Supercharger vs. Turbocharger

Hey, welcome to a rather unique edition of horsepower. This time as we focus on an age old question,

which is better super charger or the turbo charger in terms of cost ease of installation and of course performance.

Now we don't plan to settle the argument, but we can show you comparable installations side by side of each.

Then you can make up your own mind.

Both are forced induction systems, they compress the air flowing into the engine and more air means that more fuel can be stuffed in too.

So you get more combustion in each cylinder.

The key difference is the power supply

in a super charger. It's a belt that connects directly to the engine like other accessories. A turbo charger gets its power from the exhaust stream which runs through a turbine that spins a compressor. Ok. The super chargers first on this 2009 Camaro with an L 99 engine.

The 6.2 L V8 makes 426 horsepower at the fly wheel with a manual trans

400 with an automatic like this one.

We're installing a Magnusson MP 2300 PBS for a prick blow specialty.

We start by removing the PC M which will take a plane ride to Magnusson for reprogramming.

Now we need to drain the coolant

but we'll save it for reuse. Later

next, the engine cover comes off

along with the passenger side vent tube.

Now the air inlet tube

and go ahead and get rid of it because it won't be used again.

Then after a series of disconnections including the coolant hoses, injectors

and other electrical connections,

the entire OEM intake assembly comes out

here are some important steps

vacuum the valley cover

and clean the heads with alcohol or a similar solvent to eliminate oils and residue

finally cover the ports with tape.

Now take out the air box and filter

but go ahead and save them for later.

Now we can disconnect the radiator hose, leaving the t fitting intact and just move it to the side

up. Next disconnect the fans and pull them out

using an impact wrench, removed the main harmonic balancer bolt.

We can finish up here by installing a new harmonic balancer bolt and torquing it to specs

the heat exchanger with two hoses connected installs in front of the radiator.

The hoses have to pass through two holes in the splash shield, then we can finish installing it back up on top.

Now time to reinstall the fans

up on the engine, we have to remove the coil packs along with some more pieces, but they're all in the books. So you don't need me to explain them

to give us clearance for the super charger. We have to remove the plastic wire loom covers from the coil packs themselves

with that handle. We can transfer the throttle body

and map sensor to the super charger and I'll tell you what.

We're not too far away from firing up. Our first ever fifth generation blown Camaro

after we bought this fuel supply manifold to the fuel rail

and install the supplied oing

gaskets. The blower is ready to go on

spray the head surface lightly with a little soapy water. This will allow the unit to slip into position without damaging the gasket.

There we are

next, we can reconnect the fuel injectors,

remount the coils and connect them on each side of the engine.

This new fuel line attaches to the stock fuel supply barb and to the fuel manifold on the supercharger.

Now cut the blue and tan wires on the mass air flow harness and attach to the intake air temp sensor located in the supercharger.

Ok.

After installing a new tensioner pulley comes the two man job of routing the new belt by pushing the idler

pulley inward.

The air filter and air box can go back in place. Now

then on the other side, it's time to install the intercooler pump to the frame rail.

Next using a bracket from the kit. We can install the reservoir onto the passenger side coil bracket,

the heated water from the inner cooler under the supercharger goes to the reservoir where it's pulled by the pump

into the heat exchanger. Now, this is where it gets the cool outside air

and it's sent back to the inner cooler to cool the incoming air charge.

And Matco makes a couple of tools to make this job a lot easier. One is this hose cutter

and this one, now, this guy is our personal favorite. It's a ratcheting hose, clamp plier. Once you attach a clamp to it,

it allows you to open it up so you can slide it around on the hose. Then once you slide it in place, you push the release lever, it tightens down on the hose and that's it.

And that's it for our plumbing.

Now, with our ECM re flashed and back from Magnusson, we can reinstall it and make connections.

Next, we need to remove the positive lug nut from the fuse center and install the wire from the intercooler pump wiring harness,

zip, tie the harness relay to the factory harness,

then connect the yellow wire from the new harness to this ing fuse to give the pump power from the ignition.

Now, time to connect the new air inlet tube from the air box to the throttle body.

And at this point, we're ready for fluids. First, the coolant mixed we remove from the car goes back in the radiator.

Then we fill the inter cooler reservoir with a 5050 mix of coolant and deionized water.

That's it for the super charger installation. Now, there were a lot of steps but the kit was well put together and that's why we didn't have any fitment issues. Now, if you're the type of guy that likes to do your own work in your home garage and you've got a little bit of mechanical common sense. You can do this job in about a day. Now, there is one little problem I have the super charger looks awesome sitting on top of that L 99. But the coil packs and the injector harness, they're pretty ugly, but there's nothing, a little cosmetic surgery can't take care of.

