WHY TURBOS OWN: Why the Turbo? We contend that the turbocharger is the superior part with respect to all forced induction mechanisms. Power The turbo will always have the power advantage due to the fact that it requires less power from the engine to drive it than any belt driven supercharger. Belt driven superchargers siphon off between 8% and 20% of the crank power, depending on circumstances. The turbo only steals 2% to 3% from the crank, and gets the rest from the wasted heat and flow energy of the exhaust. Why give up 10% if you don’t have to? Would 10% be the difference between winning and losing? Durability Two areas establish the turbo as a highly durable mechanism; the trucking industry and the 24 hour Le Mans Endurance Race. Just call truck repair facilities for the first category of information. Le Mans is a different matter. Porsche has publically stated that their engineering department considers street versus race wear rates as 1000 to 1. While perhaps a little high, one needs to assemble really good data to dispute Porsche. Regardless, consider that this race covers 3,500 miles in 24 hours. Porsche says this is equivalent to 3,500,000 street miles and its also done without an oil change. The race has been won by a turbocharged car in the majority of events in the last 40 years. Please note that the factory team of Cadillac racers were all turbocharged. So, what does it take for you to have a reliable turbo? Two things: use a top notch synthetic oil and change it every 5000 miles. Low RPM boost Either low rpm boost is really not that desirable, or there are lots of centrifugal supercharger users that have been fooling themselves. All other things being equal, the proper turbo makes all of it boost before the centrifugal makes much of its boost. Ask yourself if you would prefer 10psi of intercooled turbo boost at 3000 rpm, or 3psi from the centrifugal supercharger. It is easy to imagine which is pulling harder at that point. Why is this so? How does the turbo do that, particularly when they share the same style compressor? Easy again; the turbo can speed up relative to the crankshaft, the centrifugal supercharger cannot. You will be mightily impressed with the performance of a centrifugal compressor when it is allowed to speed up prior to the engine. Economy The turbo enjoys approximately a 10% economy advantage. Reason being; parasitic drag. When the fuel costs eventually get high enough, I’ll wager that every supercharger maker in the world will be frantically designing and tooling up to build a turbo. Throttle Response It is common for someone who has never driven a turbocharged car to complain about the lack of throttle response due to turbo lag. While this is a dumb position to get caught in, it is also the wrong information. When the driver of the Turbo 5.0 applies throttle, there is actually a small amount of boost in the system at that instant. With a small amount of boost available to push its way into the manifold, rather than just atmospheric pressure, the driver will notice a small, but perceptible improvement in throttle response. With all of the advances in bearings, compressor and turbine design, housing design and engine management, turbo lag has become a non-issue. Now, to dispel the Myths! But I can’t stand the lag. Just answer one basic question. If you are cruising along at 3000 revs and decide to nail the throttle, would you prefer the minimal boost the centrifugal will “instantly” offer, or the 10psi that the turbo will reach in less than one second? If you are cruising at 5000 rpm’s where the CS can actually make some boost, but not yet its maximum, its response is no faster than the turbo. Rest assured that with a turbo, at a cruise of 5000 revs, you can’t get your foot to the floor and off again without the turbo reaching full boost. The CS will respond quickly too, but it won’t reach full boost. That number is reserved for the absolute redline. But turbos are hard to install! The idea that one type of system is simpler to install and therefore better is not sound logic, if the more complex system has offsetting merit. Consider that ten extra hours spent installing a superior system quickly fades from importance if one drives this thing for a couple years and enjoys that difference everyday. Struggling without an intercooler and without a proper fuel system for two years makes 10 more hours up front seem like a bargain. And it is a bargain. The fabled turbo heat problem. Invariably a supercharger salesman will point to the turbo and flatly state that when it is glowing red hot, it will melt everything under the hood. The problem is knowledge and integrity, not the turbo. Iron and steel begin to glow red at around 1100 F. The stock exhaust gas temperature is well in excess of that, thus the stock exhaust manifold glows when the car is driven hard. No damage is done in the stock condition and none will be done by the turbo. The turbo doesn't have any power. Although we would like to tout power with quotes of enormous numbers, the power is really going to be what you make of it. Heads, manifolds, cams, exhausts, boost pressures, turbo sizes, all have such a huge influence on power, that naming a specific output is utter folly. However, you may rest assured that whatever preparation path, if any, that you take with the engine, the turbo will provide substantially more power than any other form of forced induction. Flexibility of power improvements Unlike any other boost maker, the turbo can be made to change boost at the flip of a switch. Boost can be changed in the middle of a drag race if so desired. Try that trick with anything else. Boost can be made to run as low as 3 psi at full throttle, or well past 30 psi, but the success will always lie with keeping the boost consistent with the engine preparation.