[Law]

Renowned automotive journalist Chris Harris has been active on Jalopnik for some time now.

Recently, he wrote a rant about the industry-wide direction of turbocharging.
Is Chris Harris against turbocharging? No. But he doesn't like how modern turbocharged engines are engineered to feel naturally aspirated.
He explains that turbos in the past were fun and full of character and that the imperfections such as the lag and non-linear power are not necessarily drawbacks that should be eradicated in the modern turbo era.
Even though turbos are characterized by a power delivery which tries "to kill the driver on anything other than straight, dry pavement", modern technology and chassis engineering should be able to minimize this drawback, he argues.

The example given is Ferrari and how the engineers did all they could to make the new turbocharged engines feel and respond like atmospheric ones of past. By extension, he also implied that the [F80] M3 was built with a similar philosophy in making a turbo mill act and feel like an NA unit.
This type of engineering, he rants, is the wrong direction.

Instead, Chris Harris argues that characteristics such as lag and its power delivery should be embraced. From his experience, it is what made turbocharged cars in the past fun and memorable. He gives the example of the F40, which suffered from all the "flaws" traditionally inherent of turbocharging, as one of the best Ferraris ever.

BMW and Ferrari have built strong reputations for awesome NA engines. In this renewed turbo era, these brands have strived extensively to engineer these force-fed engines to hide the turbocharging effect.
Is this a problem? Should brands like BMW embrace turbo characteristics in their cars? Will this yield more exciting cars?

Chris Harris thinks so, what say you?

Dear Automakers, Please Stop Making Turbos Suck
CHRIS HARRIS
4/02/15 2:10pm



When I was a kid, turbocharging ruled. The aim in life was to elongate the point between request and delivery, to worship at the altar of lag and to ensure that when the goods arrived they did as much damage to tires and supposed ‘handling’ as possible. By eliminating lag have we not eliminated what makes turbos fun?

I left the Ferrari stand at the Geneva motorshow, my head ringing with anecdotal numbers I will never be able to validate. You know the ones we all seem to digest like they’re irrefutable facts? “The new paddle-shift gearchange takes 80 milliseconds instead of 90 millie-somethings and we can tell you it’s true, but you’ll never be able to test it.”

This time it was throttle response timings for the new Ferrari 488 GTB, Maranello’s mighty 660hp coupe and gateway to the turbocharged future. Someone with a large forehead had been impressing me with crank response times in denominations I couldn’t compute and comparing them to the McLaren 650S and the outgoing 458. He said this would do this in a that and I just nodded and thought: “I have no idea what you’re talking about, I need to drive it really.”

A few minutes later I bumped into someone else from Ferrari and told them how impressive the numbers had sounded and that I didn’t really absorb meaningless figures unless they were backed-up by some practical demonstration. At which point he questioned my stance on the matter at hand. He said I was quite wrong to be questioning the supposedly anecdotal data being aired to prove that Maranello could to all intents and purposes make a turbocharged engine behave like a normally aspirated one. He said the main issue was: why would we want to do that in the first place – why hide the fact it’s turbocharged?

And then he walked away, smiling.

And left me befuddled and pondering this rare moment of profundity at an auto show.

I think maybe he’s right. Over lunch last summer with a few Ferrari engineers I asked them how difficult it was to calibrate the turbocharged V8 and dual-clutch transmission for the California T. The answer was long and involved, caused several grimaces and could have been summarized thus: “a little more complicated than splitting an atom.”

And this is the great engineering conquest of modern fast motoring times – making forced induction feel like atmospheric pressure and yet I’ve never stopped to question if this in itself is the right direction for us all. I think of all those man-hours and I think of the crazy throttle response on something like a new BMW M3, which at times does seem to have zero lag, and then I remember my first ride in a Saab 99 Turbo when I was a kid. The wait, the spool, the push, the flickering boost needle. The drama of the whole experience.

In many ways, severe turbocharged power delivery is the very essence of exciting motoring – and yet in 2015 we’re locked in a battle to expunge every last vestige of turbo behavior. Are we heading down the wrong path?

