Talk:Supercharger

message: I always thought superchargers got a somewhat unfair deal when it came to looking at their downsides. It's common to say that superchargers waste crankshaft power and that turbos are making use of otherwise wasted energy. What I rarely see being said, if ever, is that sticking a turbo in the path of the exhaust creates additional exhaust resistance. So the turbo is also 'sucking power' from the engine in a manner by making it harder for the engine to displace the exhaust. No one would ever suggest that making the exhaust ports / manifold / outlet smaller would maintain or improve engine efficiency, yet this is essentially what a turbo's intake section does. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.24.47.178 (talk) 16:09, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Superchargers get a bad name?

message: "Below the critical altitude the supercharger is capable of delivering too much boost and must therefore be restricted lest the engine be damaged. Unless other measures are taken, this means that at least some of the power driving the supercharger is wasted. Also, due to the denser air at lower altitudes, the supercharger is not operating at its best efficiency, and this can cause an additional load on the engine. For the early years of the war this was simply how it was, and this led to the seemingly odd fact that many early-war engines actually delivered less power at lower altitudes. This was because the supercharger was still using up power to compress air that was not delivering any power back."
Looks like junk science to me, but I thought I'd ask for input before changing it. Most WWII aircraft engines used internal superchargers, where the carburetor or fuel injection master control is ahead of the supercharger intake. This means that all you have to do to avoid redlining the manifold pressure gauge is close the throttle a bit. Since closing the throttle means that lower pressure air is available to the supercharger, the supercharger should require less power to turn and it shouldn't result in any loss of efficiency. Thoughts? Shreditor 03:18, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Since no one seemed to object I've rewritten this section Shreditor 04:36, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Supercharged aircraft engines make LESS power below critical altitude?

message: This section requested copyediting, but first I think it needs some fact editing.
It states that turbochargers start up faster and are smaller, but earlier sections made the opposite claims.
In fact the entire last section might not be necessary, since it's really a list of "pros of turbochargers", not "cons of superchargers".
If all of the cited superiorities of turbochargers are adequately reflected in the Turbocharger entry, they don't need to be repeated here.
Steve Summit 23:26, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: "More cons of supercharging"

message: Is the type of Blower thats on a lot of modified Muscle cars on here
Yes. All the types of "blower" are discribed here. Some pictures might be good to clarify that.--=Motorhead 12:47, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "???"

message: What's with the detour into WWII aircraft discussion?  I understand its slight relevance to superchargers per se, but shouldn't it really have its own page?
The WWII aircraft stuff would be an important part of history/development of superchargers. I dont know if it warrants a seperate article but it certainly adds perspective here.--=Motorhead 12:47, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Supercharger technology was really pushed to its extremes in World War II aircraft design, then the turbine engine came along and negated all that research and innovation. Due to cost and reliability considerations, modern general aviation aircraft rarely use superchargers. So, I realize it may look like a large tangent in a relatively small article, but to discuss the way supercharging was applied to aircraft, a discussion of World War II era military aircraft is really all that is needed. Shreditor 04:48, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: WWII Detour

message: Supercharging has little meaning when applied to jet engines. The compressor has more to do with compression rather than overfilling the chambers. Although the parts are similar the application is totally different and I don't see how it can be called supercharging in the same sense because the engine wont run at all without a compressor. I think the section should be removed or qualified.--=Motorhead 03:32, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually the original 1950s manufacturers' descriptions of both the Bristol Olympus and the Bristol Orion two-spool engines referred to one spool of the engine 'supercharging' the other.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.31.130.20 (talk) 10:32, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Jet engine supercharging

