What does a turbocharger do?

What does a turbo charger do? Welcome to Mercie J auto care, where compassion and craftsmanship come together. I’m Rick Smith, Master certified technician. What a turbo charger actually does is it increases an engine's volumetric efficiency. That’s a $10 word for 'makes more power'. So imagine you have a six cylinder engine and it’s 3 Liters so every cylinder is a half a liter. Well the piston comes down and it sucks in a mixture of air and fuel. Now it’s volumetric efficiency, if it’s a half of a liter, how much of it can it actually pull? Most engines are not more than about 90% efficient to pull that in. So a turbo charger pushes air and fuel into the cylinder and by doing that, if it’s a half a liter maybe I can get .6, .7 Liters in there and so you get more power because you have more volume in that same space. That’s volumetric efficiency and that’s what a turbo charger increases. Thanks for watching until next time I see you and safe travels.