Looking for the ultimate in per-

formance for your Honda engine?

If you want reliable horsepower for
the streets or record-setting horse-
power for the strip, chances are that
forced induction will be a part of
the equation. On the street, forced
inductionby means of a turbo or
s u p e r c h a rgercan deliver power
figures that are in excess of most
full-race, naturally aspirated pow-
erplants. In full-race trim, boosted
motors can generate more power
than even a well-built, bottle-fed
(nitrous oxide) bullet. To ensure
that you buy the best system for
your needs the first time around,
weve outlined the basics of
increasing horsepower, the physics
behind forced induction and the
latest information on the available
turbocharger and supercharger sys-
tems for your Honda.
More Power
No matter what anyone has told
you, the fact is there are only four
ways to increase horsepower gen-
erated by the engine at the fly-
wheel. You can: reduce the amount
of horsepower lost to friction,
increase the engines displacement,
increase the rpm potential of the
engine or increase the average
cylinder pressure by combusting
more air and fuel in the cylinder.
Lets take a look at the four meth-
ods to see how we can apply them
to a Honda powerplant.
As for reducing the amount of
horsepower lost to friction, theres
little that a tuner can do except use
engine lubricants with friction
modifiers. Since there are so many
of these on the market, it helps to
heed the advice of people at tuning
shops that have dyno- and field-
tested the products. In any case,
Honda engines are mechanically
efficient, so dont expect dramatic
gains from switching to a different
oil or using an additive.
Speaking of additives, we all
have heard the V8 camps mantra
"theres no replacement for dis-
placement." While this saying is
far from the truththere are
many ways to add horsepower
without increasing an engines dis-
placementthe fact is, all other
things equal, a larger engine can
digest more air and fuel so more
power will be made. Is increasing
an engines displacement easy to
do? With the exception of swap-
ping the original engine for a big-
ger one, increasing engine dis-
placement in a Honda requires
oversized pistons and/or longer-
stroke crankshafts. Either process
requires disassembling the engine
and machine work which means
down-time for your cruiser (this
a i n t no afternoon bolt-on).
U n f o r t u n a t e l y, longer- s t r o k e
crankshafts will increase piston-to-
wall side-loading, resulting in
increased engine wear and more
stress on the connecting rods and
crankshaft. The longer stroke also
results in higher piston speeds that
may result in a reduction of your
Super c har gi ng vs. Tur boc har gi ng
Whi c h i s best f or your Honda?
By Mi c hael Fer r ar a
1 Courtesy of HONDA TUNING / Summer 2000
maximum safe-level redline. In
any case, reliability is sacrificed
unless the best parts available are
used, and of course these parts are
far from being free.
High-quality internals are also
on the "must-have" list for increas-
ing the rpm potential of an engine.
In very simplified terms, a 1.5-liter
engine spinning at 10,000 rpm can
generate the same horsepower as a
3.0-liter at 5000 rpm. Many other
factors need to be taken into
account, but when the engine com-
bination is optimized, more rpm
means more horsepower. The criti-
cal engine components that deter-
mine the location and size (narrow,
broad) of an engines powerband
are the camshaft(s) and cylinder
head.
On engines using a fixed cam
profile, (non-VTEC), an engine
with cams designed for high-rpm
power generally loses some low-
end torque. Although this may not
be a chief concern for a race car, a
street-driven car needs to have
good low-end torque for normal
driving. On VTEC motors, multi-
ple cam profiles allow the engine
to produce good low-end torque
without sacrificing high-end
power.
Modifications made to increase
the average cylinder pressure in the
engine also result in making more
power. How do you increase the
pressure within a cylinder that is a
fixed size? By getting more air and
fuel to combust within the cylinder.
Supercharged and turbo-equipped
engines make more horsepower by
forcing additional air into the
engine that can be mixed with
additional fuel. Combusting more
air and fuel in the cylinder increas-
es the average cylinder pressure in
the engine. With more pressure act-
ing on the piston during the power
stroke, additional force drives the
crankshaft, generating more power
at the flywheel. Depending on the
type of supercharger or size of
turbo used, additional power can
be realized in all or part of the
engines power band.
