Uninformed automotive tinkerers and racers often view power adders as though bigger is always better; turbochargers and superchargers move air, and the bigger the air source, the more volume it can move, right? In this case, that’s only right some of the time, and there’s plenty of science, mathematical calculations, and pure common sense behind that.
Tim Coltey of Garrett Advancing Motion, one of the perennial players in turbocharging in the high-performance street world on up to the professional drag racing ranks, has assembled a multi-part article series outlining how to select a turbocharger for a given application.
Coltey dives in to wheel versus crank horsepower and parasitic loss and their relationship, matching the turbo to the vehicle’s purpose — autocross and drag race turbos have much different needs, as an example — single and twin-turbo applications, standard and reverse rotation configurations, and more in part one of this series.
Beyond the article (but mentioned within), Garrett possesses a number of resources to assist in your research, including set features on its website based on horsepower, displacement, and compressor inducer size, turbo spec reference data, and a Boost Adviser tool. And of course, Garrett’s customer service team is always available to assist customers in naming the right choice for their needs, the first time.