Supercharger or Turbo Charger???

    Well, what's the difference? To start with, turbo chargers are under the hood & usually unseen. If you've ever seen pictures of late 60's or early 70's muscle cars with a big chrome thing sticking out of the hood, that's a supercharger. Although some newer cars do have factory installed superchargers completely under the hood, most still sit atop your engine. 

    Which is better? They both have their good and bad points. Superchargers compress air from outside of the car. Turbo chargers on the other hand compress a mixture of both exhaust fumes and fresh air.. This gives superchargers an advantage since they run off of cooler air from outside the car, and cooler air means more power. Many turbo chargers overcome this drawback by adding an intercooler. An intercooler is kind of like an air conditioner for the air entering your turbo charger.

    Superchargers usually offer more overall power. Turbo chargers lack the consistency available to superchargers. If a supercharger is on, its on. When its off, its off. Turbo chargers offer more peak horsepower, but releasing a stored boost at the perfect moment. A turbo 4 will keep up with a V-8 off the line. But after the initial boost is spent, you have a phenomenon known as "turbo-lag." Turbo-lag is caused by the turbo charger sucking the incoming air away from the engine. Instead of providing a boost, it actually creates a vacuum until recharged. 

    Either one of these great little toys will cause a decrease in the expected life of your engine. By forcing more air into the engine, it creates a leaner mixture. This means more air and less fuel. The gas in your fuel tank actually acts as a lubricant inside your engine. With a leaner mixture, you have more friction, so you might want to stop & reconsider before getting the very maximum amount of horsepower available from your engine. And remember, anytime you work your engine harder, you are creating higher pressures inside the engine. So have a lot of fun & hang-on, but don't be surprised if your due for a rebuild when you hit 100,00 miles.