Dilireus

Neither. It's a centrifugal supercharger. I has an impeller on the intake side that looks a lot like a turbocharger impeller, but it is driven by a belt. A turbocharger is driven by exhaust gases. A Roots blower (supercharger) is a completely different design, though it is also belt driven. A Roots blower is a kind of positive displacement supercharger that moves a fixed volume of air with every revolution, unlike centrifugal blowers or turbochargers. Positive displacements blowers make instantaneous power that is fairly linear compared to turbos or centrifugal blowers. Centrifugal blowers will make more peak power for a given boost level than a positive displacement blower. Turbos make more power per unit pressure than any kind of supercharger, but suffer from initial lag. Since a turbo impeller is not mechanically driven, it takes time for the exhaust gases to accelerate it to get up to operating speed.

punisher91279

Man thats awesome, to me it sounds like the turbo and centrfugal are the ways to go.

86 5.0L

really it depends on your application, for me the roots blower is the better of the 3 choices(instant boost)

Dilireus

This video demonstrates the difference between a positive displacement blower on a modded '03 Cobra and turbocharged 5 liter. The supercharged car jumps out front, but the turbo car reels him in and blows past once the turbos spool up.

BTW, I'm not suggesting that all turbo cars will beat all blower cars. The video just demonstrates the difference in throttle response.