Does anyone have any info on the TRD superchager for the Scion? I've heard that it's scheduled to be here in January, blah blah....the same stuff everyone knows, but I just heard from a TRD rep today that there isn't even one in production! Is this true?! I know a lot of people have been waiting for it because the implications that it wouldn't void warrenty, but it looks like it isn't going to happen, unless this guy is jacking us! I just can't believe the they wouldn't build one, especially with all this hype!

 

I have a friend that worked for Rod Millen for awhile anways he is into TRD pretty tight so I will ask him if he can find out. Otherwise I will just drive over there and ask myself there right off of redhill. We should just all show up there and demand they make one..Sound like a plan?

 

the trd rep is going to say nothing until it is officially announced. so anything you heard is inside info and not official. that's why there are 2 different answers about the supercharger kit. i'm sure it will be available eventually.

 

The TRD SC for the Matrix was announced a year ago, and it is finally out now. I heard that the problem was with the smog issues or something to that effect. TRD may or may not be prototyping a SC for the Scion, it just depends if they think it will sell. After all, the Scion is CA only until next year.

I was figuring on the Blitz SC myself.

squirrel

 

I'll be going to the SEMA show the first week of Nov. I'm planning on talking to them directly so that's one of the first questions I'll ask. If they don't plan a blower, I'll ask what the plans are for more horsepower.

 

i have been assured by my TRD guy that in fact the sc is undergoing emissions testing as we speek ... but until it comes out you never know

 

Isn't it true that TRD is going to be alot more conservative on the power increse to ensure the life span of the engine on their super charger than other after market turbo kits? The price probably will be equal to ro higher than other AFtermarket kits... No? I am still leaning on getting the Blitz kit...

 

tuning? all that can be changed. the physical unit is what costs most of the money. you can always retune your ECU to get more power from a conservative factory setup.

 

do we really want the parasitic drag of a supercharger on a 1.5L engine? never had a supercharged car b4... all my cars were 4 bangers and i always figured turbo's were the way to go

 

parasitic drag? but do you think turbos are nothing but free flowing?
do you understand how a sc works? both use forced induction, but taht force has to come from somewhere!

l. garcia

 

I'm sure someone will make higher boost pully for the TRD S/C once it comes out. Just add that, with a CAI, Header, Cat back exhaust and an S-AFC II with some good dyno tuning and I think you got yourself a nice bump in power :twisted:

I know the TRD Camry/Solara 1MZ-FE Supercharger is set to push 4psi, but there are 5.5, 6 and 7psi pullys available for it,

And the 4Runner/Tacoma TRD S/C is set for 7.5psi, but I know of 2 people who run a 13psi pully with it.

 

From what i've seen so far in Japanese production kits, SC's seem to be making more HP than Turbo's for the bB. But since there seem to major problems with the SC's fuel management in Japan, and there aren't kits of either one done so far in the US, we'll just have to see.

 

parasitic drag. that's funny.

let's talk about engines. i've been reading up on this crap so here is some stuff i've learned...

in a normally aspirated 4 stroke engine, approximately 1/3 of the energy produced by the engine is used to power the engine and make power. the rest of it is dumped out the exhaust as raw unused energy. pretty stupid, huh? so some genius got the idea to route the unused energy back to the engine so make it more efficient. but it didn't help that much. then someone figured out if you compress that exhaust gas and shove it back into the engine, you can get a lot more power. you can use half of the exhaust gas to power the turbine unit and the other half to make power which will go to your engine. by playing with the sizes of the intake and exhaust turbines and controlling how much you will let the impellers spin (via a wastegate), you can fine tune how much power you can provide for your engine.

why do we use intercoolers? you don't always need an intercooler. it depends on how hot the air coming out of the turbo gets. with low boost applications, and some drag applications, an intercooler will only slow you down. the cooler the air going into the engine, the more you can compress into a small space, which will expand when it warms up in the engine. however, the time it takes for the compressed air to travel to the intercooler via piping and back out into the throttle body is sometimes so inefficient that it makes the turbo setup almost worthless. a better alternative for our cars may be to run a turbocharger with the output air going straight to the thottle body. of course, the turbo will be small and the boost pressure will have to be less than .5 bar at sea level, but it will work well.

supercharging is similar to turbocharging except instead of using the wasted exhaust gas to power a turbine, the system uses a belt driven compressor and uses power that is also going to the wheels. the reason the supercharger works is because like a turbo, it compresses air and forces it into the engine, making it much more effective than running without a supercharger, even though it has to take some power away to make more power. you see some supercharger setups with intercoolers which are just like the turbo setups. you cool down the hot air to increase efficiency in some cases.

some testing will have to be done to see which works better on the 1NZ-FE. there has been much speculation as to which is safer and more effective. offhand i would say the supercharger is safer and more reliable, but the turbocharger will have more options for tuning and will potentially provide more power, although it will not be as safe as the supercharger because the more you push the engine to make power, the hotter it gets and heat is the engine's worst enemy. heat and friction actually. but friction makes heat. anyway, that's my view on forced induction. i think a lot of people like to throw out how they are going to turbo their car, or do engine swaps but they don't have any idea how it all works or why it works. this is why you end up with expensive turbo kits that aren't as efficient as they could be with just a little tuning and better layout.

