172 driver,
The first thing you must understand is that as far as the engine is concerned, it does not care how manifold pressure is maintained. Turbo-superchargers and gear driven superchargers, essentially do the same thing.
The big differences between them is turbo’s do not work very well at low rpm and light loads, but do work very well at high rpm, and heavy loads. Disadvantage is, this is the opposite of when you really need boost, but the advantage is they do not use much power to drive them.
Gear driven superchargers do work very well at low rpm, but not very well at high rpm, which generally follows the needs of the engine, and are not ‘load’ dependant which turbo’s are. The big disadvantage is they require a lot of power to drive them, and they can be heavy.
Any time you can supercharge your engine intake above atmospheric (and assuming you match the increase in air flow with a corresponding increase in fuel flow) you will make more power.
Normalizing, which is what you are talking about is using a supercharger (which type is not relevant) to maintain MSL manifold pressure and therefore maintain power output at altitude.
In a way you are supercharging your engine, and in a way you are not.
In short you are only maintaining MSL manifold pressure, and not really ‘supercharging’ it, you have not raised the manifold pressure above MSL. If you did, you would really be “supercharging”, as in using pressure above atmospheric to over (super) charge your cylinder with air.
If either type of supercharger (turbo or gear driven) increases manifold pressure above MSL at any altitude then you have ‘boost’, you are now supercharging your engine, and it will make more power provided you increase the fuel flow to match..
411A,
I have seen cutaways of both the 3350, and the 4360, very impressive, and perhaps the most complicated piston engines ever built. A true marvel of ‘old’ technology.
Regards,
W.B.