Turbocharger, Supercharger, or Naturally Aspirated?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dark_Ryder
  • 137 comments
  • 10,468 views

Which do you prefer??

  • Supercharger

    Votes: 20 11.6%

  • Turbocharger

    Votes: 67 38.7%

  • Naturally Aspirated

    Votes: 86 49.7%
  • Total voters
    173
Turbos have a unique ability to spin to outrageously high rpms and turn out very high peak boost figures (25psi+). A turbo charger is capable of producing more peak power than a supercharger, therefore higher torque bands.
 
Dark_Ryder
turbos and superchargers are fun but they dont give the car anymore torque it just increases the horse power. Just remember theres no replacement for displacement. torque is what gives the car its pushing/pulling power,horse power determines how fast you get ther.
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Totally wrong. You can't make more HP unless you increase the torque or raise the RPM limiter. People need to stop separating HP and torque as if they are two different forces that act independently of each other. They are not. Every time you accelerate hard, what your are actually feeling is HP, it's always HP, and it always HP. Torque by itself is useless. Torque is simply one of the two ingredients to making HP.

Displacement, is the measure of the volume of air/fuel an engine can hold when the piston is all the way down to the bottom. It's not the size of the engine. So in essence turbos and superchargers do the same thing as increasing displacement would do, but they do it by cramming more air in the space available.
 
Threshold
Every time you accelerate hard, what your are actually feeling is HP, it's always HP, and it always HP. Torque by itself is useless. Torque is simply one of the two ingredients to making HP.
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Actually you do feel the torque, torque is the force that moves the car...and the more torque you have the faster you accelerate and that change in speed is what your body feels.
 
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Threshold
Totally wrong. You can't make more HP unless you increase the torque or raise the RPM limiter. People need to stop separating HP and torque as if they are two different forces that act independently of each other. They are not. Every time you accelerate hard, what your are actually feeling is HP, it's always HP, and it always HP. Torque by itself is useless. Torque is simply one of the two ingredients to making HP.

Displacement, is the measure of the volume of air/fuel an engine can hold when the piston is all the way down to the bottom. It's not the size of the engine. So in essence turbos and superchargers do the same thing as increasing displacement would do, but they do it by cramming more air in the space available.
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how is torque by itself useless? Torque range is determined by how the gearbox is set up. Narrowing the gearbox ratio between gears gives higher torque power output. Adding a turbo adds to the overall torque power output of the gearbox, therefore adding more BHP to the car. but of course, the engine itself would have to be highly modified inorder to take the dramatic increase in overall power.
 
There is no HP without torque, 1 HP is defined as moving 33,000 ft/lb of torque in one minute. How did we get this? Work is defined as force times distance. Therefore lifting a 1 lb weight 1 foot gives us 1 ft/lb of torque. A man named Watt once examined that a horse could life a 550 pound weight 1 foot in 1 second. So one HP is 550 ft/lb of torque per second, or 33,000 ft/lb of torque. HP is actually found by a formula, coming from torque. When you put a car onto a DYNO all the DYNO measures is torque output, then calculates the HP using this formula:

Torqe x RPM
HP = -----------
5250

Where do we get that from? One foot lb of rotational torque at 5250 RPM is 33,000 ft/lb of torque.

So really when you drive what you are feeling is Torque, not HP. 👍

Luke
 
RedSuinit
There is no HP without torque, 1 HP is defined as moving 33,000 ft/lb of torque in one minute. How did we get this? Work is defined as force times distance. Therefore lifting a 1 lb weight 1 foot gives us 1 ft/lb of torque. A man named Watt once examined that a horse could life a 550 pound weight 1 foot in 1 second. So one HP is 550 ft/lb of torque per second, or 33,000 ft/lb of torque. HP is actually found by a formula, coming from torque. When you put a car onto a DYNO all the DYNO measures is torque output, then calculates the HP using this formula:

Torqe x RPM
HP = -----------
5250

Where do we get that from? One foot lb of rotational torque at 5250 RPM is 33,000 ft/lb of torque.

So really when you drive what you are feeling is Torque, not HP. 👍

Luke
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yep that was my point! hp is just a calulation you can covert the power from an engine in to just about anything like killowatts idk the formula but you can do it.
 
RedSuinit
There is no HP without torque, 1 HP is defined as moving 33,000 ft/lb of torque in one minute. How did we get this? Work is defined as force times distance. Therefore lifting a 1 lb weight 1 foot gives us 1 ft/lb of torque. A man named Watt once examined that a horse could life a 550 pound weight 1 foot in 1 second. So one HP is 550 ft/lb of torque per second, or 33,000 ft/lb of torque. HP is actually found by a formula, coming from torque. When you put a car onto a DYNO all the DYNO measures is torque output, then calculates the HP using this formula:

Torqe x RPM
HP = -----------
5250

Where do we get that from? One foot lb of rotational torque at 5250 RPM is 33,000 ft/lb of torque.

