engine instead of an internal combustion. . .the lighter weight of the turbine meant they could add more armor.

 

How did we get form a Liberty diesel to a turbin engine, who ran one at Indy I remember the controversy over it.
Who is volentering to do a turbine ram conversion, what is the HP and TQ on say the Miss Budweiser Unlimited boat,
is there enough room under the hood and it would have one hell of a stack.

 

that is just the natural progression of this forum

however the output of the turbine in the M1 is around 1500 shaft-hp and somewhere in the neighborhood of 2500 shaft-tq. Miss bud I believe has a shaft HP somewhere around 3,000+.

 

These guys put one in a truck.

http://www.marineturbine.com/retrorocket.asp

They're the same ones that put little turbines in motocycles too. Yeah, we've pretty well hijacked this thread.

 

VM MOTURI made the liberty engine

 

Drew,

Isn't the Abrams tank gas turbine powered. How is their drive ability? Don't gas turbines get their power from a turbine wheel separate from the turbine that drives the compressor blades?

I understand fuel economy isn't the Abrams long suite.

Frank

 

GE built a turbine electric locomotive called the big blow, the most powerful locomotive ever made at about 8500 horsepower. The plan was to run it on lower grade oil than a diesel requires and save on fuel costs (rail roading is all about fuel efficiency - thats why they spend so much money building level roads and gentle grades). Unfortunately, they found another use for the fuel oil and with the higher fuel consummation they were not longer economical. They also were noisy and people complained about the noise, especially at night.

If you are ever in Ogden, Utah you can see it at the rail road museum.