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      HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPONENT INFORMATION
                     PRT. 1
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 COVERING: Nitrous Oxide, Turbochargers, Superchargers


This guide is for basic coverage of high performance components,
in this guide you will learn about Nitrous, Superchargers, and
Turbochargers. This is in no means a complete guide, this is
designed simply to get you to understand some of your options 
for your car and how these components work.

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                           TURBOCHARGERS
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ALSO CALLED: Turbo, Sea Level Actuator

Turbocharger is one of the big options when upgrading a car's
performance. Turbochargers weigh little, but can increase a
engines horsepower by up to 150% with supporting upgrades!

A Turbocharger is located between the intake and the engine, the
purpose of the turbocharger is to force more air into the cylinders
allowing for horsepower. Typical turbo will push about 4 to 8 psi
into the engine. With upgrades such as a manual boost controller you
can up the boost, and in most cases the computer unit in the car will
also push more fuel into the cylinders. The higher the boost the 
bigger the performance.

A Turbochargers best friend that is a required component is called
an Intercooler. The intercooler is located before the turbo and its
main function is to take the air from the intake and cool it so when
it hits the turbo and the air goes into the engine the air is much
cooler resulting in greater compression.

If the boost is turned up too high you can run into what is called
fuel cut, in which the car's electronic system will NOT deliever
fuel either A) because it can't support it or B) it will not because
of danger to the engine. This doesn't always happen, it can in 
extreme cases result in a blown engine.

 >> TURBOCHARGER DRAWBACKS <<

Turbo Lag: Problem with turbos is it takes the turbine a little bit
to start spinning, so running your engine from idle and guning it
your turbo may not kick in until somewhere around 2500RPMs or higher.
Size is usually what determines turbo lag...a bigger turbo will give
your car incredible speed, but will take longer to kick in. While a
small turbo will kick in at a lower RPM but won't provide as much boost.

The solution to turbo lag is what's called sequential turbos, but you
cannot put these on MOST cars with out heavy modifications. Sequential
turbos is when a driver puts a small turbo in front of a large turbo
allowing the small turbo to kick in at lower RPMs and having the large
one kick in at higher RPMs. This is the best solution for turbo lag 
other than a supercharger..which will be talked about later.

Alternatively you can swap out the turbine with a Ceramin turbine blade
which is lighter...which leads to a quicker spool.

Fuel Effeciency: This isn't a big issue with smaller turbos so much as
it is for the performance hogging big turbos. Since a turbo sucks in
more air into the cylinders, the ECU must keep up with the demand and
add more fuel..this of course leads to less fuel effeciency. Large
turbos such as the 20G can eat gas pretty quickly.

Intercooler: At some point in upgrading you will probably need to 
upgrade the intercooler which is a realitively expensive product in
aftermarket upgrades. Eventually you'll want the turbo to push harder
and the demand for cooler air will be too great for your intercooler
to handle..hence you may be giving more cash out for a new intercooler
than you might have planned.



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                            SUPERCHARGERS
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The turbo's sidekick superchargers are another vital upgrade option. 
The difference between a supercharger is very little, a supercharger
uses a belt that connects directly to your engine and will get power
through the same means as an alternator.

Superchargers big advantage is that there is no lag like turbochargers
and the installation is much easier..however at the same time it uses
the car's useful power, while turbo's will use wasted power.

Superchargers are more expensive than turbos, this is probably one of the
little used upgrades that some people take.

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                            NITROUS OXIDE
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Alternative Names: NOS, NO2

Think of nitrous as a short-term turbocharger. When injected into the engine
the heat from the combustion chamber causes nitrous to break into both oxygen
and nitrous oxide...the result? More oxygen means more fuel which equals more
horsepower.

    NOS TYPES

Dry Nitrous Oxide: This system works by injecting dry nitrous into
the air intake where it changes into gas. The fuel injection system is now
fooled into supplying more fuel into the engine, which gives you the extra
temperary boost in performance.

Wet Nitrous Oxide: Nitrous and fuel are injected into the air inlet
through a common nozzle. Fuel and air mixture is distributed normally through
the fuel injection. This system is best for turbocharged applications.

Direct Port Nitrous Oxide: This is the most effective type of Nitrous Oxide.
The Nitrous is hooked straight into the intake ports through individual 
nozzles and is on a per cylinder basis. This can also be the most dangerous
since it has the highest potential and in a engine not ready for it, could
result in serious engine damage.


© paranoidxe 2003 - 2004