Auction script - What alternatives to NodeJs and Socket.io?

I have searched all over the web and I can't have answer to my question. I have to build and run a web auction site based on Kohana 3.0. I have use $ajax (jQuery) with setInterval() function but the problem here is that, as the code needs to get update every 1-seconde, my browser cannot support such a request and with many users connected the server migth not be able to handler all the request per seconde.
So I was looking for an alternative.

• I saw NodeJs with Socket.IO but I don't have access to my server. So the problem I can face to is that I can't open a new port to let
  NodeJs working. The server (running Linux) is not a VPS so I can't
  install anything. Does someone has an idea how to do this ?
  
• I also look for cronJob, but handle this with Kohana 3.0 is no more trivial. Maybe someone can have ideas that will guide my in my research using cronJob to handle this.

Or does someone knows or has used a framework library for JS or PHP ,,that I can use for Auction script ?

Thanks