message: Me again with another topic for you to debate.
Me and a friend were talking in the pub about the old Group B rally cars and how the cars design negated some of the rules and regualtions of what they could and couldn't do with their engines. I think a common one of the rules was that, if you had a turbocharger, you had a time penalty which was 1.4 x your engine size, off your time at the end of each stage.
Aparently there have been romours that on one particular event, Lancia enter their Integrale as supercharged, but aledgedly, it had both supercharger and turbocharger.
The idea was that the supercharger was within the rules of European Rallycross Championship the at that time, but the turbo was hidden out of the way somewhere in the car. the supercharge was supposed to provide a small boost in the low rev range before the turbo kicked in provided quite a fair bit of boost.
Is there any truth in this turbo+supercharging technique? or is it just poppycock?
another rumour was that they hollowed out the roll-cage and filled it N2O, but thats another story for the  N2O board!:D
:It's certainly possible to both supercharge and turbocharge at the same time.  Whether Lancia did that is hard to know - but it seems really unlikely that they could have somehow hidden that from the Rally judges - so I'd call this BS. SteveBaker 00:09, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The 'con' is extra weight and extra complexity - more things to go wrong...never a good thing for a rally car. But the claim here is that the supercharger was there to 'disguise' the fact that there was an illegal turbocharger - but the risk to a team like Lancia to be caught out with bare-faced outright and deliberate cheating - and for it being so very likely that a judge would inspect the car and find the illegal parts...it just doesn't seem credible to me. SteveBaker 16:13, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not familiar with Lancia's Group B car but in a Formula One car of the mid-1980s the advantage of a turbocharger was that boost pressure could be turned way up for qualifying and the engine run flat out in order to get Pole position. The engine would then be rebuilt overnight and the race run the following day with normal boost pressure for reliability. IIRC some of the Williams Honda and Renault-engined cars were producing around 900-1,000hp for qualifying.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.147.13 (talk) 11:09, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Some of them were getting over 1000 hp in race trim before The Man mandated lower boost levels.  There was talk of > 1200 hp in qualifying trim.  Heini Mader, responsible for the care and feeding of the Megatron-badged BMW engines, did have a dyno but it only went to 1200. Mr Larrington (talk) 19:27, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lancia cheating with their integrale? 

message: The Yamaha V-Max has a V-boost system which is a supercharger. Kicks in around 6000RPM on a V4 1200cc. Very dangerous in first gear but 11 seconds to 200Kph is good. In production for over 20 years.
83.70.239.47 04:11, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Motorcycles 

message: This sentence seems confusing:
Due to the fact that the turbine speed is directly proportional to the RPM, pressure and flow output at low RPM is limited, thus it is possible for the demand to outweigh the supply etc.
Would this be a correct edit?
Due to the fact that the turbine speed is directly proportional to pressure and flow, output at low RPM is limited. Thus it is possible for the demand to outweigh the supply etc.
JohnSteb  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.104.78.107 (talk) 10:16, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Supercharger 

message: This supercharger article is very well written.
 .<a http://www.electricsupercharger.net;electric supercharger[/url]..
Scamcorp 21:03, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Supercharger 

message: Rich6023 00:15, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Toyota Supra turbocharger 

message: This article has improved greatly from one year ago, but it doesn't feel complete. While this article does a good job covering the technical aspects and usage of superchargers, it lacks something fundamental - its history. The WWII section marginally covers the topic, but supercharging has a varied and interesting history. Just as x-planes hold the prestige of the jet/space age, supercharging holds a great deal of prestige in aviation's early days. Some great achievements that are forgotten, like the first flight over Mt. Everest, were only possible due to the supercharger. Some of the greatest test pilots and engineers advanced the concept and with it they pushed the limits of aircraft technology during the interwar period. 
Having an understanding of where the technology came from, why it was developed, seems crucial in explaining this complex machine. The automotive industry didn't have the clout in the early 1900's to develop supercharging, it took a national effort with some of the greatest minds in science. It's akin to describing a car in great technical detail without mentioning Otto or Benz...describing an aircraft without mentioning Cayley or Lillienthal...teaching a student calculus without mentioning Liebnitz or Newton. LostCause 13:52, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggested History Addition 

message: Why does the article start talking exclusively about turbochargers halfway down? Save that for the turbocharger article. 66.168.71.168 (talk)  —Preceding comment was added at 04:53, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Segues into turbochargers 

message: Why no mention of the Latham?  Trekphiler (talk) 19:43, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Type[[fishing|casting]] 

