One of the
surest ways to get more power out of an engine is to increase
the amount of air and fuel that it can burn. One way to do this is
to add cylinders or make the current cylinders bigger. Sometimes these
changes may not be feasible -- a turbo can be a simpler, more compact
way to add power, especially for an aftermarket accessory.
Turbochargers allow an engine to burn more fuel and air by packing
more into the existing cylinders. The typical boost provided by a
turbocharger is 6 to 8 pounds per square inch (psi). Since normal
atmospheric pressure is 14.7 psi at sea level, you can see that you
are getting about 50 percent more air into the engine. Therefore,
you would expect to get 50 percent more power. It's not perfectly
efficient, so you might get 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. Having a turbine in the exhaust
flow 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.
The turbocharger also helps at high altitudes, where the
air is less dense. Normal engines will experience reduced power at
high altitudes because for each stroke of the piston, the engine
will get a smaller mass of air. A turbocharged engine may also have
reduced power, but the reduction will be less dramatic because the
thinner air is easier for the turbocharger to pump. |