So really when you drive what you are feeling is Torque, not HP. 👍

Luke
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In a nutshell, i think what Luke is saying is that the force that pins you into the drivers seat is the power of the torque output. BHP is the power that the engine puts out in relation to overall speed.
 
GT_Fanatic
In a nutshell, i think what Luke is saying is that the force that pins you into the drivers seat is the power of the torque output. BHP is the power that the engine puts out in relation to overall speed.
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Not necessarily speed, but rather the engines RPM's. But yes, other than that one thing that is what I was saying. 👍

Luke
 
RedSuinit
One foot lb of rotational torque at 5250 RPM is 33,000 ft/lb of torque.
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1ft/lb at 5250rpm is still 1ft/lb of torque...you don't get more torque simply by 'spinning it faster'. Torque is force * the lever arm, rpm's has nothing to do with it.

...unless I read your statement wrong...
 
BonzoHarry
1ft/lb at 5250rpm is still 1ft/lb of torque...you don't get more torque simply by 'spinning it faster'. Torque is force * the lever arm, rpm's has nothing to do with it.

...unless I read your statement wrong...
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Oops, haha your right I did word it badly! Thanks for pointing that out. What I meant to say is that if you rotate a one pound weight one full rotation (rotational torque) is moves 6.2832 feet, giving us 6.2832 ft/lb of torque per minute at 1 RPM, when we divide 33,000 ft/lb of torque per minute we get 5252 RPM. That is a more detailed explanation, hopefully I cleared all of that up! ;)

Luke
 
RedSuinit
Not necessarily speed, but rather the engines RPM's. But yes, other than that one thing that is what I was saying. 👍

Luke
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RPM is the speed. Got no RPM you can't move.
 
GT_Fanatic
RPM is the speed. Got no RPM you can't move.
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Well yes, but when your going 60 in 3rd and the engine is revving at lets say 5500 RPM you are making X HP but, when you shift into forth, you are still going 60, but are now only getting X< HP at 3000 RPM (depending on the torque curve) ergo, 2 different engine RPM's at the same speed. While it is true that you get slightly different numbers in each gear due to the transmission rations. You are still making less HP at 3000 RPM than at 5500 RPM. ;)

Luke
 
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RedSuinit
Well yes, but when your going 60 in 3rd and the engine is revving at lets say 5500 RPM you are making X HP but, when you shift into forth, you are still going 60, but are now only getting X< HP at 3000 RPM (depending on the torque curve) ergo, 2 different engine RPM's at the same speed. While it is true that you get slightly different numbers in each gear due to the transmission rations. You are still making less HP at 3000 RPM than at 5500 RPM. ;)

Luke
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did you watch the Japanese guy from top secret tuners in the link I supplied in this thread. The guy is a nutter in a 1200 BHP Skyline. All respect to the guy, he's got the steel nerve to do what he does. We can all talk about torque this and BHP that, but this guy builds cars in a different league to anything i've seen. Ironically, all the cars he tunes are turbo powered. It's amazing what he can do to a stock street car.
 
RedSuinit
There is no HP without torque, 1 HP is defined as moving 33,000 ft/lb of torque in one minute. How did we get this? Work is defined as force times distance. Therefore lifting a 1 lb weight 1 foot gives us 1 ft/lb of torque. A man named Watt once examined that a horse could life a 550 pound weight 1 foot in 1 second. So one HP is 550 ft/lb of torque per second, or 33,000 ft/lb of torque. HP is actually found by a formula, coming from torque. When you put a car onto a DYNO all the DYNO measures is torque output, then calculates the HP using this formula:

Torqe x RPM
HP = -----------
5250

Where do we get that from? One foot lb of rotational torque at 5250 RPM is 33,000 ft/lb of torque.

So really when you drive what you are feeling is Torque, not HP. 👍

Luke
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What is the definition of Horsepower? The rate at which torque is applied, right? So yes you're feeling torque, but you're feeling torque being applied very quickly over and over again, which is what I mean, which is essentially horsepower. If you where to apply 100,000,000 ft/lbs of torque at .00000000001 RPM you wouldn't feel much. There wouldn't be much movement, but that still a ridiculous amount of torque.

I just hate ignorant comments like, "torque is king", or "torque>horsepower". No, Horsepower tells you how torque is being used, and is the measurement that tells you how fast you can accelerate among other things. It also tells you how much energy your engine is outputting. Obviously energy is the key to getting things moving. The more energy you have, the faster things can move. You can convert HP to Watts, but you can't convert a torque figure alone to watts.

