Was just looking at this discourse on superchargers/supercharging and it
reminded of asupercharged  engine I ran into in my aviation days. It was found
on the Lockheed (as I remember) ?Super-Constellation, which had four engines.
The engine designation was a Pratt&Whitney R-3350-T. This engine was a
monster. It was an assembly of 4 banks or 9 cylinders each, bolted together
to  a common crankshaft. The exhaust system was a stainless steel collector
system that ran together forming three common exhaust point. At those points
were located 3 turbines driving superchargers for the fuel induction system.
Having these three "Turbosuperchargers" resulted in a 33% power recovery from
the exhaust.

33% recovery would be nice on the WBX!!

John Rodgers
88GL Driver

Andrew Grebneff wrote:

> >Techincally, a turbo charger is exhaust driven, a super charger is
> >mechanically driven
> >Mark
>
> No no no!!! Any form of increasing the inlet charge is a supercharger.
> Nitrous oxide is a chemical supercharger. There are various totally
> different types of belt-driven superchargers, and these can also be driven
> by shaft or geartrain (or even fluid coupling, though I've never heard of
> that last being used). Turbo, a contraction of "turbosupercharger", is
> merely an exhaust-driven supercharger. And don't forget that fluid drives
> and linkages (turbos, hydraulic brakes) ARE mechanical...fluid mechanics.
>
> Maken no difference whether it's driven by belt, shaft, gear or fluid
> (either liquid or gas), whether it uses vanes, gears, scrolls or turbine,
> it's still a supercharger.
>
> And HERE is where the adage of popular (mis-)usage defining the definition
> falls down. Technical (and even more figorously so, scientific) terms are
> static; use a technical term incorrectly and it's abuse.
>
> Andrew Grebneff
> Dunedin, New Zealand
> VW & mollusc nut
> 1969 Kombi with Corvair 2.4 & Powerglide
> 1975 Kombi derelict ex 3.6 Toyota V8
> 1984 Caravelle 3.8 Holden V6
> 1984 Mitsubishi Galant Sigma 2.0 (FWD)
> 1986 CE80 Toyota Corolla 1.8DX diesel
> 1989 CT170 Toyota Corona Select 2.0 diesel