Micks Motorsport


 

Turbos


  By David G - 12/3/2007

The trick of boosting air into an engine to increase combustion has been around for almost as long as the engine itself.

The first turbo was developed by a smarty pants Swiss doctor Alfred Buchi way back in 1915. His first prototype of a turbocharged engine gained little acceptance at the time. Poor fellar. You see at the time petrol was cheap and if you needed more power than just build a bigger engine; very simple, right?

The turbo achieved recognition when they discovered planes can't fly too high because there isn’t enough air up there.  Good they worked that out.

These days, petrol is expensive and building a bigger engine for more horses isn’t always practical. And that’s where this clever piece of engineering comes into play. You see, turbos offer the best solution to get more out of an engine without increasing it’s weight!

So how does it work?

Turbochargers are a type of forced induction system. They compress air flowing into an engine. The beauty of compressing air is that it lets the engine squeeze more air into each cylinder, and more air means that when petrol is added and your sparky goes spark the whole things goes off with more bang. Get the picture. Therefore, you get more power from each explosion in each cylinder.
 
In order to achieve this boost, the turbo uses the exhaust flow from the engine to spin a turbine, which in turn spins an air pump. The turbine in the turbo can spin at speeds of about 150,000 RPM. That's pretty fast. And since the turbo is hooked up to the exhaust, the temperatures in the turbine can get very high and that’s where intercoolers come into play. These are radiator looking devices that cool the air down before the engine swallows it for combustion.

So how much more power do I get? The typical boost provided by a turbocharger is 6 to 8 pounds per square inch (psi). That basically means that you get 50% more air into the engine. Therefore, you would expect to get 50 percent more power. But it's not perfectly efficient and usually you would expect to see a 30- to 40-percent improvement instead.

One cause of the inefficiency comes from the fact that the power to spin the turbine is not free. You see that power comes from a turbine plugged into the exhaust flow and that increases the restriction in the exhaust. This means that on the exhaust stroke, the engine has to push against a higher back-pressure. This subtracts a little bit of power from the cylinders that are firing at the same time.

Just one thing to keep in mind. It isn’t a perfect world and there are trade-offs here. One trade off is called Turbo Lag. Not the same thing as Jet Lag. Turbos don’t provide immediate power boost when you step on the gas. It takes a few moments for the turbine to get up to speed before boost is produced. This results in a feeling of lag when you step on the gas, and then the car lunges ahead when the turbo gets moving… but when it does, hold on baby!

Adding a a turbo to your engine involves many considerations like fuel and air mixtures and adjusting onboard computers or even installing new computers to get the most of your turbo. Micks Motorsports has been installing turbos for years and has the experience and equipment to install and setup your turbo for the best results.  To make an enquiry about turbos and any other related products or services just contact Micks workshop today.






Home  |   Products  |   Performance Services  |   Contacts

WebSite design by WebWise

Micksmotorsport in Milperra, Sydney Australia can provide complete engine rebuilds from mild to wild for all models whether it be a Nissan, Subaru, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Holden, Ford. Be it a 4 cylinder, 6 cylinder or V8 . whether its aspirated, turbo charged or supercharged injected or carburetor. Unleaded or even methanol doesn’t matter because we can build and tune it. Need a stronger gear box? Maybe a synchromesh or even a straight cut dogbox.  We can help provide you with any solution whether it be a fuel cell, surge tank, fuel pumps or just a matter of high flowing your injectors. Do you want a front mount intercooler? Yep we also supply and fit them, all aluminum piping and welding is all done in house. How about a quality custom turbo exhaust manifold one you can't buy off the shelf and more importantly one that doesn’t crack and bow after just a few power runs, yes we can fabricate one to suit your needs. So whether it is a rebuild, dyno tune or products like Haltech or MicroTech computer or TiAL products we have the knowledge and experience.