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Comment by byoung2 | Hacker News Reader

They could get around the lag issue with a supercharger or an electric turbo, or some combination of the two.

Or not care since evo's and STi's launch faster than all but a few ferrari's. if you aren't at a dead stop the lag doesn't happen in real driving situations; aka you would have to shift into 4th under 30mph for example in either of those turbo charged cars.

The way my Evo seems to get around the dead stop lag - you floor the car and hammer the rev limiter and then basically bring the clutch out about a 1/4 inch then dump it. I hit 3.5 second 0-60 easily with this (standard) evo lauch technique.

Lastly you lose a lot more hp in a naturally aspirated engine at altitude too which to me makes a turbo car a better option ( I live in the mile high city however so this is a personal thing )

Absolutely, except launch control software is the one dumping the clutch for you in the Ferrari, so the 1 second of spooling is irrelevant for obtaining the 0-60 time.

I think he's speaking about the traction issue a Ferrari experiences during launch vs the Evo which has AWD and does not suffer from such problems nearly as much (except very high HP AWD cars).

Also, the 1-second of spooling may not fully occur during the hammering of the throttle until the clutch is dumped due to there being no load on the engine. You might get the turbo going some but it won't be generating the power it normally would when the car is actually moving. Since both cars in the comparison would be turbocharged then it would then come down to which car can get going quicker to keep the turbo going and that would usually go to the one that has the most traction.

Source: I own 2 Evos.

Regarding the altitude comment, you're spot-on and one only needs to look to aviation to understand this phenomenon.

Won't there be lag when you go back on the throttle after you turn while off the throttle?

No. The turbochargers rotational velocity doesn't instantly drop to zero. Once the intake butterflies are back open and exhaust gas volume and velocity picks up the turbocharger is making boost again. You may be able to measure this delay, but that isn't turbocharger "lag". What people call "lag" is really boost threshold. It's the point in an engine's RPM curve at which the turbocharger can supply more air to the engine that it would have naturally. Natural in this case means atmospheric pressure. So 1 psi of boost is 1 psi above atmosphere. Likewise 1 bar of boost is twice atmospheric pressure.

Is what you're saying that the lag is actually the period before the turbo spins up and starts producing boost? In somewhat different wording, the lag is the engine running as if it were NA until the turbo can spin up to a speed that it will compress the incoming air? That's what I have always thought turbo lag is.

I thought turbo charger was the delay in throttle response. That's what wikipedia seems to think too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbocharger#Turbocharger_lag

but I guess in the end I see what you are saying and it's merely a matter of terminology

Superchargers cost precious power to make power[1] . For a company with engines heralded for their efficiency such as Ferrari this would probably be a sacrilege.

I'd be interested to wonder why Ferrari don't forgo turbochargers and stick with their original idea since they are exempt from mpg requirements [2] due to being a low-volume manufacturer [3].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercharger

[2] http://www.epa.gov/otaq/climate/documents/420r14011.pdf

[3] http://www.motorauthority.com/news/1094378_ferrari-may-boost...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antilag_system

Or multiple turbos of differing sizes.

What you're describing is a twin (or more) turbo setup with sequential turbos[1] as opposed to another solution which uses a single turbo that can act as multiple turbos depending on the angle of the exhaust wheel vanes (VNT/VGT or Variable Nozzle/Geometry Turbo)[2].

The problem is, none of these solutions solve the drivability issue of knowing exactly how your car will respond such as how a naturally-aspirated car will at a given RPM in a given gear at a given throttle position.

Taking into account the comparable volatility of turbo pulses compared with the constant and precise behavior of an NA response to throttle input you can very well put yourself into the wall a lot easier with the relative unpredictability of the turbo response. Granted, with technology this problem can be solved as many vehicles already have the ability to change chassis dynamics on the fly and so nanosecond fluctuations in turbo response creating imbalance can be rectified in a nanosecond from a vast array of sensors, solenoids, actuators, etc. it still has the net effect of distancing the driver from the feel of the car even if ever to slightly which I'm sure is one of the reasons certain folks buy Ferraris or other exotics.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin-turbo#Sequential_turbos

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable-geometry_turbocharger

I guess you were being hyperbolic but the latency of anything changing in your engine's output is going to be in the tens of milliseconds rather than nanos. The motorsport in which I participate involves a lot of dirt and tree stumps and whatnot so I don't feel like knowing exactly how energetic the next cylinder's firing will be comes into play. Perhaps some people do. I just hope that people who hold such intangibles as distance or connectedness important in the act of driving can hold their tongues next time HN engages in a round of ridiculing people who judge their hifi systems by "presence" or some other intangible thing. After all, it's pretty clear that the fastest cars in the world are all turbocharged, so by purely objective measures this discussion is nonsense.

As the amount of vehicles I own that are turbocharged (3) exceeds the amount of Ferraris I own (0) I can only assume your conjecture on the part of me describing what some Ferrari owners may feel are very tangible attributes in their cars is due to differences in passion or particular choice of machine.

What you describe sounds like rally so to illustrate this I'd ask if you had to race your next race surrounded by cushions of anything and at least partly removed from the feel between you the car and the fire/logging road you race on then would your split second decision to Scandinavian flick or not be influenced differently than if you'd have been fully strapped into your racing seat and securely bolted to the floor of the car with no wiggle room and feeling every rut and rock in the road?

I'd even go so far as to say the feel when driving different cars and feeling the effect your inputs have as opposed to having a computer do them for you is vastly different from a hipster attempting to justify why his $100+ Beats headphones are better than a good pair of $29.99 JVC or Panasonic headphones.

Or simply use cars for what they're meant for: transportation.

Yes, and only use computers for computing stuff. No fooling around.

Ferraris are not just 'fooling around' it's just a status symbol for people with more money than brains.

We should ban Vertu phones. And people with more money than brains.

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