 

Actually a supercharger might be the better for this engine especially if the owner is not going to open it up and strengthen the lower end{ie new pistons , rods , crank}. The reason is rpm. A supercharger is always linked to the engine , it provides boost in perfect correlation. For instance if the engine revs up 10% then the supercharger is giving 10% more. However it can only go as high as the engine can go. Turbos on the other hand can spool much further than the engine can rev and thus can provide more boost at higher rpm than a supercharger{however this puts an enormous strain on the engine and especially the lower end}. Superchargers have a hugh advantage at low rpm though , a turbo is dependant on exhaust gas pressure and speed and at idle it is very low thus the turbo is not spinning fast enough to provide much boost. The supercharger on the other hand is providing good boost at idle and thus when the throttle is opened it goes , the turbos tend to lag{even the newer improved versions have not eliminated this problem completely}. Top fuel dragsters use superchargers - why? - because they need the power the very instant that light turns green and then to follow all the way through. They are not going to be at full rpm for very long and thus by the time the turbo is giving it's best - it all over anyway. {yes I know many in the sport compact class of drag racing are using turbos but they are huge and higly modified for that task. The NZ engine in the Scions is poor at low rpm torque , a supercharger will help , a turbo will not. Superchargers tend to be better at daily driving than turbos and so this is a good way to add power. They are much easier to fit to a car and tuning them is not as difficult. All in all I think for daily use the supercharger would be the better choice.

 

Great bit of info from Eric M , thanks. I would add that the supercharger was developed first and was used on cars as early as the late 20's by Mercedes and a few others. A few years later it was showing up on a few American makes like the Duesenberg and Auburn speedster. Turbos were developed shoertly there after but were primarially used for aircraft engines only{almost all air engines durring WW2 were turbocharged and a few with multi-turbos}. After the war turbos were played with on cars but due to various problems were not very sucessful{turbo lag , low octane fuel and the heat problem}. When they started being used in race cars they worked well , due to they kept up the rpms and used a higher octane fuel than was available at the pumps. But with the era of the high compression V8 monster engines , higher octane fuel was made available. Turbos then started showing up on a few higher end and mostly European cars. As it stands now almost all racing{except stock car and drag} use turbo charged engines. There are a multitude of sizes of turbos from small to large to huge , then there are differing aspect ratios on the impellers , then there are the hybrids where you combine differing sizes of compressor{intake side} and turbine{exaust side}. If you want to put a turbo on your car but have not a clue - read up and as much as you can then unless it becomes crystal clear and you know how to use the mathmatical formulas you should be able. Other wise get the assistance of a experienced pro. Bet now you wish you had paid more attention in algebra class - you should see all the formulas needed for figureing out turbos. There is a book in print right now called "Auto math" , it has all the formulas for turbos and for every other mod you can make to an engine. Now a word to the unknowledgable , superchargers do remove some of the power from the engine to turn them but they more than make up for it. Turbos do not but they produce way more heat and are prone to failure if nor properly maintained{turbo timers are part of that maintaince}{superchargers don't need them}. I have been tinkering with various thinks and in my searching around came across an old engine/pump design. Originally set up for producing mechanic force from steam{engine - turbine} or pumping fluids by electrical power{pump - compressor}. However the great thing is that this design is 90% effecient. An impeller design turbo is only like 70%. It has fewer and less complex parts and is not prone to the failures associated with impellers. I refuse to disclose anymore than that as I hope to produce a working design for sell in the future.

 

Well, this sounds bad, but it is thermodynamically unavoidable. Without going through a semester course in thermo, it is hard to explain, but suffice to say that all engines work on the principle of moving heat from one temperature (the fire) to another temperature (the outside environment). In the process, some of that heat is converted to work to make the car go and the rest is discarded to the environment as heat. This is how it has to be.

Turbochargers and superchargers do not recycle "waste" energy back to the engine. All they do is allow more oxygen to be stuffed into existing cylinders so that the engine can burn more fuel and therefore make more power. This can be a good thing, as the engine/turbosupercharger combination is often lighter and or simpler than the larger engine that would otherwise be needed to produce the same power. Superchargers draw energy directly from the crankshaft, while turbochargers draw energy from the pressure drop in the exhaust system. Note that even a turbocharger puts an additonal load on the engine, since the increased pressure on the upstream side of the turbine has to come from the pistons during the exhaust stroke.



