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Superchargers – A guide to supercharger kits benefits vs disadvantages

Superchargers offer the promise of substantial power gains with very few drawbacks. So lets look at the growing popularity of supercharger kits and see what its all about.

A supercharger is quite simply an air compressor which helps push more air into an engine. These are driven by a belt from the engine effectively creating pull on the engine sapping up to 30% of the engines power.

Suspension settings, lowering and stiffening

On the track your priority is fast cornering and suspension plays a large part in this. Track conditions are quite forgiving and you can make some compromises like using hard suspension and lowering the car for optimum aerodynamics and a low centre of gravity.

This works well because tracks are fairly flat and you do not have a carrier bag full of eggs in the car from your return trip to the supermarket.

Benefits and drawbacks of engine water injection systems

You’ve finished tuning up your engine but you find that at full throttle the engine splutters or stalls. When you get the car on a diagnostic you find that the knock sensor is kicking in to protect the engine.

Engine knock is a condition where the fuel inside the engine ignites prematurely and occurs within an engine running at high compression. (It can also be caused by other factors including low octane/poor quality fuel or hot spots within the engine.)

Particulate filters and FAP Performance gains.

The particulate filter is a stand alone unit. It is located upstream of the cat in the exhaust system and its purpose is to remove soot particles from the gas stream. The cat the proceeds to do its usual job of converting CO to CO2 and is in no way dependent or relied upon by the particulate filter.

In diesels the cats are two way devices and run in unregulated mode (ie. no O2 sensor like a petrol car).

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