Turbo Vs Supercharger

[Iroc89z]

THIS IS A REPOST OF A THREAD ME AND LETHALCHEM WERE TALKIN ON IN JANUARY THERE IS SOME INFORMATION THAT CAN HELP YOU DECIDE.

Let's start with the similarities. Both turbochargers and superchargers are called forced induction systems. They compress the air flowing into the engine. The advantage of compressing the air is that it lets the engine stuff more air into a cylinder. More air means that more fuel can be stuffed in, too, so you get more power from each explosion in each cylinder. A turbo/supercharged engine produces more power overall than the same engine without the charging.

The typical boost provided by either a turbocharger or a supercharger is 6 to 8 pounds per square inch . Since normal atmospheric pressure is 14.7 psi at sea level, you can see that you are getting about 50-percent more air into the engine. Therefore, you would expect to get 50-percent more power. It's not perfectly efficient, though, so you might get a 30-percent to 40-percent improvement instead.

The key difference between a turbocharger and a supercharger is its power supply. Something has to supply the power to run the air compressor. In a supercharger, there is a belt that connects directly to the engine. It gets its power the same way that the water pump or alternator does. A turbocharger, on the other hand, gets its power from the exhaust stream. The exhaust runs through a turbine, which in turn spins the compressor.

There are tradeoffs in both systems. In theory, a turbocharger is more efficient because it is using the "wasted" energy in the exhaust stream for its power source. On the other hand, a turbocharger causes some amount of back pressure in the exhaust system and tends to provide less boost until the engine is running at higher RPMs. Superchargers are easier to install but tend to be more expensive.

So turbochargers are "better" but why would a supercharger be more expensive? Considering i have limited mechanical abilities but a small budjet it would be a toss up for me but id probably go with a turbo because it uses already used energy. On a website i was looking at says a turbocharger could take away some power from cylinders that pump at the same time. But rember too much boost can be too bad because if your running a strip race it takes a second or so for the turbo to kick in because of the bigger turbine in a larger turbo than a smaller turbo

I've never heard of a single supercharger that was more expensive than a turbo. When you go with a turbo, you also have to change your exhaust system (on most cars) to a Y pipe, but perhaps that is not an issue since tha Camaro is single (for some odd reason) to begin with.

Whenever I see this question I always ask, "What are the intended uses for the car?" Turbo's, Centrifugal superchargers, and Positive displacement superchargers all have different power bands.

If you want a fun daily driver with lots of low end grunt that makes power NOW, then you'd want a positive displacement supercharger. It makes tons of power immediately, but is very inefficient, and does not make as much peak power as the other two. For a daily driver, more power under the curve for longer, is better than a brief spike of high peak power.

If you want to use the car for racing, then you might consider a centrifugal blower. It's power is linear, meaning the PSI builds with the RPMS. That's not so much of an issue though when racing, because you can launch and shift in your powerband. For example: A centrifugal blower may make 1.5psi at 2000rpm, 5psi at 4000, and 14psi at 6k, whereas a positive displacement supercharger will make 10psi at 2000, 10psi at 4000, and 10psi at 6000. The PSI numbers I gave are ficticious, but I use them to show that the Centrifugal blower will make more boost (and a higher peak HP number) the last few 1000 RPMs because it's more efficient, but the positive displacement SC makes constant boost as soon as you plant your foot.

A turbo will generally make more power, and is more efficient than both of the other two types of forced induction. It's also more "tuner friendly" because you can control boost levels with a knob, instead of having to swap pulleys on the other two superchargers.

Turbo's are more tricky, because now you're going to have the variable of lag. This is the time it takes for the turbo to spool up. If you go with a twin setup, you can run smaller turbos which will help you almost eliminate turbo lag, but at a cost of peak HP. The bigger the turbo, the more power you make, but the more lag you get. If you go with a large, single turbo, then your power band will almost look like a cliff, and it's very poor for streetability in my opinion. I had a friend with a large single turbo supra. It made 660rwhp, but only at the very end of the RPM range. I watched him drive it one time, and it was like.. "lag..lag..lag...BOOST! Oh ****************, shift!!!!....lag....lag...lag...BOOST/SHIFT!!

In the end, I honestly believe turbo's are more expensive and take more work to install. They are, however, the most efficient, and make the most power. It all boils down to your driving preference, intended use for the car, and of course your pocket book

One or the other