Know About Turbos

If you are seriously interested in Turbo performance you at least need to know its basic working system. This article is dedicated to the turbocharger, ultimately the most powerful of all forced induction systems.

The turbocharger is one complex little piece of work, at least until you get familiar with it. Turbochargers are a type of forced induction system. They compress the air flowing into the engine for a description of airflow in a normal engine. The advantage of compressing the air is that it lets the engine squeeze more air into a cylinder, and more air means that more fuel can be added.

Turbo obviously functions as a single piece, it is commonly broken into these three sections for easy conversation.

COMPRESSOR SECTION:

Any centrifugal supercharger is basically just the compressor section of a Turbo, the only difference is that on a turbo, the turbine section of the turbo drives it, in the supercharger application, belts, pulleys and internal gearing drive the compressor. Generally turbocharger compressor sections are smaller than their supercharger cousins. This is due to efficiency and the method powering the compressor. Turbo's spin faster at a given RPM, so the centrifugal supercharger must be larger to compensate for the slower speed.

Turbine Section:

This section is very similar to the compressor section, only backwards. This is because it has the same function...just backwards/reversed from the compressor. There are two main parts. The housing and the wheel. If the turbine has an internal wastegate, the waste gate also resides here (more on that later). As hot exhaust gasses move out of the exhaust port into the exhaust manifold, they are routed to the turbine housing's scroll (function of a turbo manifold). If you can understand the flow of air through the centrifugal compressor design discussed earlier, it's basically the same, only reversed/backwards. The hot and rapidly moving exhaust find an airflow path through the turbine housing, with the ever decreasing scroll area, they come in contact with the turbine wheel on their way to the center outlet of the housing. They rush through this airflow path and into the exhaust down pipe; they spin the turbine wheel, imparting kinetic energy to spin the turbine. The turbocharger itself is not physically strapped to any rotating part of the engine. This allows different turbo shaft speeds a single engine RPM, which how a turbo systems performance characteristics and tenability come from.

>Center Section (bearing section):

The center section is the most complex of the three sections. Inside the center section is the shaft that connects both the compressor and turbine, and where ALL of the cooling and lubrication takes place. The main shaft undergoes a great deal of pressure, RPM/Speed, heat and friction. The center section is engineered to deal with these factors. The most common and also the most basic center sections use what's called "thrust bearings" to keep the shaft spinning, oil flowing from the engine to both lubricate, and coolant flowing to cool the unit. The water-cooling helps reliability helps stabilize/lower temperatures within the center section, and in the oil that flows through the center section, and prevent oil coking in the housing. There are just oil lubricated/cooled units, but you wouldn't want one! The newer design is ball bearing center sections. Ball bearing center is both more durable and more efficient at transmitting power to the compressor wheel, making it better for performance and longevity.