Here's an interesting concept

http://www.ststurbo.com/home

Basically this company makes turbo kits that mount in place of the muffler. Inlet air for the turbo is collected nearby, namely from under the rear of the car and piped forward to the engine. The long piping run from the turbo to the engine intake functions as an intercooler. The exhaust gas that spins the turbo is cooler and therefore denser and spins the turbo more effeciently.

Some of the advantages that I see with this system:

1) Easier mounting since space doesn't have to be made under the hood for the turbo.

2) Stealth install, it would be fairly easy to run the intake plumbing from the turbo right through the stock air box, no one would even realize it was there unless they looked under the car

3) Maintains the cars weight balance better since the weight of the turbo and piping is distributed better along the cars length

4) Less heat under the hood, its already hot under the hood a turbo would just add to the problem

5) Possibly cheaper install since a special header would not be required.

Downsides

1) Turbo lag, the manufacturer claims that a properly sized turbo will not have any more lag than an system mounted at the header, but there is still a lot of pipe between the engine and the turbo

2) No muffler, the turbo might work fine as a muffler on a piston engine car but what about a rotaty which as we know can make a LOT more noise if not muffled properly. This might be solvable with a small muffler after the turbo

3) Piping between the turbo and intake might be easily damaged since with would be pretty low to the ground.


I also don't mention the difficulty in getting the ECU to work with boost but that is the same for any FI system

Anyway I thought this was an interesting concept and if it worked would certianly get my vote since it could be removed and reinstalled fairly easily, a major selling point for those concerned with warrantee and/or emission testing.

 

.....hmm, very interesting.....

 

I think it was rotarygod who posted about this kind of turbo a while back. Seems pretty neat. I'd love to see some applications on rotaries, would be interesting to see how loud a turboed 8 with no muffler would be.

 

by the time the exhaust reaches the rear of the car, it has cooled considerably, and it's that heat that runs the turbo, so you'd loose quite a bit there. and then pumping all the air forward only makes more more ait to pressurize before boost gets into the motor.

 

https://www.rx8club.com/series-i-major-horsepower-upgrades-93/pic-turbo-kit-mounts-undercar-back-muffler-34824/

Maybe an interesting idea, but according to people who's opinions I trust, it's a bad idea. Read above link for the original discussion.