message: "On the other hand, a turbocharger is driven using the exhaust gases. The amount of power in the gas is proportional to the difference between the exhaust pressure and air pressure, and this difference increases with altitude, allowing a turbocharger to compensate for changing altitude without using up any extra power."
Problem: Aircraft used from about 1940 exhausts that were bent to the rear to produce thrust. A turbo-supercharger uses these exhausts and takes their mechanical energy for its function, depleting the aircraft of the exhaust's thrust (which was noticeable).
In the end, BOTH normal superchargers and turbo-superchargers bled energy away from propulsion to enable a higher engine power output. The article is misleading, it suggests that the turbo-supercharger did not so. Lastdingo (talk) 16:58, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: You may have a point, but the effect of exhaust thrust is debatable. The venturi-shaped exhaust nozzles you'd see on aircraft such as the P-40 and P-51 were fixed in design, meaning whatever thrust they were going to produce would change greatly with changing conditions (airspeed, altitude, temperature, etc.). I have never seen a comprehensive study on the effect that piston engine exhaust thrust has on aircraft performance. If you can find such a study, by all means incorporate it in to the article. However, until that happens, it is a widely acknowledged matter of fact that supercharged engines have a higher specific fuel consumption at high altitude than a similar turbocharged engine.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shreditor (talk • contribs) 06:24, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: A 1946 Flight article on the de Havilland Hornet's Merlin 130/131 here  that states the thrust from the multi-ejector exhausts being equivalent to an extra 450bhp per-engine at full-throttle height.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.24.205.73 (talk) 23:32, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: US aircraft turbo-superchargers were expressly developed for the lower specific fuel consumption (sfc), and not for outright power, the US requiring longer range from its aircraft than did most other countries.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.247.9 (talk) 21:50, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  turbo-superchargers in WW2 aircraft 

message: The Variable length intake manifold article talks about light supercharging by the using the Helmholtz resonance effect. This is when an intake valve shuts, the momentum of the air builds up pressure behind the valve so that when it opens again the air enters under pressure. But it's highly dependent on manifold runner length and rpm. I can't it see this described in this article. Have I missed it under another name or do I need to find some references like "Charging the internal combustion engine" and add it in?  Stepho  talk  05:30, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem with Helmholtz is that it's so frequency sensitive that it couldn't be used until variable manifolds became practical, relatively recently. Kadenacy effect is a much more common version of this in two strokes and is less speed-sensitive (lower Q value), but it only ever amounts to scavenging, not supercharging. Andy Dingley (talk) 08:35, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Helmholtz resonance 

message: Regarding the recent additions/reversions of http://www.superchargersonline.com . I too was tempted to delete it as spam without reading it but I actually found it to be quite an informative read in its own right. My vote would be to keep it until the WP article covers superchargers in the same amount of detail.  Stepho  talk  09:13, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: If by "quite informative" you mean "inaccurate unreferenced crap" then by all means re-add it. All 5 links of it!  I suppose it's still better than this article. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:26, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  external links 

