Jet Turbine Van

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So you thought that driving a van was not cool? Think again, with this van when someone gives you a dirty look all you need to do is flip a switch to open the rear window and slide the two massive jet turbine exhaust ports out. Crank up the jet turbine and burn everything behind you! On the track it can do 1/8th mile in 7.65 seconds at 96 mph. Not bad for a vehicle that looks like the family van in the driveway. 🙂

Krugtech will hopefully publish some of the construction details of the cool Jet Turbine Van build. Have a look at more videos and pictures after the jump.

Chris sent in a page that has some mope pics of the van, the gallery can be found here.

 

 

 

 

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52 Comments


  1. Looks like the minivan version of the MIB car.


  2. 7.65 in the 1/8th of a mile typically means he’d be pulling about 12 seconds flat in the 1/4 mile track. Not bad at all.


  3. Believe it or not, I got it to do an 11.17 in the 1/4 mile and a 7.14@103 in the 1/8th. It only did 113 in the 1/4 as the high speed governer kicked in about 3/4 of the way down the track. I need to make a few adjustments and cgange the rear axle ratio. I drive this thing everywhere using the stock front motor.


  4. Freaking sweet.
    Care to share any information on the build?
    For example what is your reasoning for placing the jet exhaust at such wide angles?

    Type of jet engine you used?

    Will you let me drive it :evil grin:?


  5. you should have the rear window move to the up position and act as a wing rather then go down and creat more drag. It is still the coolest minivan i have ever seen.


  6. Being that heat rises that would probably have a tendency to melt the glass so it would be a bad idea. A window is hardly a good aerodynamic element and being that it is lowered behind the car it will make little to no drag as it is.


  7. How dose it handle..


  8. The jet exhaust is at wide angles for the helicopter application it was in. They wanted the exhaust to go away from the tail boom and have just enough velocity to keep the hot exhaust from being recirculated into the intake. The exhaust provides no thrust, it’s all shaft driven but I do spray fuel into the exhaust to make some smoke and fire. It’s funny how people think a jet engine isn’t working properly if fire isn’t spewing out the back, unless it’s the engine on the passenger jet they’re sitting in. The engine is a Rolls Royce Nimbus 105 with about 1000 shaft horsepower at 2100 rpm. The chain drive steps it up by 1:2.25 and the rear axle has 3.50:1 gears soon to be replaced by 3.25:1 gears. I don’t know about letting anyone drive it but you’re all welcome for a ride. It handles really nice. I’m in Augusta Georgia. I’m looking for a certian jet powered VW for a match race 🙂


  9. Sweet more pics!

    Yeah, I’ve known people to think the same way about needing to see fire. It’s already hard enough to explain to them that if they see fire it’s wasted energy being that it is fuel that is not being combusted where it’s needed. Some need visual entertainment, some prefer the engineering.

    What RPM range do you typically use?
    If I’m ever in Georgia I might have to swing by (I’m in Texas).
    I do believe the Jet Beetle is thrust powered, so you should easily have him off the line (and he’s not nearly as stealthy) nor do I think he’s been all that fast as of yet (haven’t seen any hard numbers) and he’s in California so perhaps you two should meet in the middle. Texas sounds like a great place too!
    w00t!


  10. Here’s some photobucket stuff, maybe Alan Parekh could add them with the pictures above, I need a “hacked Gadgets” sticker for this thing!

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v185/serpent99/fire3.jpg

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v185/serpent99/fire2.jpg

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v185/serpent99/fire1.jpg

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v185/serpent99/tc9.jpg

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v185/serpent99/tc8.jpg

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v185/serpent99/tc7.jpg

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v185/serpent99/tc6.jpg

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v185/serpent99/tc5.jpg

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v185/serpent99/tc4.jpg

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v185/serpent99/tc3.jpg

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v185/serpent99/tc2.jpg

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v185/serpent99/tc1.jpg

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v185/serpent99/100_5471d.jpg

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v185/serpent99/100_5360c.jpg

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v185/serpent99/100_6664g.jpg

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v185/serpent99/100_6670g.jpg


  11. He should probably rig some kind of air intake for the jet, having the doors open like that makes for some time-killing air resistance.


  12. Lol… Pop that thing out the back when you get some jack riding your ass on the main highway! 😀




  15. I’m really curious to know what 1000 shaft horsepower puts to the ground via a dyno; wonder how that translates into the amount of torque getting to the wheels.

    Any dyno shops in your area that’ll let you strap a jet powered van down?






  20. There’s a dyno shop who will let me do a free pull, I just need to find some time to get there.


  21. SWEET!

    Keep us posted Chris I’d love to see some numbers and the graph on that thing.


  23. it WILL be videotaped. The dyno owner made me promise not to burn his shop down so the video may not be that great.





  28. I find it useless, thus stupid. It waists energy for nothing… Be efficient, dude, use the wheel torque, and you won’t destroy the planet as much as you do with your jet. This is definitely not cool!


  29. Eco: With a jet engine he has a better chance of being able to run biofuels than with a standard engine. Along with the fact that I am sure he had to tackle some previously unknown issues in doing this. By overcoming engineering problems you learn how to apply those solutions to other areas thus having the ability to use such in a future application.

    Such as creating a battery or supercapacitor powered vehicle.

