2010 VW Golf: Small 'TwinCharger' engine packs big punch | Wheels.ca
Pardon me if I get technical a bit here, but a supercharger is an air compressor that blows more air into an engine. More air means more of the fuel can be burned, which means more power.
Strictly speaking any such device is a "supercharger." But we have come to use that specific term to describe a compressor that is driven mechanically off the crankshaft, usually by a belt.
If instead it is driven by an impeller sitting in the exhaust gas stream, it is, again strictly speaking, a "turbo-supercharger," usually shortened to turbocharger.
Each has its advantages. Typically, a supercharger delivers additional output at lower engine revs, while a turbocharger works best when the exhaust gas stream is flowing faster, generally kicking in around 3,000 r.p.m.
Put one of each on an engine, and you should have power all the time.
That's what Volkswagen has done with the TwinCharger – and power all the time is what you get.
Its 160 genuine German horsepower, to be exact. The torque peak of 177 lb.-ft. arrives at 1500 r.p.m. and pretty much stays there all the time too.
These are numbers equivalent to engines with about half again as much displacement.
Smaller displacement means, among other things, lower internal friction, better fuel consumption and lower emissions than larger engines of comparable output.
This engine has been available in Europe for a few years now, and in the International Engines of the Year Awards program (yours truly is a juror), it is a perennial winner in its class.
Because it is a terrific engine.
Available in Europe in the new Golf, initially only with the brilliant Dual-Shift Gearbox (DSG), now with seven ratios, it propels the car from rest to 100 km/h in less than 8 seconds, and returns 6.3 litres/100 km (45 m.p.g.) on the European fuel economy cycle.
It is amazingly silent too. Again, the small displacement means lower vibrations, hence no need for heavy balance shafts to counter the washing-machine-full-of-walnuts sensation so common in larger fours.
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The twin-charge 1.4L Volkswagen AG direct-injection gasoline engine, combining a mechanical Eaton Corp. supercharger with a turbocharger, “is on the right