message: "The thermal efficiency, or fraction of the fuel/air energy that is converted to output power, is less with a mechanically driven supercharger than with a turbocharger, because turbochargers are using energy from the exhaust gases that would normally be wasted. For this reason, both the economy and the power of a turbocharged engine are usually better than with superchargers."
This is questionable because the spent air inside the engine doesnt go outside by its own force, it is pushed towards outside because the piston is driven upwards by the crankshaft. IE.: The energy present in the exaust gases is generated by the moving piston, so, theres no free energy to be taken by the turbine. Theres a direct coupling relation between backpressure and the ammount of energy that the turbine extracts. A larger turbine means more work, wich means that more force must be exerted by the piston to get the gasses to go outside the engine across the turbine. Cancelling both factors means that in a turbocharger the compressing energy comes from the engine itself, not from some kind of magical free energy.
What are the advantages of turbos in relation to mecanically driven superchargers ? Simple, they are related to altitude and air pressure. The greater pressure differential between internal gasses in the engine versus external air pressure means that more gass is thrown outside with less force. Thats where the turbosupercharger advantage comes in aircraft. On sealevel operations mecanical superchargers are more effective due to less inertia and the fact that the compressor is directly driven by the power source (versus indirect via the exhaust gases).
Pls correct this, this is a commom misconception relating to turbo x mecanical boosters.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.59.247.113 (talk) 17:29, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: A two-stroke engine does not have an induction stroke where low pressure can draw in air. In addition a supply of air at higher than ambient pressure is needed to blow out the burnt gases from the previous combustion cycle. Thus a two stroke is unable to run without some form of supercharging to perform the scavenging. 
This is a serious over-simplification! The induction stroke occurs when the piston is rising. The crankcase is charged with fresh fuel-air mixture. You're just thinking about a two-stroke in four-stroke terms! That is just dumb. You wouldn't say, as an example, that a normally aspirated otto-cycle engine is supercharged because its tuned intake, valve overlap and the compression stroke supercharges the engine, would you? 
Your oversimple discussion of two-stroke diesel engines with blowers attached seems to be saying that they wouldn't run without the blower to scavenge them. They would but offer seriously little power output. 
I'm also having issues with your terminology and grammar, For example the second sentence says "mass flow-rate". The correct term is "mass-flow rate" because you're talking about an amount of substance flowing. 
Later: "Unfortunately, this is all the further Heinrich got with the screw compressor." demonstrates a woeful command of English, (...this is as far as Heinrich got...) and there are other examples throughout. 
I think, too, that rather than sticking to supercharging you're getting involved with internal combustion engine technology that you do not understand clearly enough to explain properly. Yes, you've introduced charge temperature and that is clearly directly associated with supercharging, but not spark advance, compression ratios, fuel octane rating, mixture control, two-speed drives and altitude/temperature effects on internal combustion engines. And that's just to begin. Lin (talk) 12:26, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

text: Wiki article is broken, shock, horror.  Get in there and fix it!  Andy Dingley (talk) 12:57, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Questionable 

message: The following appears in the main article: 
:A two-stroke engine does not have an induction stroke where low pressure can draw in air. In addition a supply of air at higher than ambient pressure is needed to blow out the burnt gases from the previous combustion cycle. Thus a two stroke is unable to run without some form of supercharging to perform the scavenging. 
This is a serious over-simplification! The induction stroke occurs when the piston is rising. The crankcase is charged with fresh fuel-air mixture. You're just thinking about a two-stroke in four-stroke terms! That is just dumb. You wouldn't say, as an example, that a normally aspirated otto-cycle engine is supercharged because its tuned intake, valve overlap and the compression stroke supercharges the engine, would you? 
Your oversimple discussion of two-stroke diesel engines with blowers attached seems to be saying that they wouldn't run without the blower to scavenge them. They would but offer seriously little power output. 
I'm also having issues with your terminology and grammar, For example the second sentence says "mass flow-rate". The correct term is "mass-flow rate" because you're talking about an amount of substance flowing. 
Later: "Unfortunately, this is all the further Heinrich got with the screw compressor." demonstrates a woeful command of English, (...this is as far as Heinrich got...) and there are other examples throughout. 
I think, too, that rather than sticking to supercharging you're getting involved with internal combustion engine technology that you do not understand clearly enough to explain properly. Yes, you've introduced charge temperature and that is clearly directly associated with supercharging, but not spark advance, compression ratios, fuel octane rating, mixture control, two-speed drives and altitude/temperature effects on internal combustion engines. And that's just to begin. Lin (talk) 12:26, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Wiki article is broken, shock, horror.  Get in there and fix it!  Andy Dingley (talk) 12:57, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: About two-stroke engines

message: General Motors used this design in two-cycle diesel truck engines for much of the 1950s and 1960s and this design (positive displacement 'three-bladed bi-rotor) is the design of that used in the displayed photograph of the AMC drag racing car.  The design 
is in universal use in fastest clases of NHRA drag racing competitions.  Please place a diagram, perhaps as a closeup, near the AMC drag racing auto.Homebuilding (talk) 14:11, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Photo or diagram of 'tri-rotor' needed

message: Are superchargers always less energy effcient than naturally aspirated engine? Because there is no direct statement on the page, except the article about Merlin. 
The article says spitfire merlin has lower specific fuel consumption when using supercharger, but lets say at 20 000 feet if you use 75% efficent blower, would the extra engine efficiency due to higher compression outweigh the power used by compressor?--Pawlin (talk) 11:43, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comparison with naturally aspirater 

message: I agree with calling the plane American,  but I disagree with calling it not Britsh.  Its common name "P-51 Mustang" demonstrates the dilemma.   P-51 was its US designation.  Mustang its RAF designation.  It was designed and built in  Amercia, but to a Britsh War Office spec.  It used a British designed engine, a perhaps most relevant to this section, a Britsh designed supercharger, and flew with the RAF long before it flew for the US.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Antifesto (talk • contribs) 08:13, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  P-51 Mustang not not Britsh 

