PRI 2015: Part 1

Here’s another popular one among the bigger power folk—the Garrett GTX4594R turbo rated at 475-900 horsepower.  It’s intended for engines of nearly all sizes, even as small as a 2.0-liter. The inducer measures 70.3 mm while the exhaust wheel exducer is 80.2 mm.

Here’s one of Garrett's larger frames. This is the GTX5518R SFI turbocharger, rated at 1000-1640 horsepower. Along with the cool CHRA from the GTX line, this turbo has SFI 61.1 spec certification for NHRA sanctioned racing (for Pro Mod racers). This turbo uses an 88mm inducer with a 102mm exducer.

At PRI, Garrett also featured the AMS Performance “Alpha 10” performance package for the Audi R8 5.2-liter FSI V10 engine (2009-2013 coupe or spyder). It’s reportedly very refined and super responsive, and yet still is rated at a whopping 1000 HP! (Oh, the fun that would be in an all-wheel drive R8)

I sat through a 45-minute presentation which talked about how AVL was properly able to calculate the horsepower on a Top Fuel NHRA dragster, because until now it has been a mix of some calculation with some estimation. What started life as 5000hp eventually grew to 6000, 8000, to now even 10,000 HP figures (have you seen our INSIDE 10,000 horsepower “Nerds Eye View” article covering these engines? They’re insane).

This is the sensor they used, and when all other sensor companies had failed, AVL was able to measure the torque using this magnetic torque sensor, which goes between the clutch and the differential.  It uses pulse current modulation encoding, and they were able to measure just under 8000 lb-ft of torque which, given the RPM, netted a whopping 10,156 bhp on the first test. Later, and at a cooler and lower-altitude Pomona, where the car went indeed faster, it registered an even crazier 11,051 bhp. AVL claimed that with small changes to ignition timing, which affected the ET and trap speed, they were able to register small, 100-200 hp increments, thus helping somewhat prove the device’s accuracy.