Touch My Ass

Pat and I seem to be having another debate. I say turbo vehicles are not greatly effected by elevation as much as N/A cars. Pat seems to believe turbos are effected just as much as N/A cars are.

Does anyone have any hard hitting facts on this debate?

Heres a quote from Jeff gringas

"Yes, a turbo motor keeps the same power at altitude just as you suspect.

Generally the wastegate is activate by pressure. If the turbo is set to give
10 lbs. of boost than it will boost up to that before activating the wastegate
and bleeding off boost. In less dense air the turbo will work a little harder to
create 10 lbs. of pressure but it will do that. You may notice more lag at altitude,
but it will get there.

This is assuming the manufacturer has a standard setup."

So basically, a turbo vehicle will make the same amount of horsepower, the only downfall is a little turbo lag. Whereas a N/A has nothing to help it feed more air. It just chokes at high altitude.

This makes sense.. argue this one Pat!

Jay_SB

Seriously, you're smokin some crack. Any car will suffer altitude loss. Turbo's may not suffer quite as much, but it'll still hurt.....

Touch My Ass

it will be effected just as much as N/A Cars.

AdamD

or something like that where a turbo becomes pretty ineffective. I read this somewhere in the past month or so and will see if I can find it. SuperCharged and NA motors are affected immediately (as a supercharger is rpm driven so it won't make up for lack of boost). A turbo will make up for the lack of boost to a point and then will also lose power.

System_S4k

turbos NEARLY as much as N/A engines.

Touch My Ass

With say... a T3/T4 turbo you can go up a little higher.

Altitude cutoff greatly depends on the size of the turbos and the efficiently range.

System_S4k

Exactly.

Pat-SoCal

and a 10psi turbo car compressing thin air.

Sorry, but turbo cars eat the scooby doo just as bad as NA cars. It was half a second for myself.

System_S4k

With turbo cars it depends on the turbo and engine, but it is generally much lower.

Pat-SoCal

When a turbo goes out of its rpm range where it is efficient it starts to produce heat. Simply stated: the altitude where a turbo has to spin past its efficient points of opperation is the altitude at which the compressor starts producing hp-draining heat to supply the motor with its required positive pressure.

The altitude "cut-off" has to do with ambient temp, barametric pressure, humidity, and finally the turbo.