Forced Induction Basics
All mechanisms designed for
forced induction have the same
goalto force a greater mass of air
into the engine so that when addi-
tional fuel is added more horse-
power can be made. The major dif-
ference between a turbocharg e r
and supercharger is the power
source of this mechanism. A super-
charger uses horsepower from the
engines crankshaft to spin its com-
pressor while a turbo uses the ener-
gy in the engines exhaust gas to
spin its shaft.
Positive-Displacement
Supercharger
There are two basic styles of
s u p e r c h a rgers: positive displace-
ment and centrifugal. Each type
has its own advantages and limita-
tions. Also referred to as Roots-
type units, positive-displacement
superchargers are classified as such
since every revolution of the blow-
er pumps out a fixed volume of air,
regardless of the blowers rpm.
The result of this is that boost
comes on in an instant. With this
family of superchargers, the
amount of boost is dependent on
the blowers size, the engine size,
percent of over-/underdrive, rotor
clearances and the volumetric effi-
ciency of the engine. As blower
size is increased, boost pressure
also increases. This results because
the blower is pumping a greater
volume of air than the engine can
ingest, so the air not making its
way into the engine is put under
more pressure.
The size of the engine also
affects boost level. As an engines
size increases, boost pressure drops
because a greater percentage of the
air displaced by the blower can
make its way into the larger engine.
On positive-displacement blowers,
boost can also be adjusted by vary-
ing the pulley sizes on the engine
and blower.
In addition to the already men-
tioned factors, the breathing ability
(volumetric efficiency) of the
engine also affects the boost level.
Engines with ported cylinder
heads, healthy camshafts and after-
market intakes will register a lower
boost level than a stock engine.
This is because the modified
engine breathes as if it were a larg-
er stock enginefrom what we
already know, a larger engine low-
ers the boost level. In general, pos-
itive-displacement supercharg e r s
are unmatched in the area of boost
response.
2 Courtesy of HONDA TUNING / Summer 2000
As for limitations, positive-dis-
placement superchargers do not
match the adiabatic efficiency of a
centrifugal supercharger or tur-
bocharger. As a result, charge air
temperatures for a particular boost
level on an engine are typically
higher than the same engine with a
centrifugal supercharg e r.
A d d i t i o n a l l y, positive displace-
ment superchargers are usually
incompatible with intercooler sys-
tems and the benefits that these
systems can provide.
For Hondas most popular
engine platforms, J ackson Racing
offers a supercharger system. This
bolt-on system uses an Eaton posi-
tive-displacement supercharg e r.
This Roots-type blower is the pre-
ferred choice of many OEM vehi-
cle manufacturers due to its
durable design. Its durability is the
result of close-tolerance, CNC-
machined rotors. These rotors are
epoxy-coated for extended service
life. The oiling system for the
s u p e r c h a rger is self-contained,
making installation straightfor-
ward. A unique by-pass valve
reduces the load on the supercharg-
er under part-throttle. Making the
authorities happy, the systems fea-
ture 50-state legal certification.
Centrifugal Supercharger
Originally introduced by
McCullough (which is now
Paxton), centrifugal supercharger
systems have become the backbone
of the late-model (5.0 and beyond)
movement. Today, Paxton, Vortech
and ATI ProCharger dominate the
centrifugal blower market. Due to
the lack of complete centrifugal
supercharger systems for imports,
finding a centrifugal supercharger
under the hood of a Honda is about
as likely as finding all your tools
after someone borrows your tool-
box.
Although both are classified as
superchargers, a centrifugal blower
has a substantially different boost
and performance curve than a pos-
itive-displacement supercharg e r.
Unlike positive-displacement
units, which provide the same air-
flow regardless of rpm, centrifugal
units provide airflow proportional
to the superchargers speed. The
effect is usually characterized by
not realizing full-boost redline. If a
centrifugal supercharger uses a
pulley combination to generate 4
psi of boost at 4000 rpm, it will
produce 8 psi of boost at 8000 rpm.
Many consider this gradual boost
curve to be the biggest drawback or
limitation of a centrifugal super-
charger. On traction-limited cars,
this isnt necessarily a problemin
fact, it can be a solution to tire-
spinning problems. In the real
world, the gradual boost curve
could translate into better traction
on traction-limited, front-wheel
drive street applications. On a pos-
itive note, centrifugal supercharg-
ers benefit from high adiabatic effi-
ciencies and can be teamed with an
intercooler system for additional
performance and increased reliabil-
ity.
