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Supercharged or Turbocharged?

Discussion in 'General' started by iddqd, 17 Oct 2006.

?

Which do you prefer?

  1. Supercharged

    28 vote(s)
    50.9%
  2. Turbocharged

    27 vote(s)
    49.1%
  1. grungedead

    grungedead Minimodder

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    i can manage 100 miles to a tenner in my polo g40 1.3 supercharged at the minute, and thats foot to the floor driving.

    the g-lader charger is very reliable however when revving over 6500rpm you can cause too much boost pressure so the oil seals can burst which is very nasty and costly to fix.

    its always handy if you have a massive turbo on a car, to have a small supercharger feeding air into the turbo as you eliminate the turbo lag, the larger the turbo the longer the lag.

    superchargers have a mush more constant power throughout the rev range and my polo pulls from around 2.5k right the way round the dial, my dads supercharged xkr can mince most cars in a 50-100 dash and have flown off before most peoples turbos have had a chance to spool.

    its not worth doing either to a regular engine as you will have to do alot of work, specifiicaly with a charger you will have to drop the compresion ratio of your engine, change fuel mappings, ecu etc. youd also benefit from bigger injectors, ported and polished head, decat straight-thru etc depends on how far you want to take your car really.

    im pushing around 130bhp+ at current spec with the polo in a 1.3litre car
     
  2. GT40_GearHead

    GT40_GearHead What's a Dremel?

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    well charger is nice but, im a turbo dude,

    with turbos you can make a 2stage setup, intercool it, put a wastegate on it(more oil seals bursting), an get lots of boost from it, with the charger you have to get a belt to drive it and it has to be more or less on the top of the engine, the turbo you can put it under so lot les space related problems
     
  3. AlexB

    AlexB Web Nerd

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    My charger is down the bottom, infront of the engine.
     
  4. GT40_GearHead

    GT40_GearHead What's a Dremel?

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    well you prob have something like this, right....
    [​IMG]

    and i was thinkig about something like this
    [​IMG]
     
  5. jaguarking11

    jaguarking11 Peterbilt-strong

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    the second turbocharger pictured is a roots style charger.

    As far as supercharging requiring more work your wrong as turbo charging requires the same amount of work as well as the added hassle of making a custom exhaust manifold and retrofitting your entire exhaust.
     
  6. crazybob

    crazybob Voice of Reason

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    Those are both superchargers, not turbochargers. But yes, the first one is centrifugal and the second is roots or twin-screw.

    And your other point, I think you are correct - it is easier to install a supercharger than a turbocharger, provided you don't have to do significant modifications to the engine bay to make it fit. Turbos are generally smaller and are more flexible about mounting position, since they don't need a clear path to the crankshaft for a belt.
     
  7. jaguarking11

    jaguarking11 Peterbilt-strong

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    I am fully aware those are both superchargers. Also superchargers can be mounted directly ontop of the engine. Allot of times the space taken up by a supercharger is the same space that was available from factory for the engine intake manifold. And the first type shown above is no bigger than an alternator. So point about flexibility is not necesarily true about turbos. Not to mention that the farther away from the exaust manifold the turbo is placed the less efficient it is and also increases the need to wrap your exaust headers to keep an even temp rate through the system further complicating things. Also turbochargers tend to concentrate a huge amount of heat in the engine bay and therefore making the stock heatsheild insuficient and increasing the danger of fire.

    Have you ever seen the exaust manifold on a RUF porsche? On full blast on the dyno it gets white hot and glows. Turbocharging a small motor IMHO is a bad idea. Simply because of the presure needed to make allot of power makes the car undrivable and very laggy. On a large engine on the other hand its not bad. The 427 block from gm only need 15psi to make 850+ hp @ 25psi your well over the 1300hp mark. VS a small motor that can make in exess off 500hp under 3L but to make 500hp it needs at least a 2stage (small turbo then larger one kicks in at high rpm) system to make it even remotly drivable.

    However with new tech from audi and the like, they have geometric turbochargers that adjust nozle to provide a smooth powerband through the rev range.

    Superchargers are not end all be all either, they require power to make power as well as the fact that it will make a small engine guzle as mutch fuel as a large one.

    In any case its a balance. The lancia delta evo had both and man was that thing quick. My hat off to lancia for that. IMHO the best option combining the best of both worlds.

    Also the supercharger in the lancia dint feed the turbocharger, it fed the engine driectly but it was built in such a way that the forced induction types kicked in at respective rpm, thus giving the engine power down low with a supercharger and then giving it boost up high with a turbine.
     

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