Feed The Beast

Does driving up even the mildest inclines make your truck work overtime? Do you avoid steep trails for fear of not making it up all the way? Do even subcompacts pass you by on the road with impunity? Don’t you wish your truck had more power? Well, look no further, there’s a fix for that. Adding a supercharger or turbocharger to your ride could be just the answer to your truck’s power-output woes.

The advantages of a forced-induction engine over a naturally aspirated one are no secret. There’s an unquestionably better power-to-weight ratio, it’s more efficient, and forced induction significantly improves performance at high altitudes.

An internal-combustion engine is basically a big air pump that takes in air at one end, and blows exhaust out of the other—with a byproduct of work, of course. An engine is considered “naturally-aspirated” if it operates using incoming air at normal atmospheric pressure (14.7 psi at sea level, or around one bar) and no external compressor. Therefore, there is generally a vacuum condition within the intake manifold of a naturally-aspirated engine. You can greatly improve the performance of a naturally-aspirated engine by adding forced induction to it. Read more about it here