How To Eliminate Turbo Lag - Volvo's Easy Fix!

Turbochargers provides lots of horsepower, but they also have turbo lag, so it takes time for the turbo to spool up and provide boost, delaying that power delivery. To combat this, Volvo came up with a very clever solution. The process starts with an air compressor, which fills up a high pressure air tank. If you floor it, asking for full power, the air tank releases that high pressure air directly into the exhaust manifold, where it then rapidly spools up the turbo. This means you don’t have to wait for the exhaust gases to do the work, like you would with a traditional turbo engine. Once your engine starts making good power, the exhaust gases take over to maintain boost, so the air compressor can go back to work filling up the air tank, ready for the next full throttle deployment. So you have a compressor (air compressor), for a compressor (turbo), for a compressor (engine). Neat!

Engineering Explained is a participant in the Amazon Influencer Program.

Don't forget to check out my other pages below!

[bigstreetguns]

"Yo dawg, we heard you like compressors, so we put a compressor in your compressor."

[wrblue]

My wallet is further compressed when things break.

[nikostzagar]

This is a system we have in marine diesel generating sets for decades. It actually compares the charge air pressure with the fuel supply and if necessary it energizes a solenoid that supplies the air to the periphery of the compressor wheel. Very effective system.

[crowdsurfpp]

Turbos are impressive, puts a non turbo car in the background…. Nice.

[russh]

I'm impressed you compressed this information into a short video!

[snapped]

I love how he's talking about turbos but showes a supercharged hellcat multiple times 😂

[AndrewFRC]

Yo dawg, I heard you like compressors 😂

[nassimabed]

I drove a 2013 Volvo S60 with a 1600cc V4 engine and I can tell you the kick and jump of that turbo was something. I only sold it because I got too old for the excitement haha

[screaminlead]

Point of order! Rally fans will know that a system like this was used by Ford on the 2005 Focus RS WRC car. They even used the larger USDM rear bumper to conceal the tank for the pressure.

The only major difference is that they used the already significant boost pressure created by the turbo to pressurize the tank.

[antontaylor]

Some people use NOS for this, and many aftermarket ECU's have a map specifically for using NOS just long enough to get enough exhaust gas to spool the turbo.

It all happens automatically when you floor it, no need for a NOS button even.

[ian.williamson]

What about electric turbochargers? Aren’t those already a thing?

[ominousscreech]

The compressor compresses the air into a compressed space, the air compressed into a more compressed space, into a more compressed space is reference to compression on you space.

[Karolmichta]

It's crazy because around 10 years ago I thought about this at university, never imagined that someone would actually use this

[meikelinde]

No Turbo = No Lag, its really that simple.

[postersm]

Just what I always wanted, more complexity, to the complexity of complexity. Perfect! What could possibly go wrong?

[kevinmicallef]

This seems very reminiscent of the Ford Focus WRC “boost smuggling” system. There are obvious differences with the addition of a piston compressor as opposed to the vented inlet charge off throttle; and the compressed charge being fed to the turbine instead of directly back into the inlet as throttle is cracked.

[theofish]

There was some thing similar to this in rally where they used the blow off charge to fill the tank to spool up the turbo

[DanielReyes-hzqk]

I'd love to hear more about modern centrifugal superchargers, especially those with variable drive ratios and electric assist ones I've heard rumors about for years

[philipp]

Kinda makes sense if you can use the same compressor for air suspension.

[pooyakhalili]

I love your sunglasses. Really cool analogy 😂😂😂