swapping air compressor motors

[plug ugly]

I have a nice and quiet air compressor, but it is slow and cant keep up with my air tools. Can i swap it out to a better/faster motor to improve performance/CFM output?

[CJeep77]

The pump itself is what the CFM rating is from. You can not exceed the rated pump RPM, or it will not last. Might check to see if the pulley setup is running the pump at it's rated speed though.

[bigNATE®]

swappping the motor ising going to solve anything, most cast iron pumps have a speed chart/wear rate graph with them when bought as the pump only, to be honest I wouldnt fawk with the compressor, maybe add a storage tank for greater capacity

let me tell you about the air compressor I builtabout 4 years ago, I started with a 5hp 220 motor, 2 100# propane tanks (60 gallons) and a Eaton 4 cyl 2 stage pump....

I built the compressor, mounted the legs on the tank, a base and mounted the motor & pump, I played hell for 4-5 hours trying to find the right pullys for the motor to get it in it's recomended speed range, finally I gave up and put a real small pully on the motor and left it alone. it kept up pretty good with small air tools but it lacked with the impacts and air chisels mind you this compressor ran from 8am to 5pm every day continious, once it got to 145 psi it went into relief mode until the pressure got down to 100 then it started puping to the tank.

so about a month ago I started getting tired of waiting for air and I decided to machine a pulley to speed it up some,I was hesitant to put it on because it would produce a pump speed that was 90 rpm faster then their max, but I put it on and it worked, it was awesome and would keepup with my thundergun, then the inevitable happened... bangbangbangbangbangbangbangbangbangbangbangbangba ngbangbangbangbangbang
bangbangbangbangbangbangbangbangbangbangbangbangba ngbangbangbangbangbang
twang snapsnap pop.... the damn pump ended up breaking the crankshaft and when that happened it broke all the connecting rods :(

so I took it off and sent it back to eaton, they said it was oversped and said SORRY your out the $800 that you paid because it was abused

now I have a new $930 pump that is rated for the job

moral of the story,,,..... if it works dont fuck with it and if it's too slow buy a bigger pump