Can any car be turbocharged ？

First of all, one thing is for sure: not all cars can be fitted with a Turbocharger.

The benefits of a turbocharged engine:

The biggest advantage of a turbocharger is that it can greatly increase the power and torque of the engine without increasing the engine displacement. Generally speaking, the power and torque of the turbocharged engine  should be increased by 20%. -30%

Each turbocharger is designed especially for a specfic parameter engine, That's not a random and simple thing.

The following is a simple and straightforward explanation why you can't just add a turbocharger to your vehicle, if your car is not originally a turbocharged one.

1. The function of the Turbocharger is to increase the power of the engine, change the power curve of the engine, make the engine's power, throttle response better, and output torque greater (especially in plateau areas).

2. If a Turbocharger is installed, after the power curve of the engine is changed (the power increases), the original design parameters of the engine cannot meet the requirements after the Turbocharger is installed, especially the engine strength, in-cylinder compression ratio, the heat load far exceed the design limit, the engine will have high water temperature, the piston will melt, and the gearbox will also face increased torque, increased gear load, and reduced life.

3. It is recommended not to install a Turbocharger casually.

Besides, Turbocharging places high demands on the vehicle's intake and exhaust system. Not only adding a turbo, but also need to install the intake pipe, etc. Moreover, the requirements for the engine are relatively high, and the compression ratio needs to be increased. Not all cars can be modified like this.

If you are interested in the topic of Perfect Matching between Engine and Turbocharger by exploring deep in research, you may continue to read below contents.

Turbocharger and engine matching overview:

1.In general, the matching between the engine and the Turbocharger has three aspects. 

The matching between the engine and the compressor side, the matching between the engine and the turbine side, and the matching between the compressor and the turbine sides. If subdivided, it should include: the compressor of the Turbocharger, the exhaust turbine of the Turbocharger, the exhaust pipe system of the engine, the intake system of the engine, the intercooler, the air filter, the muffler, the intake and exhaust , operating condition parameters, environmental parameters, etc.

2. The requirements of the engine on the compressor

The compressor is required not only to achieve a predetermined pressure ratio, but also to have high efficiency. That is, the higher the compressor efficiency, the lower the air temperature at the same supercharging pressure, the higher the density of the supercharged air obtained, and the better the supercharging effect.

How to evaluate the matching of engine and compressor:

• Compressor MAP and characteristic curve of the engine at each speed. The matching situation can be seen by superimposing the gas consumption characteristic curve of the engine and the characteristic curve of the compressor.

• The characteristic curve of the engine should pass through the high-efficiency area of the compressor, and it is better to make the running line of the engine parallel to the high-efficiency iso-efficiency circle of the compressor. For automotive engines, the maximum torque point is required to be located just around the highest efficiency region of the compressor.

• The gas consumption characteristic line of the engine has a certain distance from the surge line of the compressor. Otherwise, if the engine air consumption characteristic curve is too close to or even intersects the surge line, surge may occur during combined operation.

Generally, the distance that the air consumption characteristic curve of the low engine speed is required to leave the compressor surge line, that is, the so-called surge margin is about 10% Gcmin (surge flow).

3. The requirements of the engine on the turbine

•  The turbine has high efficiency in the entire operating range of the engine.

• The turbine has a suitable flow capacity to ensure the power required by the compressor.

4. The balance conditions of compressor and turbine are:

• The rotational speed is equal, that is, nc=nt.

• The flow is continuous. For a turbocharger operating alone, the gas mass flow through the turbine should be equal to the sum of the compressor flow and the fuel when there is no leakage in the pipeline, that is, Gt=Gc+Gf.

• Power balance, when the turbocharger is running stably, the output power of the turbine is equal to the sum of the power consumed by the compressor and the mechanical loss of power, that is, Nt=Nc+Nm

5. Evaluation requirements for good matching conditions between turbocharger and engine

• The engine is in the high-efficiency area of the compressor within the operating range, and there is a certain margin from the compressor surge line.

• Excessive exhaust gas temperature does not appear within the engine operating range.

• The turbocharger speed ntc within the engine operating range does not exceed the limit value, nor does the supercharged pressure appear to be too high to cause the Pmax value.

• The intersection point of Pc and Pt on the engine load characteristic is located in the low load region, and the lower the better.

• The Turbocharged engine can achieve the predetermined power, economy and smoke level and other indicators, especially the low fuel consumption area of the universal characteristics is wide, and the low load range of the load characteristics will not cause too high fuel consumption.

To test whether the Turbocharger matches the engine, two points are needed in the general direction.One is to see whether the compression side of the Turbocharger matches the engine, and the other is to see whether the turbine side of the Turbocharger matches the engine.

Compressor MAP (Verdichterkennfeld)

Only need to know that the red is the engine full load characteristic curve (Motorvolllastlinie), the black dotted line on the right is the surge line (Pumpegrenze), the black boundary above is the speed boundary (Drehzahlgrenze), and the red line exceeds or is close to any boundary. The damage to the engine and engine is great.

Turbine MAP (Turbinenkennfeld)

Red is still the engine, same as above, can not exceed the upper and lower boundaries.