Surge Monster

When the pressure ratio between the air inside a turbocharger and the atmosphere increases, but the flow rate through the turbocharger remains low, surge occurs. While the concept of surge is a rather complicated tasked to explain, it can be easily identified as a swishing noise. There are certain size turbochargers when mated to particular engines that are known producers of surge. A good example is the use of twin HKS GT-RS turbochargers on an RB26DETT engine. You can really hear the surge at low rpms. For this reason the GT-RS has earned the name surge monster.

While working for a turbocharger manufacturer I had made the request to marketing that a cutesy company mascot would be cool. A lot of Japanese companies have all sorts of products branded with their cutesy logo that people go gaga over. In particular Tein is a company that has endless amounts of marketing material featuring their cartoony damper mascot. I even have a stuffed version of it that I call Dampy. One day I decided to take matters in to my own hands and I created a rough drawing for the Surge Monster.

I am not quite sure yet what the Surge Monster will represent though. Surge is not a desirable function. A turbocharger submitted to excessive surge operation experiences high thrust loads which can lead to failure. Surge is not something to glorify. I want to say then that the Surge Monster is a champion of surge. He exists to educate and prevent. A proper turbocharger size match and realistic power goals keeps surge at bay. However, the Surge Monster could be the bad guy. He could be the evil Surge Monster that creates this undesirable function. Then the purple dinosaur can come along and defeat the evil Surge Monster with his education on turbocharger sizing and engine building.