I am a newbie to the newsgroup and wonder if anyone could explain how the turbo charger on the Forrester XT works. I just bought a new 04 XT and my friends keeping asking me to explain its function. If anyone could help, it would be greatly appreciated.
turbocharger, supercharger, they all do the same thing. compress and and shove more air into the engine, and therefore burn more fuel, and thus more power. turbocharger uses the exhaust pressure to drive the turbine that force-feed more air into the engine, whereas the supercharger, i think, is driven by the engine itself. so turbocharger is almost like a free lunch - no additional power used/lost to drive the turbine - but you have to "spool up" - build the exhaust pressure for it to do the work, and therefore the turbolag.
because turbo compresses air (and fuel mixture) more, it needs higher octane gas so that the air/fuel mixture does not pre-detonate. also, higher compression ratio stress the engine more.
most of the performance hack done on car is basically get the engine to suck up fuel/air at a higher rate, so that it burns more and pumps out more power. i'm no performance freak, but that's what i know (performance experts: feel free to correct me/above).
hope you enjoy the car - i hear it's an awesome ride.
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