Turbocharger

Turbocharged engines came into existence to remove the big, heavy, air polluting and low power producing naturally aspirated engines. Turbocharged engines are called turbocharged because of the engine component called Turbocharger. What is a turbocharger?? This question might have already struck to your head. It is a turbine driven forced induction device which forces extra air into the combustion chamber to increase efficiency of the engine. The main difference between a supercharger and a turbocharger is that turbine in a supercharger is driven by the belt which is connected to the crankshaft whereas in turbocharger the turbine is driven by the exhaust gas.

What makes it more effective than the naturally aspirated engine? The naturally aspirated engines solely depend upon atmospheric pressure to force mixture of air and fuel to the combustion chamber. That means if the atmospheric pressure decreases the amount of mixture of fuel and air forced into the chamber decreases reducing the efficiency of naturally aspirated engine. In order to produce more power, naturally aspirated engine had to become heavier and bigger (i.e. had to have larger capacity combustion chamber). To overcome this problem, turbocharger was introduced. They would force more air to the combustion chamber and proportionately more fuel, which increased the efficiency of the engine. This allowed smaller and lighter turbocharged engines to produce equivalent torque and power as that of larger and heavier naturally aspirated engines. It was first used to meet emission norms in North America. Now-a-days most of the modern car uses turbocharged engines.