    Congratulations on your idiotic and cowardly attack on someone else’s work. I have no doubt that you are criticizing him while working on your own contraption to turn carbon monoxide into a viable energy source that costs pennies on the dollar.


  30. eco- I do use the torque to drive the rear wheels. This was a helicopter engine, what do you think spun those huge rotor blades around? It was shaft horsepower! And as kindly mentioned by God, it will run on any burnable fuel including the “eco” friendly ones. Now kindly climb dowun out of my a and don’t come back until you’re a little better informed.


  31. wow!i have dreamed of jet powered vehicles since i saw a jet turbine car in hot rod in the early 60’s.i guess this is something jessie james has’nt done yet.credit to you!bill


  32. Just checking back on you Chris, seeing if there is any more progress, dyno sheets, etc.

    Keep up the great work, I’ll let you know as soon as I can get to Georgia.


  33. Things are coming along nicely. The rear hatch is painted and finished. I cleaned up the vehicle wiring and now it’s time to wire in all the controls. I may be going with a PLC hooked to the touchscreen I have in there. Get here soon, I need help cleaning out my garage!


  34. Rear hatch painted? Did you have to replace it or was the red one the most recent?

    Cleaning out the garage? I’ll be sure to bring my truck, just in case… you know… you have an extra jet engine lying around that you want to get rid of.

    :]


  35. Yeah I got the red hatch painted, it had all the reinforcement for the rear window hinges. The first hatch I welded up got all warped to hell from the heat. I put the wing back on it too.


  37. I’d give my left *** to own a Chrysler turbine car….
    I spent the last 3 days isolating the rear air conditioning/heating system. Some of the tubes that ran to the rear A/C heating unit were starting to rot and no one sits in the back of the van anymore so I just decided to rip everything out. I also changed the sparkplugs and did a few minor repairs. I should be starting on the wiring for the turbine soon and hopefully this project will be mostly done in a few months.



  39. Thank you for doing this. this is the best thing ive ever seen.!!!!!!!!!!


  40. I think that the helicopter engine in the minivan is WAY COOL! But way beyond my budget, thanks for showing it in Design News. And a word of caution, which is to have a backup manual shut-down system, because sometimes the electrical ones fail. Something like a cable to pull a pin and let a fuel valve close.

    What I REALLY liked is that it hides inside. I can only dream of a setup like that in my van.

    Good luck in the future,
    William Ketel


  41. I was wondering, when you are under jet power, do you keep the front trans in neutral? how are you doing that without tearing up
    the trans?


  42. I keep the front trans in drive and floor it, it takes about 3/4 of a second off my 1/4 mile times with the front engine pulling.

    I took it out on the interstate the other day with the turbine running, it was pretty weird. Everyone was looking at me and no one could keep up with me. I just had to do it.


  43. Now this is engineering at its best! I dont think most of the people know the effort that went into designing/building this project! Really awesome stuff 🙂 I stumbled on this page while I was looking for a website that sells mini jet turbine engines, want to strap one to my bicycle to travel between work and home 🙂 Most people will say why dont you just get a motorbike, but now where is the challenge in that?!






  48. Did you have to modify the suspension to handle the weight? What is the total weight of the van?


  49. I modified the rear axle, suspension and frame. It weighs about 5200 pounds with me in it.


  50. Chris,
    The progress sounds great. It is important to have the wiring and controls all tied down, mostly for reliability.

    My jet vehicle experience is limited to a pulsejet motorcycle, which would have been quite a thrill, except that it seems that true jet power can sometimes get really squirrley, not to mention that sitting just a bit above a hot pulsejet engine is hot on the backside. The project ended with a “small” fuel leak pumping a whole quartbof fuel on the main financial backer. No disaster, but that ended the money in the project.

    What this leads to is that wheel drive is probably a lot easier to control and steer, while jet drive limits the tire traction requirements. And I too want to see what the dyno roprt says.

    While a jet turbine powered vehicle is beyond my scope presently, I do have a concept of a vehicle with a “sensible size” engine for good miles per gallon, and then a programmed high performance mode using a lot of nitrous oxide and a lot more fuel, for when that extra power is actually required, which usually is quite seldom.

    Good luck Chris,
    William


  51. Here’s a readout from a dyno run-

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v185/serpent99/dyno.jpg

    We ran the stock front wheel drive and got 132 horsepower, then we turned it around and ran the turbine via the rear wheels. We got 560 horsepower. Combined that’s almost 700 horsepower at the wheels 🙂

    The horsepower was climbing right up until the hi speed governor kicked in. We also had a problem keeping the rear wheels locked until the turbine was at full power.

    This was done on an inertia dyno where the rollers that the vehicle wheels drive is just a huge round weight, I think like 3000 pounds, horsepower is determined by how fast the given weight is accelerated.

    What I really need to find is a brake dyno where the rollers have some type of power absorber connected to them. This type of dyno can fully load the engine at any rpm constant or varying and gives a little bit of a better picture of how much power the engine cane make.

    A note about the torque reading- this was measured at the driveshaft that connects to the rear axle. The turbine output is overdriven by the transfer case 2.25:1 which means the output of the turbine is making a little over 2500 ft-lb. We tried measuring this directly and the dyno flatlined at it’s max of 1800 ft-lb. We had to overdrive the turbine output since it only makes 2100 rpm max.

    Chris

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