Latest Car Turbo Charger

The turbocharger, or a just simply the turbo, has been around for just on 100 years. It was invented by Swiss engineer named Alfred Buchi in 1905 and was first used on diesel ships and locomotives from the 1920s. It was used on production airplanes from the 1930s and on trucks from the late 1940s. But it only found its way under the hood of a production car in 1962 when it was used on the Oldsmobile Cutlass Jetfire.

As a forced induction system, a turbo is nothing more than an air pump that is driven by the engines exhaust gasses. It consists of a compressor-wheel and a turbine-wheel that are connected by a common shaft. The compressor increases the density of the air that enters the intake manifold by forcing more air than what the engine would normally suck into the manifold. This higher intake air density than produces more power when combined with the correct amount of fuel. This is similar to the way NOS allows more fuel to be burned by providing extra Oxygen as explained by Ian. The major difference between NOS and a turbo is that the turbo provides a constant supply of extra Oxygen while NOS only provides a limited supply.