DIY Gas Turbine Project Pages, home of the jet powered golf buggy plus lots more!


	WARNING These projects are inherently dangerous, Please observe common sense safety precautions when using high speed machinery, explosive or volatile fuels and pressurised hot and cold gasses

Mark One TurboJet Engine

This whole thing started in 1998 after realising, just like a lot of other DIY Turbine builders, that an automotive turbocharger can easily be made to run as a gas turbine engine with simply the

addition of a combustion chamber. So I got myself a relatively large Holset turbo from my friends at AET Engineering and set about building my very first engine. I learned a heck of a lot from this build, which although was fairly crude, performed admirably. She even ran well without any modifications from the original plans which were conjoured up using information from the web plus a little initiative.

Mark Two TurboJet Engine

Late in 2003 I was contacted by the makers of Scrapheap Challenge, who wanted to do a show pitting two junkyard jet powered vehicles against each other. I had to quickly come up with a new and more powerful engine. A big Garrett TV81 turbocharger was found on eBay and after a couple of months building and testing, I came with with a simple design that could easily be replicated in the ten hours allotted build time on the show. The Mark two engine features a relatively short combustor and

flame tube made from mild steel, and a huge 'dump' style afterburner for augmented thrust. Starting is achieved using a petrol leaf blower.

Mark Two Engine Powered Jetkart

The MK2 engine performed so well on a heavy rolling chassis during it's TV appearance, as soon as I got home work was started on building my own jetkart. Again eBay came up

trumps for most of the required bits and pieces, namely TKM Kart chassis plus lots of other goodies to make the whole thing a little more refined. The Jet Kart then went on to perform well at our DIY Turbine groups' very first meeting at Bovingdon with consistent speeds up and down the runway all day long - it was good for 70mph. Not bad when you consider that the engine and systems virtually doubled the stock weight of the kart. But it paved the way for regular meetings.

Mark Three Twin Turbojet - (SOLD)

Now we move things up a notch. The latest engine build was a big one!. Two massive Garrett T18A turbo chargers in a twin configuration working with a single combustor. I got this engine built to the point where the sophisticated control systems and final fuel and oil plumbing were to be implemented when things got tight and I had to sell it. Damn shame, but the new owner has carried the torch and breathed life into the machine!. Here's a link to his blog. The potential thrust of this engine is in the region of 200lbs Dry. and this is a conservative figure -

Unlike those claims of DIY kits that sell on ebay with ludicrous power figures, the MK3 Twin should be pushing 300lbs with a good jetpipe and reheat!.