Turbo Vs. Supercharger

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Ron Coogan with Greencar.com. Today we're going to talk about how Superchargers and Turbochargers. You know these two devices have been used for years in racing and by Hot Rodders. They give you a lot more power in an engine without having to use a larger engine or other exotic technologies. The interesting thing about these technologies are you get additional power almost for free. Once you've paid for the component, and that's not a small cost. But let's take Superchargers for instance. A Supercharger is essentially a compressor, it's an air compressor. And it's driven by a belt that's turned by the engine. It compresses air that goes into the engine, gives you a much more powerful explosion in the combustion chambers. More powerful explosions mean greater power, that means better speed. The interesting thing about this is that it isn't that exotic. This technology has been with us for a very long time. Because Superchargers use a belt drive from an engine, they use some of the engine's power, which means a little bit of fuel efficiency decrease. That's a trade off for the power. A Turbocharger is really interesting because it recycles exhaust power. You get exhaust coming out the tail pipe, that exhaust is used to spin a turban. That turban creates the air pressure that's fed into the combustion chambers for greater power, greater efficiency and much better performance. Internal combustion engines take in an air fuel charge that combusts in the combustion chambers. The air that's taken in is an ambient air pressure. If you increase the air pressure within a cylinder, that's going to give you a greater and more powerful explosion, which then creates more power, drives your engine faster, drives your car faster. The beauty of Turbocharging and Supercharging is that it can be done very efficiently with known and proven technology and give you not only more horsepower but greater fuel efficiency under the right applications."