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thread_title:  External links modified (January 2018) 

message: In "Effects of fuel octane rating", it is currently written:
  :By the end of the war, fuel was being delivered at a nominal 150-octane rating, on which late-war aero engines like the Rolls-Royce Merlin 66[22][23] or the Daimler-Benz DB 605DC developed as much as 2,000 hp (1,500 kW).
The  DB 605DC was rated for C3 (100 octane) fuel using MW-50 injection. I don't think Germany *had* 150-octane fuel. I don't have access to the books listed as sources, and might be wrong, but this sentence goes against what I know about German engines and fuel production. Perhaps drop mention of the DB 605DC (which definitely didn't use 150-octane fuel to achieve its 2000 hp output). Better even, *mention* the peculiar situation of the German aircraft industry... they sure would have *liked* to build engines more powerful at altitude (because they quickly lost the race up there), but they just couldn't due to the fuel and engine production situation. -- 145.228.61.4 (talk) 09:32, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: It's an "accurate" statement, whilst also being completely misleading.  Germany "had" 150 octane fuel – there was a small bottle of it somewhere at Daimler-Benz.   But they certainly couldn't deliver bulk supplies of it to combat aircraft. One of the reasons for MW-50 was that they had a lot more methanol available than TEL-based octane boosters. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:09, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  German 150 octane fuel? 

message: What do you people think of this.  I am researching aircraft performance in WWII, and I am reading up on superchargers.  I am a mechanical engineering technologist, and I did some engine dynamometer testing in college.
:A supercharger is a pump or blower that increases the volumetric efficiency of a piston engine.Applied Thermodynamics for Engineering Technologists --Third Edition, T.D. Eastop and A. McConkey, Pages 262 and 773.  Volumetric efficiency is the volume of air, at free air conditions of temperature and pressure, that passes through the piston engine on each power stroke, divided by the swept volume.  Obviously, the airflow through an engine is restricted by the air cleaner, the intake manifold, the valves, the exhaust manifold, and the muffler (if any).  When the fuel air mixture is compressed in the cylinder, the temperature increases.  This is basic gas behaviour, as described under Gas constant.  At some point, the ignition temperature of the fuel is exceeded, limiting the ability of a supercharger to increase the power of an engine.  Superchargers are particularly effective in aircraft engines in the lower pressures of high altitude.  For example, at 6000m (20000ft), air pressure goes from 101kPa (14.7psi) down to 47kPa (6.8psi).Fluid Mechanics with Engineering Applications, Robert L. Daugherty and Joseph B. Franzini, Page 544, Table A.5b 
:The ignition temperature of the fuel is affected by its octane number.  Water and/or methanol sprayed into the inlet air vaporises, sucking up heat, and reducing the inlet temperature, and the compressed temperature.  All of this increases the potential power that can be achieved by a supercharger.  
:
 Rolls Royce Merlin Power
Octane No.	Condition      	Max Power (HP)
87        	               	1150
100       	               	1800
100       	Water injection	2050
150       	               	2400
150       	Water injection	2650
: The table above shows the maximum possible power of a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, regardless of how supercharged it is.  This shows the effect of octane number and intake cooling.Mosquito, C. Martin Sharp and Michael J.F. Bowyer, 1995, Page 448  Adapting superchargers to this is a weird and wonderful process.
 
Does this sound like a more reasonable description of a super/turbocharger to people?  I think it is more accurate.  The description of aircraft supercharging needs work.  I have not thought through car engines.  Is it worthwhile to crank up the supercharger and assume the air cleaner and muffler are in place?  JHowardGibson (talk) 06:47, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Better Description of Supercharger???