The concept of anti-lag is to reduce or eliminate turbocharger lag. Turbocharger lag is generally considered the time it takes for your engine to produce boost. Note, we say time – Not RPM. Anti-Lag is in an improvement in response, it will not make a large turbo create boost earlier in the RPM range on a dyno (as an example), but a well setup system will ensure you maintain boost between gear changes and dynamic (On / Off) throttle situations as seen in motorsports such as drifting, rallying and such.

There are a couple of Anti-Lag strategies based on your engine, vehicle and ECU. The Turbosmart ‘Fresh Air’ ALV40 is the basis of a full bypass system where the valve actually opens when the throttle is closed & allows compressed air from the turbocharger to be directed into the exhaust manifold prior to the turbocharger – effectively ‘around’ the engine. This compressed-air requires an ECU strategy of additional fuel & adjusted ignition timing to effectively ignite and control a burn, in the manifold right before the turbo. This burn creates energy, which can maintain turbine speed, also known as boost.

Not at all, no. There are a couple of key differences and yes, you require more hardware to do it. Throttle Kick style Anti-Lag has been a feature on most aftermarket ECU’s for some time. Fresh Air Anti-Lag however has several distinct benefits. The first is significantly lower EGT’s during Anti-Lag operation and that means greater reliability of your turbocharger, manifold and accessories. The other benefit is around vacuum boosted brake systems. Vehicles fitted with these types of braking systems (most cars) will lose braking assistance when kick-type Anti-Lag is activated as the engine does not run in a vacuum. A Fresh Air Anti-Lag system however does have vacuum and maintains all vacuum bases & boosted accessories when in operation.