If youre interested in building
a custom supercharger system
around a centrifugal supercharger,
give the manufacturer a call to see
which supercharger is needed to
generate your target horsepower.
Also, you need to let the super-
charger manufacturer know which
way the supercharger will spin
when mounted on the engine since
the rotation direction of a Honda
engine is unconventional (counter-
clockwise). As more and more tra-
ditional companies address the
import market, we expect to see
centrifugal supercharger systems
for Hondas in the future.
The Turbocharger
If there is one alternative to dis-
placement that V8 owners fear
most, its the turbocharg e r.
Essentially two machines in one, a
turbocharger is both a compressor
and a turbine. Like a supercharger,
a turbo has a compressor element.
Rather than drive the compressor
with a belt, a turbo drives the com-
pressor with its second component:
a turbine.
Whats a turbine? Long before
steam engines, people harnessed
Mother Natures energy resources
to help do the work. By placing a
paddle wheel in a flowing river, the
wheel could be used to spin a shaft
connected to other mechanisms to
mill grain. A turbine works the
same way as a paddle wheel. In
fact, think of a turbine as a paddle
wheel for hot gases instead of a
flowing river. Instead of flowing
w a t e r, a turbine uses the hot
exhaust gases that flow out of your
engine.
The hot gases are channeled
through a turbine housing which
speeds up the flow by acting like a
nozzle, and shooting gases against
blades of the turbine wheel. This
causes the mounting shaft of the
turbine wheel to spin. Since the
same shaft mounts the turbine and
compressor wheels, the compres-
sor wheel spins at the same speed
on the compressor side. Rather
than pulleys controlling the speed
of the compressor, modern tur-
bocharger systems use a wastegate
to regulate boost pressure. T h e
wastegate reads the boost pressure
at the intake manifold and opens its
valve to maintain boost at a con-
stant level. The valve channels
exhaust flow away from the turbine
3 Courtesy of HONDA TUNING / Summer 2000
wheel to regulate the shaft and
compressor speeds.
How does a turbocharg e rs
boost response curve compare to a
positive-displacement and a cen-
trifugal supercharger? A t u r-
b o c h a rg e rs boost curve falls
somewhere in between the two.
The sizing of the turbocharger has
a dramatic effect on how early or
late in the powerband the turbo
reaches its peak boost level. Once
the engine reaches the rpm where
the turbocharger produces peak
boost, its boost curve performs like
a positive-displacement super-
c h a rger keeping boost constant
until redline.
As for efficiency, the compres-
sor on most turbos edge out both
centrifugal and positive-displace-
ment superchargers. Turbochargers
are easy to team with an intercool-
er, and "intercooled-boost" is the
ultimate in performance and relia-
bility.
What Is Boost?
In forced induction applica-
tions, boost is a measure of the
pressure of the air in the engines
intake manifold. As this pressure is
increased, a greater volume of air
will be pushed into the cylinder
when the intake valves open.
Increasing the boost level of a
s u p e r c h a rger while adding addi-
tional fuel will produce more
powerto a point. As with most
things in life, including public
highways, there are limitswhen
pressure increases, temperature
also increases. When temperature
increases, the density of the air
(mass of air found in a given vol-
ume) decreases.
Usually, moderately raising the
boost level (going from 6- to 9-psi
in a street application supercharg-
er) increases the volume of air sub-
stantially more than it reduces the
density of the air, so more power is
made when the appropriate amount
of additional fuel is added.
Basically, we get a higher quantity
(volume) of air while losing a bit of
quality (density) in the air.
Therefore, the total mass of air
induced into the engine is more, so
more fuel can be added and more
power can be made.
When boost levels are too high,
there is a higher volume of air
being pushed into the engine at a
lower density. Although we are
increasing the quantity, the quality
is so poor that the value of the air is
less than at a lower boost-level.
The result is that the total mass of
air being pumped into the engine
remains the same or is actually
reduced, causing horsepower to
remain the same or drop off. This
phenomenon occurs when super-
chargers are driven to run at high
boost levels where they are ineffi-
cient or when the compressor of a
turbo is beyond its normal operat-
ing range. The equation that relates
mass, density, and volume is as fol-
lows:
Mass (kg) = Density (kg/m^3) x
Volume (m^3)
In summary, more power is
made when the mass of air and fuel
pumped into the engine is
increased. Raising boost levels
increases the volume of air, while
the resulting increase in air temper-
ature decreases the density of the
air. The returns are beneficial (as in
more horsepower) only when the
increase in volume outweighs the
decrease in density.