1 HP = 745.7 watts
 
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Threshold
What is the definition of Horsepower? The rate at which torque is applied, right? So yes you're feeling torque, but you're feeling torque being applied very quickly over and over again, which is what I mean, which is essentially horsepower. If you where to apply 100,000,000 ft/lbs of torque at .00000000001 RPM you wouldn't feel much. There wouldn't be much movement, but that still a ridiculous amount of torque.

I just hate ignorant comments like, "torque is king", or "torque>horsepower". No, Horsepower tells you how torque is being used, and is the measurement that tells you how fast you can accelerate among other things. It also tells you how much energy your engine is outputting. Obviously energy is the key to getting things moving. The more energy you have, the faster things can move. You can convert HP to Watts, but you can't convert a torque figure alone to watts.

1 HP = 745.7 watts
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Sure I can.

1 ft/lb of torque = 1.355818 Watt seconds

There, see I did it.

No your thinking is incorrect, read my second post and you'll understand why, you do not make the same amount of torque at different RPM's, hence you never get a flat torque curve from a DYNO. What you are feeling is torque, like I said before, when you stick a car on a DYNO the ONLY thing they measure is torque, (and they measure it at the tires, not at the flywheel, so this is what is being applied to the road). Then they calculate HP from that.

HP is a specific amount of torque used in one minute. The two terms are inter-changeable using the formula I have provided.

Redsuinit
What I meant to say is that if you rotate a one pound weight one full rotation (rotational torque) it moves 6.2832 feet, giving us 6.2832 ft/lb of torque per minute at 1 RPM, when we divide 33,000 ft/lb of torque per minute we get 5252 RPM. That is a more detailed explanation, hopefully I cleared all of that up! ;)

Luke
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GT_Fanatic
did you watch the Japanese guy from top secret tuners in the link I supplied in this thread. The guy is a nutter in a 1200 BHP Skyline. All respect to the guy, he's got the steel nerve to do what he does. We can all talk about torque this and BHP that, but this guy builds cars in a different league to anything i've seen. Ironically, all the cars he tunes are turbo powered. It's amazing what he can do to a stock street car.
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Yes that dude is crazy insanely good, but how about this, John Lingenfelter. He almost never used a turbocharger or supercharger on any of his Corvettes, but got INSANE performance, from them. His own personal Corvette got 912 BHP (that's NA power!), and got 21 MPG, in the city! (I know this is correct, my old college room-mates dad, who knew Lingenfelter, is also a piston designer, and custom designed the pistons for that engine.) So really this argument will go both ways. Neither is better than the other, they both have their pros and cons. It's all about personal preference.

Luke
 
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Supercharger. (centrifugal, no Roots-type)
 
both have pros & cons. Super chargers don't give lag- turbos do. turbos must spin about 30 times faster than supercharges giving ,massive power at high RPM.
 
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NHRA Top Fuel Dragsters and Funny Cars use what, turbo, NA, or Supercharger? They use Superchargers, that should tell you something. POWER, on demand.
 
well they use what they are allowed to use, if they let them i bet you would see turbos.
 
I'll have a 2l Wankel with super- and turbocharger. Revs, boost and torque in one package.. :D
 
davethestalker
NHRA Top Fuel Dragsters and Funny Cars use what, turbo, NA, or Supercharger? They use Superchargers, that should tell you something. POWER, on demand.
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They run superchargers because turbo's are not allowed...they aren't allowed because the rule is designed to slow down top fuel cars. In the same way that F1 cars no longer run turbos, or the way they must run v8's, or how they can only have so many valves, and they limited the redlines.
 
NA FTW
Can't beat the sound and engine response of a good NA tune.
 
Once you go turbo, you won't go back
 
Turbo is the ultimate replacement for displacement, and when you add a supercharger to the mix, big blocks will weep in horror..
 
Leonidae
Turbo is the ultimate replacement for displacement, and when you add a supercharger to the mix, big blocks will weep in horror..
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Don't you mean when you add a supercharger to a big block nothing will stand in its way?:trouble:
 
err.. nope. add supercharger to big block and you'll have a vortex in the fuel tank especially if the car has gearing that is meant for sporty driving instead of economy.
 
I love the sound of the Turbo "blow off valve" opening when switching gears.. Not owning a turbocharged car my view that "turbo lag" for a few seconds can be an issue drag racing. Some people like "all motor" cars because they feel that other "competition" has to make up their horsepower with a bolt on..
 
Leonidae
err.. nope. add supercharger to big block and you'll have a vortex in the fuel tank especially if the car has gearing that is meant for sporty driving instead of economy.
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But only because it'll be generating major horsepower... :)

A turbo is a bit more efficient than a mechanical supercharger, but you still need similar amounts of fuel to generate similar amounts of horsepower. It's not quite the same, but the real-world fuel consumption of a 300bhp 2.0 litre turbo Evo X is about the same as a 430bhp 6.2 litre NA Corvette - bigger is better.
 
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