Turbo Charging or Supercharging?

[Guinney1971]

ok here's one then.

I've never been a fan of turbos, but I'm intrigued by superchargers. As a few of you know, I work for Mercedes, and a few years ago they ditched the idea of turbo charging in favour of superchargers (Kompressor).

Now a Mercedes C180 Kompressor puts out around 170hp, which I think is pretty good for a "1.8" litre engine.

Which got me thinking.....can the PRV be supercharged easily? Is there an 'off the shelf' supercharger or would one have to be specially engineered to fit the car?

Its just an idea at this stage, because I still want to respect my car for what it is, which is a 25 year old GT and not an Impreza Basher....but.....if it was a reliable way of giving the car a bit more acceleration and mid range torque without risking the engine too much or getting too complicated, then it could be an interesting concept.

Anyway, for anyone going to Knebworth tomorrow, see you there about 10am - we're bringing the gazebo, plus hot dogs, tea and coffee, so that's lunch sorted anyway :lol:

[stunned_monkey]

It's an argument that's as old as eithe ridea :-) There is no "better" solution, they each have there benefits and problems.

A supercharger is parasitic, but a turbo generates lots of heat and has a complicated exhaust

Put simply, forced induction on a stock DeLorean engine is difficult because you need to be able to play with ignition timing and fuelling relative to boost.

HOWEVER

That's exactly what our EFI setup will allow, and that is a bolt-on upgrade.

The compression ratio is certainly in the range that suits a supercharger. for modest levels of boost. There're some excellent inexpensive chargecoolers out there now too.

[Chris Hawes]

If supercharger weighs quite a bit more than a turbo then that would also be another reason to avoid them as you don't want to degrade your handling... (assuming the difference in weight is enough to be noticeable.

I wonder how Blownaway handles and who now owns it...
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Custom-S ... dZViewItem

[Jonny Jones]

Quote:I wonder how Blownaway handles and who now owns it...
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Custom-S ... dZViewItem

WOW! :o

[MikeH]

no1 won teh bid, and for $8,000 theres something up with that bigtime

[Chris Hawes]

No bids, reserve not hit, no sale!!!

[Guinney1971]

I think he sold it privately, as it says the "item is no longer for sale" on ebay.

Mind you, thats not a stock D engine, its a 4.3litre Chevvy V6

Even if a supercharger does weigh more then a turbocharger, I'm interested in finding out some info on superchargers as I dont like turbo lag or the heat generated by them. Also, didnt someone say years ago that the PRV was never designed for turbocharging? (obviously by the time the R25 Turbo, Alpine and 760 Turbo's appeared they must have sorted that somehow).

Bugger it, I'll dump the lot, and get a nice fat engine with lots of carburettors :lol: (or totally freak Rich out and put a diesel engine in it! haha) :wink:

[Pilot25dmc]

I would not laugh at the idea of a diesel Delorean just yet!!

There is someone mad enough over here with a surplus of Deloreans that is thinking of doing it :roll:

Expect to hear something soon.......

[stunned_monkey]

The PRV is an excellent block for turbocharging. The standard DeLorean engine isn't, more for reasons of fuel and ignition than of internal strength (a certain Mr Bowker certainly isn't "god" any more :-) - that title belongs to a bloke called Kevin who has built his own 600hp turbo 3 litre using a standard odd-fire crank and 3 litre block). Stock DeLorean pistons will take a modest amount of boost, especially from an intercooled supercharger which will be quite cool, but fuelling and ignition are critical, and very tough to do with K-Jet

To put a super on the DeLorean engine you can shift the AC compressor down to the bottom left using R25 V6 ac mounts, and run a serpentine belt over that and up to the top and stick a supercharger there. The free-flow exhaust should clear the ac comp.

Volvo 760 turbo is a 4 cylinder engine - Volvo never used the PRV with a turbo. Peugeot and Citroen went 24v and Renault did the turboing (which I always read as "tur-boing" rather than "turbo-ing") hehe

Martin

[Rottbott]

I'll be going for a supercharger just to avoid turbo lag. With the EFI set up to clear extra space in the engine bay, and to make the supercharger addition much more simple to do. Then I'll be doing fun things with a computer and touchscreen in the car connected to the brain in the engine. I love having an older car because there's so much fiddling potential compared to new cars.

Carburettors? Shudder. How horribly mechanical.

[stunned_monkey]

A supercharger runs off a belt so it has to go somewhere at the arse end of the engine. All the space created by the efi manifold is up the back. Annoying, isn't it? :-) Still, it gives the chargecooler somewhere to live!

Rob, you have a raft of choices to make then :-) Do you want to efi and boost your stock engine, or run a proper EFI forced induction lump? Interestingly it'll be cheaper and easier to EFI your stock engine and if you blow it up, all the important stuff is transferrable to a "proper" forced induction engine.

The only issue in all this is whether the cam profiles are good for forced induction. The real pain in the bottom is the cams from the Renault turbo engine are transferrable to the odd-fire engine in every way except the drive gear for the distributor.

Before you write off a turbo as an option, I would recommend a spin in the GTA we just did.... and after completing that work, I realised that we can achieve results that certainly won't embarrass by spending a lot less. So that £8500 on the website is way out of whack, and it's looking like a sub £5000 price tag now.

Martin

[Guinney1971]

carburettors are sooooooo simple....and no horrible computers to balls things up (computer says "no") or am I just totally showing my age here.... :wink:

yes they can be an arse to balance, but hell, thats half the fun - at least the Cav's only got the one carburettor (plus that and Rapey have manual chokes) - I can just about hear everyone on hear under the age of 25 going "what's a choke?" lol :lol:

Joking aside Alistair, I said somewhat in jest ages ago when I had my Megane dCi's about bunging a torquey diesel engine in a D, then you get the best of both worlds - good performance but also a bit of fuel economy too....(Rich fainted at this point)....anyway, its late, my brain's fried........... :?

[stunned_monkey]

Renault 21 TD's used the same gearbox....

I'll admit I've never worked with carbs, though everyone tells me how great they are, I can only assume it's like my love of being able to drop to DOS on my computer if I want to say "you bloody well WILL work!". This is where Rob faints...

Certainly the GTA Atmo pees all over a DeLorean and has the same engine with carbs.

[Chris Hawes]

Single turbo, poor exhaust note, sounds completely stock. Lots of chrome.
Is that a NOS injector in blue along the top I wonder?

http://videos.streetfire.net/search/del ... 276323.htm

The following car has the tell tale single tail pipe...
http://videos.streetfire.net/search/del ... fda67f.htm

[bozzzydmc]

Chris Hawes Wrote:Single turbo, poor exhaust note, sounds completely stock. Lots of chrome.
Is that a NOS injector in blue along the top I wonder?

http://videos.streetfire.net/search/del ... 276323.htm

The following car has the tell tale single tail pipe...
http://videos.streetfire.net/search/del ... fda67f.htm

Tappety tap tap tap.... gee my lawnmower sounds more powerful than that .......