What you are describing here is something like a gas turbine that uses a conventional piston engine as a compressor and combustor. This has been experimented with in aircraft (during WWII), but not to my knowledge in automobiles. The engineering involved in linking an exhaust driven turbine to an automobile drivetrain is pretty hairy!

Warms up? The air spends a few milliseconds in the engine, so the process is adiabatic in there! All that matters is getting the most oxygen into the cylinder per cycle. You can do this by increasing the boost, but the high termperatures that result often cause detonation or simply put too much heat into the cooling system. Intercoolers are a "band aid" solution that is often required with existing engines.

Any time you increase power, you are going to increase waste heat, since heat must be discarded in order to make the engine work. You will not get any additional efficiency with a turbocharger or supercharger. Either will require more fuel to make more power. You canna' change the laws of physics!

 

thanks for clearing that stuff up george. i do feel that the exhaust that comes out of the engine is wasted if it just dumps to the atmosphere, and i also feel that modern engines are strong enough to handle the extra pressure and heat from compressed air being forced into the engine, as long as it is done in the right amounts. i am obviously not a physics teacher or scholar and i am still learning how it all works, but i do think that it is odd that a lot of people seem to know how everything works, yet they would never attempt to design an actual turbocharger system and install it on their car.

if you guys are so smart, why is it not being done? the car has been out since june and so far no one has made and documented a working turbocharger system that is worth taking pictures of and sharing online. seems like knowledge wasted to me. i barely know anything and i think i'm going to try and do it, and then when it fails i'm going to have all you guys telling me how i should have done it after the fact. so i'm going to ask everyone now for their opinions on what size turbo they would run, if they would use an intercooler or not and if it should be top mount, front mount, or side mount, and how much boost is safe and if the compression should be lowered a little to keep things safe? i already have ideas for how the manifolds will work but any input would be cool. i know a lot of companies are coming out with kits for $2500-$4000 but i know i can do an entire kit for much cheaper than that. will it work? i have no idea, but it's worth a shot. by closely monitoring and logging EGT, A/F ratios, oil temp, and boost pressure, i think i can do it safely. for tuning i will use the stock ecu with my SAFC for adjusting fuel levels and i will get a device to advance or retard timing if needed. thanks for your help you guys.

also, i know a supercharger is a great idea and will work wonderfully, but that's not as fun of a project for me. so i'm going to do the turbo thing since no one else is coming out with something i can buy yet. if you guys help me design something that safely makes 30-40% or more power over stock, which might be possible...then i think we have a cost efficient setup that will be a fun project and also might be able to be sold to whoever wants it for a really low price. and after i get it working and in a few cars, maybe someone can help improve the design and we can end up with an awesome setup that wasn't produced by some company that is basically just in it to make money.

 

Well, yes and no. If the turbocharger replaces some other exhaust component (like a muffler) so the backpressure remains the same, then it is essentially free. If the turbo raises backpressure then you lose the energy needed to push the pistons up against the greater backpressure.

In general, you are correct for passenger car applications. If you only use the forced induction to improve transient performance (for short times only) it will probably not affect the engine as long as you stay within factory design parameters for cylinder pressure, fuel delivery, etc. OTOH, if you use the power continuously, as in climbing long steep hills you will exceed the capabilities of other systems, such as the cooling system.

I know how it works, and I could probably design a turbo system, but I also know that it would take a _lot_ of work to do it properly and retain drivability and reliability. It isn't just a matter of plumbing the components together and firing it up! People are sometimes shocked at the cost of a turbo system as compared to the actual components, but don't realize that most of the cost is in the design, not the nuts and bolts.

In my case, the car is plenty fast enough stock. I don't want to put in 500 hours designing and fabricating a system so that I can save 3 seconds getting to the next stoplight!

I recommend that you get a good textbook on engine supercharging or turbocharging, such as those by Corky Bell. The info you get there will be far more reliable than that you can get from random lurkers like me. Doing a "learn as you go" forced induction design is a very expensive and time consuming proposition!

George

 

i saw some pics of the PE supercharger, looks very cluttered, unlike the TRD superchargers....the PE looks more like turbocharger plumbing

 

i'm reading the designing turbochargers book by corky bell right now. and my friend bought an intercooler off him after reading his book. the guy is a genius. i just thought some of you people here would have good info for me. especially since everyone is a genius on the internet.

BTW, i am not brand new to turbocharging and working with engines. i've been working with mechanical devices my whole life. i have a BS in automated manufacturing and have worked with robotics and lasers for the last 5 years. i've helped build custom turbocharger systems and i'm still learning about engine building but it's not like i'm some dumb kid who is like "i'm gonna build a turbo and go fastar weee" or whatever. i might not even do it. 500 hours seems too long. i don't think it would take me 100 days to do it if i worked 5 hours on the project every day after work. the fundamentals have already been established. i'm going to do what the japanese do and just copy someone else's ideas and make them better. might work.