Boosted1, are you associated with Prodigy?
This new turbo is making me sway towards the turbo.. the numbers were better than superchargers before, now they're out of control.
Can someone drive to western Canada and take me for a trail ride??? Ahhh.. that's what I need most. To take a drive in each one.
Boosted1 *IS* ProdigyOriginally Posted by HahaJK
My name is Wes I am the President of Prodigy Performance LLC.
Our turbo systems are now better than ever. One test drive is all it will take for you to be blown away at the power our system delivers. It is usable off idle performance that has huge power on tap at ALL times. The turbo lag comments are crap, the turbo is responsive and ready to do serious work. Turbochargers are not new but they are the way of the future. Please let me know what questions you have even if it is related to the supercharger companies. We can get them to chime in and give feedback.
I think reality is somewhere in the middle. I often see exaggerated statements about how laggy turbos are and how they only make power at high rpms. I disagree with those comments, but I wouldn't go as far as saying that "huge power on tap at ALL times"... but keep in mind that I have a manual transmission and don't yet have a boost controller installed.
You only have to look at a dyno chart to see that the biggest gains from the turbo happen in the upper half of the rpm range, so of course I won't have "huge" power down at 2000 rpms when I put the pedal down to the floor with my manual transmission. There's no denying that. Even so, part throttle at lower rpms is very nice with more recent updates to the tune and the upgrade to the Precision turbo. Even under 2500 rpm, I regularly see 1-2 psi boost while catching up/keeping up with traffic using part throttle acceleration, and it feels great. But there's a certain point where you push the throttle just a bit more, and the turbo just can't keep up at the lower engine speeds, and boost stops increasing. The end result is that you reach max acceleration for low rpms before you get to full throttle, and the rest of the pedal travel does nothing but change the sound of the engine slightly. At part throttle, it feels powerful, but when you push the pedal for more, it isn't there. Admittedly, once you get to this point, you probably should have already downshifted anyway. If you try to drive a manual transmission turbo Jeep as if it had a big V8 engine, you will probably be disappointed. But if you adjust your driving style to take advantage of the strengths of the turbo (downshift to get rpms up whenever you want any serious acceleration), you rarely encounter its weaknesses .
But if you have an automatic transmission, huge power really would be just a deliberate press of the throttle away at any time. In the situation I described above, you would still get the perceived low rpm power because part throttle acceleration is great at low rpms, but the transmission will downshift when you ask for more instead of running into that point at low rpms where the turbo just can't flow any more air no matter how much more you push the pedal. Not only will the transmission automatically downshift as necessary, putting you into the upper rpm range where you get huge power, but you also have the benefit of the torque converter. If you're starting from a low speed where the transmission is already down in 1st gear at lower rpms, press the pedal, the torque converter will unlock, rpms will rise, the torque converter will multiply torque some, and you'll have higher exhaust flow spooling the turbo more quickly compared to the same situation with a manual transmission.
Then there's the recent addition of the boost controller to Prodigy's top-of-the-line setup. A wastegate by itself will actually start opening up well before the target boost is reached, slowing down how quickly the turbo finishes spooling up. A boost controller can keep the wastegate completely closed longer, allowing the turbo to spool up more quickly when you put your foot down.
Without a boost controller, my data logs show that (disclaimer: following numbers are approximated from memory) if I'm cruising around 4000 rpm (where the turbo is capable of reaching target boost), then quickly press the pedal to the floor, boost quickly jumps up to about 3/4 of target boost within about 1/2 second, but then takes another 1/4 second to reach full full boost. It's not as extreme as some people will imply, with comments about having to "wait for boost to kick in", etc, but it does make for a "soft" throttle response. It's just not an abrupt/violent sudden kick like a very powerful NA or supercharged engine would be. Adding a boost controller that holds the wastegate closed longer should make this type of situation feel more responsive.
I'd be very interested driving an automatic turbo Jeep to see how it compares in overall "feel", perceived power/responsiveness, etc. I bet the automatic overall feels more powerful/responsive. But a manual transmission is overall more fun to drive
My boost controller is arriving today. Hopefully I'll get a chance to get it all installed and setup within the next week or two. With both an increase in peak boost, and an improvement in spooling, it's possible that lower RPM performance could be significantly improved to the point that I'll be closer to agreeing with Wes that big power is available at all times, even with the manual transmission.
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