Supercharger Or Turbocharger

In simplistic terms, your engine functions as an air pump. The more air and fuel that is pumped through, the more power your engine can make. In order to pump the air, pressure on the intake side must be higher relative to pressure going out the exhaust. In a naturally aspirated engine, valve timing events are used to create pressure. Since you are reading this article, you are probably not interested in naturally aspirated engines, so we can leave it at that. That said, we can all agree that it makes no sense to build a naturally aspirated performance engine. From a performance standpoint, it would generally make sense to use some means to pressurize the intake, while using some means to decrease the pressure in the exhaust path. The second part is easy; almost everyone and their brother has some type of exhaust work. The first job is a little trickier. Fortunately we have superchargers and turbochargers to save the day.

A crankshaft driven supercharger will most definitely increase the pressure on the intake side of the engine. Since it is limited to the intake track, it will not adversely affect the pressure in the exhaust. The pressure on the intake side should always be greater than the pressure in the exhaust. However, power doesn’t come free, and you must use some of that new found torque to spin the supercharger. How much that takes is calculable, but is purely academic because significant power is netted. In the case of positive displacement superchargers, boost can be had at very low RPMs, and in the case of the centrifugal and screw supercharger, good efficiency can be had. Other reasons to choose a supercharger are that the retrofit to an NA car should be smoother because there are no changes to be made to the exhaust path. The power curve is predictable because boost is largely dependent on RPM of the motor and not some less tangible factor such as engine load.

Now why would anyone want a turbocharger? Turbocharger systems are more complex because they require revision to the intake and exhaust sides of the motor. From the air pump standpoint, at first glance they seem to be inferior to a supercharger as you are placing a restriction in the exhaust flow path (i.e. the turbine). Given what we know of centrifugal compressor efficiency at low RPMs, there may be a significant portion of the rev range before the turbocharger will reach its threshold and begin to create boost (this is what “lag” is). However the relative independence from engine RPM is the turbocharger’s greatest advantage over any other supercharger type. Boost can be reset with ease, and therefore tunability is also greatly increased as compared to a crank driven unit. While the adiabatic efficiency of the compressor may not be as great as that of a screw type supercharger, the drive mechanism is much more efficient, as a turbocharger relies on utilization of largely wasted kinetic energy in the exhaust gases. All of this combines to form a versatile, tunable unit that has the potential to make more power than a crank driven supercharger.

So a turbocharger must be superior to a crank driven supercharger, right? If that was the case the crank driven supercharger would have died out long ago. For all out power the turbocharger reigns supreme, but life unfortunately is full of compromises. Packaging is a huge concern during a retrofit of forced induction onto an NA motor, and in that instance the crank driven supercharger has the turbocharger beat handily. The user must decide on his or her priorities and decide from there which is best either a supercharger or turbocharger.