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Comment by seabrookmx | Hacker News Reader

Correction: they're turbocharged not supercharged. For those that don't know the difference, a turbocharger is two turbines connected to eachother. One, powered by exhaust gases, spins the other, which forces air into the combustion chamber (the pressure applied is typically called "boost"). More air means more fuel can be injected while maintaining stoichiometric equilibrium. More fuel combusted means more power is produced, given equal waste due to friction etc.

A supercharger is very similar, but conceptually more simple. The turbine creating boost is instead connected mechanically to the engine's crankshaft, being driven directly by the engine.

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To be fair, the turbochargers in contemporary F1 cars are not powered only by exhaust gases. To get rid of the infamous turbo lag, they are electrically assisted. Still not a super charger of course, but the "assisted" part makes them a bit more similar.

I tend to think of this system as a sort of twincharger, because the compressor is driven by a turbine and an electric motor.

And to nitpick, all turbochargers are superchargers. Their original term was a turbosupercharger. It was later renamed to turbocharger. :)

The poor mans equivalent of this is hooking up a decent computer fan to the battery on a scooter. Force feeding the intake on the poor little thing certainly felt like it doubled the power, but double almost nothing still isn't much. Turboing the lawn mower works great too, but I'm less sure you would want that done.

Does it actually work? I might try it.

Very much so. Get the a good fan and make as tight a seal as possible between it and the air intake.

Thanks! I have to try it.

That is not supercharging. A computer fan is not designed for compressing air, and it's nowhere near powerful enough to do so. There may be a small increase in performance, but that is just because you overcome the restrictions (increasing airflow) in the inlet manifold

The so called 'electric superchargers' which you can buy on ebay have been mythbusted many times [0]

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbGWgvJN1_8

I think I rememeber seeing someone hooking up a highly modified leaf blower to the intake of a car and getting like a dozen more HP. This was a part of a bunch of experiments with the electrics turbos, and the the leaf blower was the only thing that worked?

Yup, it takes not only high pressure, but a high volume of air. Add to that the need to squeeze more air through existing small ducting, and you need quite a bit to make a difference. Turbos work by their intake being powered in close relation to their exhaust volume. The rest is just effeciency curves and fueling issues.

Roadkill did it with both multiple leaf blowers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U81_0waqEWA) and a full small block Chevy engine on a trailer supercharging another one in the car (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPMBR-imqUk).

That sounds more like a variant of cold-air induction.

I recently saw a comment on HN linking to a company that creates very neat animations of how various things work [1] and they happen to have done one on turbo vs superchargers [2] -- it's a pretty good way to see it.

[1] https://animagraffs.com/

[2] https://www.tyroola.com.au/supercharger-vs-turbo/

Which highlights the other major difference between a turbocharger and supercharger:

Superchargers used in automotive applications are, typically but not always, Roots-type blowers.[1]

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roots-type_supercharger

To be super pedantic a turbocharger is technically a subset of superchargers (something that "supers" the charge) having turbunes (for the work needed to compress/accelerate the air)

That may have been turbosuper pedantic.

Pretty super pedantic, agreed.

But the OP wasn't technically wrong, so I bring it uo

The part compressing the air is not a turbine but an impeller.

Correction: they are both super chargers

An exhaust driven bladed fan type compressor turbo supercharger is shortened to turbocharger, and

a direct engine driven positive displacement compressor super charger is shortened to supercharger.

God damn, that was a fabulous explanation. Brings back my mechanical engineering memories!

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