Entry posted by NathanKenney
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How do you make a car go faster? Slap a turbo in it, duh. While that certainly isn't as easy as it sounds, how do turbos even work anyways? Well, for starters, turbos really are all about recycling. No really, unlike an old fashioned supercharger that relied on a belt driven system to receive power, a turbocharger is powered by a car's exhaust. The energy from the gas exiting the car's exhaust is used to run a turbine that compresses air coming into the engine. Since conventional combustion engines are powered by, well, combustion, and since one of the key ingredients to fire is oxygen, the turbocharger helps to deliver a greater mass of oxygen to the engine versus atmospheric pressure. To combat this higher amount of air flowing into the engine, the car relies on its ecu, which is essentially a magic box that monitors a bunch of sensors for stuff you didn't even know your car has and makes sure everything runs the way it should and that nothing blows up. So, the Ecu realizes woah there's a lot more oxygen getting to the engine now, better pump in some more gas so it can keep up. The result of more air and gas in a chamber per explosion results in larger explosions allowing the engine to produce more power and make your car faster. Or more efficient since a turbo charger can also allow a smaller engine to produce the same power as a larger one, saving on size, weight, and emissions.
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