Or, to couch it in more practical terms: is the Ferrari F40 any less awesome because it is turbocharged, and makes zero attempt to hide that turbocharging? Er, it’s the greatest road-doing Ferrari of them all.

Are car-makers missing a trick here? Instead of spending millions, perhaps billions making these potentially explosive motors behave in a crisp, linear fashion, shouldn’t they be celebrating some lag and some unruliness? I mean, most of the unwanted side-effects, such as trying to kill the driver on anything other than straight, dry pavement can be eradicated though clever chassis electronics.

Think back to the late ‘80s and early ‘90s – those days of furious turbocharging, especially over here in Europe. We had mental French hatchbacks like the Renault 5 GT Turbo, and sedans like the Ford Cosworth. And if you’d asked their owners what they liked most about their rolling death-traps, they’d have all said ‘that massive bang you get in the back when the Turbo kicks in!!’

Heavy turbocharging deserves heavy-duty delivery. I’m not sure I don’t want these cars to be scary. There are some unlikely side-effects of scary power delivery too – a reduction in road traffic accidents being one of them. The slowest I’ve driven on a public highway in years was in a Jaguar XJ220. The whole thing just felt terrifying – the road was damp, the long throttle seemed to wake these wheeeshing demons with little consistency and as for trying to pin it mid-corner: well, forget it. I couldn’t drive fast, it wasn’t possible without soiling myself. A minivan would have been quicker that day.

The big-banger turbo motor working in conjunction with no traction control is perhaps the second best active safety device known to mankind – pipped only by the large metal spike extending from the steering wheel. You’d think twice about that silly overtake with the spike resting against your chest.

Maybe what I really want to happen is for this next generation of turbo-nutters to have a nutter ‘mode.’ So you can have your turbo 488, 911 and AMG all doing their very best impression of being normally aspirated, but there’s a button you can hit that sends you straight back to 1987. You hit the gas and nothing happens, and then you sense something stirring under the hood and then before you have time to do shit about it WHOOOOOOOOOSH-KABOOOOOOOM you’re wrestling the bastard down the road.

That’s what I want. I want the essential excitement of turbocharging not to be lost in the next few years. I want someone to harness that crazy feeling of spool and boost, and to celebrate it.

Illustration By Sam Woolley

Original post on Jalopnik

[DocWeatherington]

No I think in time, Turbo's will feel even more like NA motors. I think in the next few years when the Electric turbo comes, things should get real interesting.

I think its a catch 22, people what love the NA feel.. but I do like the enjoyment.. feel of a turbo'd car.

They could solve it with a smooth and a OMG mode.

[chillindrdude]

I value Chris Harris' opinions and have watched a great many of his reviews on youtube. But I disagree with his opinion here.

I like the linear delivery of power. It's predictable and measured. Is it boring? maybe so, if you are of the hooning sort. I argue that the linear power delivery is preferred and advantageous for everyday/DD AND track use.

He argues that "the hit" is the exhilaration that he craves. And he even admits that this upsets the balance of the car and some electronic chassis/suspension control are going to be needed. Why have one system compensate for the negative effects of another?

I think it would be a better car if all systems work in concert and is balanced. I certainly think the F80 is a better car than most (NA or forced induction) for this.

[fecurtis]

While I appreciate the character of your typical turbocharged engine from 10 years ago, I much prefer the delivery to be as linear as possible.

A turbocharged engine isn't "supposed" to have noticeable lag. To dislike a bunch of engineers figuring out the more efficient and quickest way to get turbos to spool just seems foolish IMO.

But he did post that in Jalopnik. An automotive website with largely click bait and the user base with largely a bunch of teens and 20 somethings who drive Subaru's who circle jerk to the notion of brown manual station wagons and Miatas (not that there's anything wrong with either but the circle jerking surrounding those two has gotten to the point where you just roll your eyes) so articles complaining about how turbocharging has gotten more efficient in terms of power delivery would resonate well with them.

