Hall Of Fame
hey i found a great site for upgrading dodge trucks and suvs w/ the 5.9 in them and they offer a supercharger for a little over 4grand that is garanted to give you 60-65% more horsepower now thats crazy
i have heard that a super is good for quater mile and things of that nature since they have a power boost from the start but my love are turbos more power and they sound cool with a good blow off valve
Professional
Which one is better or not really in my views is a matter of opinion. A Supercharger is not going to be quite as hard on your engine for a couple or reasons. One is that you dont have the risk or at least as much of a risk of burning exhaust valves because its belt driven and not exhaust driven. Second is that A more dense cool charge is going to be generated by a supercharger since it is not being driven by hot exhaust gas. Also with a supercharger there is no what is called boost lag, or turbo lag. With a turbo running off the exhaust gas it takes time to build up the pressure to spin the turbo then to compress the air and force it into the intake. Superchargers come in way lower in the RPM range giving you a jump on the competition .There are many more but for all intents and purposes lets move on.
A turbocharger is the weapon of choice for other people because its easier to get larger amounts of boost with a turbo by adjusting the pressure of the wastegate release switch, smaller exhaust housings and so on. Second is the fact that since it is exhaust driven you dont have to worry about belt slippage unless you have spent an enormous amount of money having grooved pulleys made for your street application. As far as turbo lag goes, with new technology, turbos today are made with ball bearings instead of oil bearings allowing them to build boost or "spool up" alot faster then older turbos but still not as you would like to see.
I once heard that if you take the same setup i.e. intercooler same car and so on then you put one to say an 8 psi supercharger and on the other one a 8 psi turbo, the supercharged car is going to clean up every time... I myself have never tested this out but it seems to make sense to me..
A turbocharger is the weapon of choice for other people because its easier to get larger amounts of boost with a turbo by adjusting the pressure of the wastegate release switch, smaller exhaust housings and so on. Second is the fact that since it is exhaust driven you dont have to worry about belt slippage unless you have spent an enormous amount of money having grooved pulleys made for your street application. As far as turbo lag goes, with new technology, turbos today are made with ball bearings instead of oil bearings allowing them to build boost or "spool up" alot faster then older turbos but still not as you would like to see.
I once heard that if you take the same setup i.e. intercooler same car and so on then you put one to say an 8 psi supercharger and on the other one a 8 psi turbo, the supercharged car is going to clean up every time... I myself have never tested this out but it seems to make sense to me..
Professional
The 2 biggest problem's supercharger's have is poor effcenciy "espeially the root's, Whipples screw charger produce's a lot of heat since it actually compresses the air and could definitlly use a intercooler"and when up get to a certain point they run out of boost. The best superchager is a centrifical since it's basiclly a belt driven turbo.
Professional
That really depends on what you need it for. If you are a big street racer who is more into the GT style of racing then Turbos are for you. If you are all about Drag racing then your going to definately want a supercharger hands down. Once again this is mostly my opinion but When it comes to this kind of thing Im usually right. It also depends on the car and fuel type etc... All the top fuelers use the roots style twin screw blowers to get into the 4,5, and 6 second quarter mile range. I also am a fan of the centrifical style blower but there are more than just the turbo style centrifical blowers. AutoRotor makes a twin screw centricical Supercharger that KenneBelle uses almost exclusively. You can get a ton of boost out of those things plus intercool them.
Legend
Since my previous link is no longer good, here are 2 links to the same thing only better:
Superchargers
Turbochargers
Superchargers
Turbochargers
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Quote:
ORIGINAL: 5.9rm
<P>ok, so here are the basics.</P>
<P>both are a type of forced induction into the engine. they provide more air, as well as denser air (both make more power) to the engine.</P>
<P>a supercharger is belt driven, as it has a pulley that is part of the belt system. the belt spins rotors that force the air. there are 3 types of superchargers; roots style (typical, such as what comes on the mecedes), centrifical (looks like a turbo, but is driven by a belt), and then i cant remember the last one to save me. (someone help me out here!)</P>
<P>a turbo reaches the same end by a different means, only more so. a turbo is propelled by the exhaust, requiring special headers and a devive called a wastegate, which keeps the exhaust pressure from getting to high, and it controls boost. </P>
<P>turbos usually boost power a little more than superchargers (though not always) but they are significantly more expensive (usually). </P>
<P>i hope that helps, everyone else feel free to add to this cause im sure i missed quite a bit.</P>
To add to what you've already stated, superchargers are much more expensive than a turbo charger, well in my experience that is and especially for 4 cylinder engines.. I was for a time looking at supercharging my Neon before I decided to turbo charge it instead. The supercharger I had seen for a Neon was in the $6K range whereas I've been able to build a turbo for the car for less than $4k. ORIGINAL: 5.9rm
<P>ok, so here are the basics.</P>
<P>both are a type of forced induction into the engine. they provide more air, as well as denser air (both make more power) to the engine.</P>
<P>a supercharger is belt driven, as it has a pulley that is part of the belt system. the belt spins rotors that force the air. there are 3 types of superchargers; roots style (typical, such as what comes on the mecedes), centrifical (looks like a turbo, but is driven by a belt), and then i cant remember the last one to save me. (someone help me out here!)</P>
<P>a turbo reaches the same end by a different means, only more so. a turbo is propelled by the exhaust, requiring special headers and a devive called a wastegate, which keeps the exhaust pressure from getting to high, and it controls boost. </P>
<P>turbos usually boost power a little more than superchargers (though not always) but they are significantly more expensive (usually). </P>
<P>i hope that helps, everyone else feel free to add to this cause im sure i missed quite a bit.</P>
Depending on how they are tuned both types of forced induction produce the same amount of HP. However, on a 4 cylinder engine the use of a supercharger isn't as cost effective as a turbo. The reason being is because since the supercharger is belt driven it's using energy that a 4 cyl. doesn't necessarily have to turn that belt so the gains would be minimal at best. Superchargers are more practical on 6 and 8 cylinder vehicles whereas 4 cylinder engines benefit better from a turbo.