Hard Choice to make??

[ToP cAt]

Hey guys and girls!! Let me propose a question to you all(no i dont want to marry you lol). If you were given the choice between having someone install either a Turbocharger, Supercharger, complete top and bottom end work on ur engine, or Nitrous Oxide in your engine, which one would u perfer and y?? Personally I would definately have to go with dropping a huge turbo into my car cause I feel that the turbo would probably give me the best long term effect. What do you think?

[matt11583]

i would definately go with the turbo. it gives you a longer lasting burst of speed. nos will give you a big push for a second or two, but a turbo will continue to give you speed once it has spooled up.

[SaabJohan]

Turbocharger, it can deliver power when needed while still maintaining a low fuel consumption at part throttle.

Nitrous can only deliver power as long you have gas in the tube (how long that last depends).

[Auto_newb]

I would go N2O, I like to run NA, and when I need a little boost, it will be right at my finger tips, plus I don't have the same problems that sc's and turbos do.

[Tomeek]

exept that you go every week to refill... go with the turbo it is the better choice...

[Auto_newb]

The frequent trips to get them refilled are only as frequent as you use them... Who says I am gonna hold the button down all the time?

[beef_bourito]

if it were for racing applications, i'd go with the s/c, just for personal preferance, no lag(i no nowadays its very minimal) and it's easier to install.
if it were a daily driver, i'd go with turbo. It has better gas mileage and provide constant boost as opposed to N2O.
N2O would be a last install for me, do all the things that you can put on that will provide constant power then put the Nitrous because you have exhorted all other upgrades that wont make your car illegal or will make it extremely uncomfortable for daily driving.

[matt11583]

teh problem with nos it that all teh extra heat it makes in the cylinders in bad for the pistons. if you have stock internals it will eat away at them over time. turbos and s/cs dont add much heat. it will make the engine last longer

[Auto_newb]

Yeah right buddy, NITROUS doesn't make any more heat than a turbo or an s/c. A turbo makes waaay more heat than any other F/I.

Tell me, how does NITROUS make SOO much heat? As a matter of fact, nitrous is known to cool intake temperatures.

"turbos and s/cs dont add much heat"
Now that's just silly...

[SaabJohan]

If it were for racing and both turbo and supercharger were allowed with the same regs you basicly must chose the turbocharger if you want to stay competetive as it will offer more power and better fuel consumption, even if they are a little more difficult to drive.

Turbochargers and superchargers do increase the intake air temperature as they compress it. The highest intake temperatures can bee seen in high pressure superchargers of roots type (they have the lowest adiabatic efficiencies), if they are uncooled that will say.

It's common practice to use intercoolers so the intake temperature isn't that high with a forced induction engine. With a turbocharger the exhaust manifold and valves will also see a small increasement in temperature. Heat radiation is a different issue but that can be solved.

When nitrous expand (due to the high pressure in the bottle and the low pressure in the intake) it drops in temperature like all other gases (this is the opposite of compressing, and because of the same reason temperature rise when a gas is compressed), so the intake air becomes cooler. But when fuel is burned using nitrous the flame temperature will increase, from about 2000 degC to perhaps 2500 degC or so (forced induction doesn't affect the flame temperature). The flame speed will also increase (calls for a redardation of the ignition timing), but not by that much, which is not the case for pure oxygen, but that's also why nitrous can be used and pure O2 can't (O2 also boost the flame temperature even higher).
The higher combustion temperature also cause the engine temperature to rise (measured in the cylinder head), this problem is larger with nitrous than with forced induction, when the power increasement is the same.

[Auto_newb]

How would N2O burn anymore hotter than turbo/scs for the same amount of HP? They all shove in more oxygen by quantity and percent...

BTW, doesn't the nitrogen take away some heat?

[SaabJohan]

Different fuels and oxidizers have different combustion temperatures and flame speeds, when nitrous is used instead of air it increases the combustion temperature, my guess above is based on the temperature increase of using nitrous instead of air with a few fuels (I do however not have any values of gasoline with nitrous).

When using nitrous with air the temperature is lower than using pure nitrous but higher than for air, the temperature increases when the amount of nitrous do.

You can find more info about the effects of nitrous in this NACA report:
http://naca.larc.nasa.gov/reports/1945/naca-wr-e-199/

[97Tsi]

This is just a thought, I'm not trying to come down on anybody. I can count at least 4-5 threads in the Forced Induction Forums that pose the question "Turbo, Supercharger, or NOS". Shouldn't people do some reading before they post a question, I'm sure guys like saabjohanson and sluttypatton get tired of answering the same questions. But like I said earlier, that's just a thought...

[97Tsi]

sorry, meant to type saabjohan. But those are just a few of the names i see frequently in this forum