Supercharger
What is it?
A Supercharger is a unit which is bolted onto your engine and is driven by a pulley on your crankshaft, the crankshaft turns the pulley on the supercharger which draws air in via the filter/air box and though a finned chamber inside the unit which causes the air flow to be smoother, forced induction. The faster the crankshaft spins/engine revs the faster the pulley will spin meaning the more air is sucked in and forced threw to the induction manifold therefore creating more power. Most superchargers have an intercooler in the system so it also cools the air before entering making a better denser air/fuel mixture (I.e. bigger bang).
What are the advantages of having a Supercharger on my ride?
The benefits of having a Supercharger fitted to your vehicle is the power is right at the end of your feet whenever you need it. The power is available as soon as the engine starts running so no waiting for the turbo lag to disappear and kick in to work the supercharger is instantaneous. The Performance, with power rises of up to 50% on a good condition engine you will have a healthy amount of power available to you,
What are the disadvantages of having a Supercharger on my ride?
The problems that occur with Superchargers are they use engine power to drive them so you will lose a small amount of bhp to run the unit itself were as a turbo uses exhaust gases to run on. The other down side is that some makes of Supercharger need overhauling (rebuilding) at a certain mileage due to oil seals leaking/belts breaking. If this happens your whole engine will need rebuilding as the parts get sucked threw into your engine, creating all sorts of problems!
What is the Legality of having Throttle Bodies on my ride?
If you fit a supercharger to your vehicle you have to let your insurance company know of the change and how much power it has made on top of factory spec. Other than that as long as its not harming you or anyone around you there is no cause for it to be questionned.
So can i just buy a Supercharger and bolt it on??
Indeed you can buy chargers in kit form just to bolt on with nothing else needed if thats what you want.Some good manufactorers like bbm/g-lader come with an installation cd.
Although this may well be an option it is always best to know what your doing when fitting a Supercharger to your ride. If you are thinking about having a kit fitted you should always speak to a specialist before hand as you dont want to break your engine!
HINT!!!
Our advice to you before you buy one of these is make sure your vehicle is healthy and it has had a good service history (cam belt, oil changes, etc) because when you put a charger on a vehicle that didn't have one originally your causing a lot more load and stress on the engine so something may fail in the near future, otherwise carry on and enjoy!!!
Tech Content Supplied by:
MV Developments are a recently launched VW specialists in Cambridgeshire. So if your a vee dubber and you want your car lookied after by the specialsits then give MV Developments a shout!