Always a positive addition to a
forced-induction system, intercool-
ers add both power and reliability.
How do they work? Intercoolers
reject some of the heat built up by
the pressure increase of the air.
This provides the engine with a
higher quality (higher density)
charge of intake air. Since the air
temperature is reduced, the boost
pressure is also reduced when an
intercooler is added to a system.
Although intercoolers do impose a
restriction to airflow affecting the
quantity (volume) of the airflow
into the engine, the increase in the
quality (density) of the air more
than makes up for this.
Important Considerations
No matter how much addition-
al air is forced into the engine, no
additional horsepower will be
made unless additional fuel is also
added. Remember the energy that
makes horsepower in an engine
comes from the fuel, not the air. In
general, every 2 hp produced
requires 1 lb of fuel per hour (or .5
pound per horsepower). W h e n
modifications are performed that
increase airflow into the engine,
more air is available for the com-
bustion of fuel. The combustion of
the additional fuel is what trans-
lates into additional horsepower.
Supercharger and turbocharger
system manufacturers spend a
great deal of time making sure their
systems offer reliable performance.
Reliability can be questionable
when modifications are made to
boost levels. Raising the boost
level increases the chance of
engine-damaging detonation. Fuel
quality, the engines compression
ratio, and total ignition timing limit
the amount of boost that can be run
without detonation; exceeding the
limit can result in a piston-melting,
lean-fuel condition or in detonation
(where the fuel uncontrollably
explodes in the cylinder causing
possible engine damage).
4 Courtesy of HONDA TUNING / Summer 2000
5 Courtesy of HONDA TUNING / Summer 2000
R e m e m b e r, supercharger and
t u r b o c h a rger systems from the
major manufacturers are engi-
neered to provide reliable perform-
ance when used as directed. When
considering raising boost levels
(which may not be emission legal
in some states) always contact the
system manufacturer for their rec-
ommendations. Talking to the
experts will provide an extra meas-
ure of reliability to ensure your ride
doesnt take an extended vacation
from the streets.
The Source
Vortech Engineering, Inc.
1650 Pacific Ave.
Channel Islands, CA 93033
(805) 247-0669
www.vortechsuperchargers.com
Applications
Kits:
V-5 G-Trim Supercharger Kit
1999 Honda Si
$3,800
Units:
V-5 D-Trim Supercharger
1.5-3.0-liter engines
$2,200
RevHard Manufacturing
7407 1/2 Fulton Ave.
North Hollywood Ave.
North Hollywood, CA 91606
(818) 764-4312
www.revhard.com
Applications
Kits:
RH18KIT (turbo)
94-97 Acura Integra
$3,600
RH16KIT (turbo)
93-97 Honda Civic
$3,550
V-9 F- and G-Trim Supercharger
1.5-3.0-liter engines
$2,200
Jackson Racing
440 Rutherford St.
Goleta, CA 93117
(888) 888-4079
www.jacksonracing.com
Acura
989-510
94-98 Acura Integra GS, LS, RS
DOHC NON VTEC 1.8L B181B
989-500
94-99 Acura Integra GS-R
DOHC VTEC 1.8L B18C1
Honda
989-000
88-91 CRX, Civic, EX, SI
SOHC NON VTEC 1.6L D16A6
989-100
92-95 Civic, EX, SI
SOHC VTEC 1.6L D16Z6
989-200
96-99 Civic EX
SOHC VTEC 1.6L D16Y8
989-600
97-98 Acura Integra Type-R
DOHC VTEC 1.8L B18C5
Units:
RHRTBO
Hybrid T3/T4 Turbo
$775
RHBTBO
RevHard Hypo Turbo
$850
989-210
96-99 Civic DX, LX, CX
SOHC VTEC 1.6L D16Y7
989-250
99-00 Civic Si
DOHC VTEC 1.6L B16A2
Mazda Miata
999-000
90-93 Miata
DOHC 1.6L B6E
999-100
94-97 Miata
DOHC 1.8L BP
999-105
94-97 Miata
DOHC 1.8L BP
999-110
94-97 Miata
DOHC 1.8L BP
999-130
94-97 Miata
DOHC 1.8L BP
999-200
99 Miata
DOHC 1.8L
*all superchargers run from $2495-2995