Turbocharged engines seem to be much more popular in recent years, especially on smaller engines. How does a turbocharger “turbo”, and what is a supercharger?
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A turbo charger is an impeller which takes cold air and “packs” it into your air intake, increasing the air pressure in your cylinders. More air = more kaboom = more vroom. The turbo’s impeller is driven by exhaust gas in a feedback loop, so there’s a little bit of a lag behind when you step on the gas and when the turbo kicks in, because the cylinders have to exhaust the increased output to drive the turbo to boost the air intake to drive more cylinder combustion.
A super charger does the same thing: packs more air into your combustion cylinders – but its not driven by exhaust gasses, its driven by the same rotating mechanical bits that the pistons in your cylinders drive. The feedback is more immediate, there’s no turbo “lag”, but it comes with a more severe parasitic drain on your engine’s output. Say 10%. But its giving your engine a 20% boost, so you have net 10% more power coming out of your engine.
Meanwhile turbo penalties are less, like 5% but they maybe don’t contribute as much performance gain maybe only 10-15% percent, so you’re net 5-10% performance boost overall.
There are pros and cons for each, and you can even use a turbo and a super charger together.
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