I marked and taped the factory engine cover so I could trim away the large middle section

with a few other modifications. We've got a set of custom covers that add even more. I appeal to the blown L 99

after priming the fuel system with the Kon

engine off. This thing fired right up on the first crank.

Later, we'll compare the power output to a turbo charge. Challenger.

Hey, welcome back. You just saw the installation of a super charger on a late model Camaro. Well, now time for the turbo

it's going on a 2010 Challenger S RT belonging to a friend of ours. You might remember Ted Stevens of Stevens performance.

Stevens is not only an avid collector. He's helped many a Chrysler car come back to life. Thanks to old parts that are harvested and recycled for restoration projects.

In fact, we turned to Ted almost 10 years ago for help with a cooter project for our show.

The guy who stole the show though was Rex Howard.

Now, Rex's official title is Dismantlement technician. We found this once

who drop my right.

Ted's new challenger is a bit bulkier and taller than the 1970 model.

But the styling lines all echo. The original

for power Ted's 70 model has the fame 446 pack rated at 390 horsepower.

His new challengers got the king of the hill 6.1 L hemi

that makes 425 horses. We're using a Hellion power systems kit with 58 millimeter turbines turbos. But first a baseline

367 is our best number.

You guys happy with that.

You

not bad for a car with leather seats.

So we got a cool car, a solid baseline, a new turbo kit.

Some great company. All you need is some more horsepower. The turbos that came with the Hellion kit are capable of 25 pounds of boots, but with the motor being stock, we're only gonna run five of those. Now, something else that's really cool about the Hellion kit. This charge pipe that goes up to the throttle body is the only thing you're gonna see in that engine compartment. Everything else goes underneath. So I think we agree. We're talking about the ultimate sleeper.

We also have to unbolt the fuel rails to remove the eight stock injectors and replace them with the larger 52 pound injectors from the kit

with the alternator pulled forward for clearance.

We remove this factory pipe plug above the oil pressure sending unit and replace it with this t fitting to feed the turbos.

While we're up here, we can also install this fuel pump voltage booster on the driver's side strut support cross member,

then remove the firewall Grommet so we can run our wiring harness through it.

The replacement plugs from the kit have a solid core that can handle a lot more heat.

You ever found any snakes out there?

Yeah.

Yeah,

I like that one day. I

needed to say that man didn't get his part that day.

He didn't.

Now on the underside, the entire exhaust system has to go. You

know,

first thing to go in here are two air cleaner hoses that will connect to the Turbos a little later.

The Ford and Chevy guys will get to see the Challengers tail lights, but of course, they won't get to see how pretty these things are because they'll be hidden.

Now, Hallion shifts these Turbos as Syd

on what they call a pot here. And as we told you earlier, each is 58 millimeters and that's determined by the size of this inlet on the compressor.

Here's something cool.

The factory heat shield that insulated, the catalytic converters now provides heat shielding for the Turbos.

And since they're so close to the headers and the exhaust supply

that'll make for fast efficient spool up. Each turbo has to be clocked so that the oil feed is vertical,

then they can be cinched down.

When that's done. We can connect the two air cleaner hoses to the turbos with clamps.

Remember how earlier we install the t fitting to the engine?

Well, it's here so we can connect the lines that'll feed the oil to the turbos.

Now is a good time to mount the inner cooler in front of the radiator using supplied brackets and factory bolt holes.

When turbos are mounted in the engine compartment, they usually sit up pretty high and the oil used to lubricate them drains back into the oil pan. But since these turbos sit so low, they're gonna need some assistance. And that's what this catch tank and this pump are used for that come in the kit. Now, the turbos drain back into this catch tank and the pump pulls oil from it and pushes it back up to the valve cover where it's returned to the engine. The first thing we need to do is mount the pump.

Once again, we get to use an existing bolt hole this time on the factory K member,

the tank mounts to a bracket that's attached to the turbo.

Now we can run hoses to each unit.

All right, rex, we're gonna prime this thing. Go ahead and put that hose in the oil

and here we go.

There he goes to the bar.

That's it.

That's all. Now that we've got the system primed, we can connect this hose to the tank along with the sensor.

Then with a blow off valve attached,

this hose goes up to the throttle body.

Next, we gotta pull the back seat out to access the fuel pump, wiring. This is how we wire in that fuel pump booster we installed earlier.