EDIT: It's gems like this that you see on Jalopnik,

"This. Fuck turbos. They’re making turbos mundane because they’re bringing them downmarket. Making the delivery smooth is considered better than wrapping Camry drivers around trees. In the past, only people that were into driving would end up with turbo cars. Now your grandma’s car has a turbo."

It's why I just roll my eyes on most of the shit on there.

[auf Deutsch]

"God created turbo lag to give V8s a chance"

I remember this slogan from about 10 years ago when, as a member stated above, boosted engines were not as linear but instead, surged once spooled up.

The general public wants a smooth, flat torque curve from low a RPM delivery and that's exactly what car makers are engineering nowadays (at least the good ones).

My old WRX did provide that rush once that circa 2005 aftermarket turbo came to life, but I was in my 20's then. Now my desire is to reach full boost/torque early in the rev range. Perhaps this is considered more on the boring side but then again, as I age, unfortunately so am I.

[NickyC]

I love that slug of acceleration which turbos provide. The feeling of that T-88 hitting 22psi in my MKIV Supra back in the day is something I'll never forget. I'd take a turbo charged engine over an NA power plant any day. I loved the N54 in my 135i at COBB Stage 2+, no complaints at all.

[yousefnjr]

Grass is always greener I suppose...

[Freon]

I would never count turbo lag as a good thing. Chris Harris has lost me on this one.

I had a GT3076R in my STI, and while it was a lot of fun it was a compromise of making the car fast without trading it in to buy an RS4, Corvette, etc.

[Year's_End]

He just needs to provide more context with his opinion. Chris usually has a very open-minded and realistic understanding of the automotive world and the products and technology that make it tick.

I agree with his opinion in certain applications. Cars these days are defined by two key words: refinement and efficiency. The oddballers are the ones that can pull it off with that key X-factor known as character, or you might call it drama and theater.

He's right with what he's saying; an efficient, lagless turbo setup with a broad low-to-midrange powerband is what companies and the majority of buyers are looking for. It makes sense for your everyday commuter, it tends to make for bigger straightline numbers (at least what the mags focus on), and it helps drivers fine tune their throttle application at the track. But it IS less theatrical than waiting for that surge of torque to hit you like a tidal wave. And for certain cars, that's what matters.

The problem is that those kinds of cars are so few and far between and that's not something that's easy to sell to your average buyer. What car out today would benefit from an old school turbo delivery setup? Maybe some track toys for buyers who are concerned with fun moreso than lap times. Talk about a specific demographic.

It's a shame that what's objectively good is also the same thing that can hamper what's subjectively fun. It's largely why my interest in German cars has faded so quickly over the past several years. But there are less people like me and more people that want that continuous refinement and next-level efficiency. The Germans know what their buyers want, and the rest of the industry tends to follow suit.

[Twix]

With the new turbo systems, the bang happens right away. I like that. They also out perform the turbo cars of the 80's and 90's because of it. How is that not a good thing? The rush felt from the older turbos of past is still around today, just at a more exciting right away feeling rather than a wait for it, wait for it.

Now, if BMW could eliminate their atrocious pedal lag, I'd be even more excited about their cars.

[ShocknAwe]

Don't think much of Chris Harris and this doesn't do him any favors in my eyes.

[solstice]

Lag is bad. Allowing all the TQ through as soon as it's available is good. So IMO he got one wrong and one right. A turbo engine should not feel NA, it should have a massive mid-range, it's the goodness we get in exchange for losing so much in terms of sound and exotic feel but it should not be laggy when it no longer have to.

[Blindside_137]

Lol I would bet my life that if the turbos today had lag, he would be complaining about lag and having nostalgia for lag free NA engines.

[OneRib]

I disagree with Chris Harris on this one. It's less about making turbo like NA for me, but more about making an engine with a predictable and linear power curve. I think this is best for most purposes. Really what Harris craves is variety. When you have driven as many cars as he has and you are as polished a driver, you like something to stand out. He is probably getting bored by the consistency of modern power plants.