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Supercharged Vs Twin-Turbo. Which is Better and Why Explained With a Mustang and a Hellcat

OK, everybody knows a Dodge Hellcat, be it Challenger or Charger (it's a Challenger, in this case), has a supercharged V8 engine, but a twin-turbo Mustang? How does that fly?
Supercharged Vs twin-turbo - which is better and why? 9 photos
Photo: RacerX / YouTube thumbnail
Supercharged Vs twin-turbo - which is better and why?Supercharged Vs twin-turbo - which is better and why?Supercharged Vs twin-turbo - which is better and why?Supercharged Vs twin-turbo - which is better and why?Supercharged Vs twin-turbo - which is better and why?Supercharged Vs twin-turbo - which is better and why?Supercharged Vs twin-turbo - which is better and why?Supercharged Vs twin-turbo - which is better and why?
The Ford Mustang range does have a turbocharged model, but it's the four-cylinder 2.3-liter EcoBoost - surely you can't use that in a comparison against the mighty Hellcat. Well, not unless you want to make fun of the Ford, that is.

Lay down your forks and your torches, nobody's making fun of anything here. Quite the contrary, in fact. The clip you see below tries to look at the pros and cons of both types of forced induction and, as much as possible, deliver a verdict on which is better and in what situation.

Still, that doesn't answer the twin-turbo Ford Mustang GT dilemma. Surprisingly enough, peeking inside its engine bay won't shed any more light on the matter, and that's because the Mustang has a Hellion sleeper twin-turbo system. The two blowers are fitted under the 5.0-liter V8 and are almost completely masked, leaving the unaware to think they're looking at a stock Coyote.

Compare that to the supercharger sitting neatly on top of the 6.2-liter V8 in the Challenger, and you get the first answer out of this comparison: which is easier to fit? Neither is exactly a DIY project for someone lacking experience but, simplifying things a little, it's definitely less of a fuss to bolt something on top of an engine than to route stuff underneath it.

That naturally has an impact on the second point of this head-to-head: cost. Installing a twin-turbo kit is going to cost more, and so will, on average, the kit itself. Even so, you can get an entry-level twin-turbo setup for the same money as a supercharger, and the horsepower gain is going to be similar, if not superior.

Speaking of power, this is where the two solutions differ the most. Whereas with a supercharger, you have access to all the power at all times, the turbo needs a little time to spool up and feed the extra air into the engine. We're far from the horrible lag of the early days of turbocharging, but compared to a supercharger, the different behavior is still noticeable.

That being said, turbochargers do hold a very important advantage over superchargers, which is their ability to reconfigure power output instantly and on the fly. Obviously, it can all be done within a certain range, but thanks to changing the ECU mapping and adjusting boot pressure, a turbocharger can vary the amount of power it delivers. How is this useful? Well, imagine you're racing on a less-than-ideal surface. Instead of having to modulate throttle impulses to prevent wheelspin, you can instead lower the boost and drive like everything's rosy.

So, can anyone give a definite answer on which solution is better? Probably not, but given their nature, you can draw the conclusion that a supercharger is going to be more useful on the street and when racing from a dig thanks to its instant power, whereas a twin-turbo setup will likely give you more power, but it tends to take just that tiny bit longer to deliver it. It's not that one is better than the other, but they are different and it's best to choose knowing what to expect.

At the same time, we've all seen just how well cars like the Porsche 911 Turbo S perform at the drag strip under all circumstances, so putting a label on either is probably oversimplifying things. At the end of the day, it may just come down to personal preference. Maybe you like the sound of a supercharger, or maybe you prefer that of a blow-off valve - either way, they both will get you more power, so you won't go wrong with either.

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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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