How much will a turbocharger or supercharger effect fuel efficiency?
category: Fuel Economy
For those of you that have either upgrade in their car, how much is your fuel efficiency effected? If I buy an RSX or a Celica and opt for either option how much will my regular 26 mpg and 28 mpg respectively be effected by each upgrade. I understand that more fuel will of course be needed. But exactly how much for the average drive?
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The change in fuel economy on any car with any type of forced induction will change but you have a choice if it is for the better or worse. Forced induction adds power by forcing more air into the combustion chamber and the way you tune it makes all the difference. You can tune it to massively boost the horsepower or to help your gas mileage. Its all your personal preference, power or economy.
a supercharger will use more gas than a turbo because the supercharger is belt driven off your engine and the turbo is run off the exhaust, if you keep your foot out of the turbo your gas mileage should go unchanged.
Your fuel efficiency will actually increase. You’ll get more miles per gallon and more horsepower with the use of a turbocharger and inner-cooler. The added pressure of the turbocharger will fill your combustion chambers with air far above atmospheric pressure.
Either way expect around a 30% decrease in mileage.
No you will not in any way shape or form get better gas mileage with either – impossible.
More power comes from burning more fuel – gasoline in this case – period!!!!!!
And also consider that you will now need “premium” gas – probably 92 octane or higher.
But you cant have everything!!!!!
Added power comes from simply burning more fuel – it can’t be done any other way.
Consider a N2O kit – I say this because they “ONLY” work when you flip the switch and turn it on – the rest of the time your car runs just like before.
Hope this helps but it’s the honest truth!!!
As you seem to know based on your question, turbo or super will always suck a little power from your motor to run them. I checked the page below to compare the 2nd gen Mitsubishi Eclipse’s 2.0 turbo v. 2.0 non turbo motors. It’s not a perfect comparison by any means because they were actually different motors and not just one with a turbo and one without, but at least they were from the same car and were both the same size.
HOWEVER — Dude, once you get a power adder, theoretically your mileage might only go down a couple MPG at best, but that’s assuming you don’t floor it all the time! What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you put a supercharger on your RSX? Try to see how good the fuel economy is? Yeah right! You’re going to burn rubber all over town. Keep that in mind when considering this option.
At full throttle a 2.0 liter turbo Eclipse pushes through enough air and corresponding fuel to power a 5.0 Mustang, so expect results more along the lines of a V8; like 18-20 mpg or after you get used to having the extra power, maybe 22mpg at best.
Btw, the page below is kinda confusing and doesn’t really explain the models well, so I kinda guesstimate that turbo (premium fuel) is 25 highway mpg and non-turbo (regular fuel) is 28 or 29 highway mpg. So that’s a 10-15% efficiency loss there.