Of course, for everything to work. The onboard computer has to know what's going on.

And the kit includes a programmer loaded with a motive of performance tune.

Well, guess what? That's it for the installation, which in real time takes you about 12 hours with the help of a buddy.

Now we got all the floods back in. We've even changed the oil and TED, I don't know about you, but I wanna hear this turbo

hemi

Honk a little bit. How about you? Fire it up? All right, Mike. Do it.

I think so too.

Welcome back to horsepower. Well, now we have two late model muscle cars with two different power ADDers.

Now, it's

dyno time.

I should point out that each got a mandatory header and exhaust swap. Well, the Camaro is going first and it belongs to another friend of ours, Andre Smith who's offensive lineman for the Cincinnati Bengals in a lifetime Camaro fan.

There's your car?

Hey, that everything's nice. Are you good.

Oh, yeah,

I'm

a new stock Ss Camaro with automatic transmission, makes about 335 at the rear wheels. We'll consider that our baseline 427

after several runs though. 429 is about the best we can get

good, but we should make more

out here. So, while Mike troubleshoots,

it's my job to keep Andre happy. This is all the marbles.

Well, it turns out we got our wires crossed with Magnusson who sent us the street tune flash for the computer.

So Mike's using their handheld programmer

to put the bad boy performance tune in it. It'll pick up a little more now.

All right, reset the play clock. We're back in action

now. We're getting somewhere 441.

But come on one more run before the game clock runs out.

That's it. 448 horsepower.

I think we're there. 451 ft pounds of

torque. Camaro.

Thank

you. I appreciate it.

Game over.

I absolutely think

impressive results. But now it's the challenger's turn.

Well,

466 that's 100 and one over the baseline. Yep,

100 horses wrecks

like that.

Yeah.

Let's let it cool down and make another one though. Sounds good.

484 horsepower, 497 ft pounds of torque.

Gentlemen, that's some horsepower and torque. I tell you, I think we're there. I think we're there.

That's almost 100 and 20 horsepower over stock. A slight horsepower advantage has to go with the Challengers Hellion kit. Although that kit cost several 100 bucks more than the Magnusson.

However, in terms of ease of installation, it's a draw.

Each kid had well illustrated, easy to follow instructions

and except for the Camaros Flint, them, there were no alterations involved.

So I guess it's just too close to call with these two projects.

Safe to say though both are making gobs of horse power.

Now, with room for making much more

blue has always been the traditional color of shop towels. But around this place, we've gone two tone using the Scott shop towels and these red white balls for everything from parts to hands to. Well, you name it.

They're convenient absorbent and strong. Well, here's a white ball we soaked in water.

I'd say that's pretty strong and they're reusable as well.

Did you know a warn crack spark plug wire could be the cause of that dreaded check engine light coming on in your car. Well, if that's the case, you need to swap these out for new ones and while you're at it, swap the plugs out for some of these

eres with their diamond fire technology. Now, we've found more horse power and reduced emissions during test in our dyno cell. Plus they've got a 100,000 mile warning. So you'll probably never replace them.

We all have to take the heat now and then, but it's the cold your engines, fuel system hates. That's why heat and iso

heat. Here are the number one products for fuel line and a freeze and water removal. Plus they'll prevent rust and corrosion and even clean your injectors at the same time. Well, you get all of these parts at your local parts store.

If you're serious about the looks of your street machine as you are the performance, you ought to check out this 19 piece o

cleaning system

from classic industries. Now it's full of their secret formula products for interior exterior wheels and tires and even has cleaning tools. Oh, the bus,

it is not only good for storage, it has a grid guard insert that filters out contaminants so your wash water stays clean and scratch free. Now, sold separately, this stuff would set you back about 265 bucks, but

you can get it for 200 as a system and find it on our power block TV website.

When it comes to cleaning up spills in your shop. Here's a way to go green and maybe do a more efficient job.

It's called Nature's broom. And the manufacturers claim it cleans up five times more effectively than those clay based kitty litter products. Let's test it out.

Ok. Here's some old motor oil.

According to the instructions, we pour on the spill, work it in with a stiff bristle brush like so.

And when the floor surface is dry, which is right away, we're ready to sweep up the Use Nature's room in a dustpan and dispose of it. Maybe even reuse it.

Ok. And freeze is a little tougher spill, but use the same method. And

before you know it, it's safely discarded,

this $5 bag goes a long way. Or you can get the big guy for 10 bucks both at your local parts store. Well, this show is in the bag. We'll see you next time.