Asked to recount how he caught the "Turbocharging bug," Bob Keller smiles. " "I was working at Grumman Aircraft…" In the early '60s Keller was an aircraft systems engineer for Grumman Aircraft in the Long Island area. The work brought him into contact with turbochargers, turbine devices and Wolfgang Schlegel, who was the East Coast rep for the AiResearch Industrial Division of the Garrett Corporation.

As a hot rodder and mechanical engineer (he graduated from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn) Keller understood and appreciated the potential of turbocharging. So, in his off hours, with the help of Schlegel and other performance fans who lent their time and organizations' resources, Keller started modifying cars. Always confident of coming up with innovative solutions, Keller's efforts-and those of the craftsmen he worked with-began to pay off. Racers began learning of the Grumman engineer's unofficial, "moonlight skunk works" in late 1964 and early '65. Everything was soon being done on a bigger scale. Keller's experience and computer time "donated" by a friendly cohort at Garrett helped produce a combination of impeller, housing and nozzles that resulted in many new applications and components for automobile turbocharging.

If you think intercooling and supplemental injectors are a recent development, note that in 1965, massive water-to-air intercoolers, multiple fuel nozzles were already being used by Keller (on Hilborn injection systems) to help things at high boost. The intercoolers were  fed by coolant stored in trunk-mounted 15-gallon tanks! With the potential to make 2,000 horsepower, the turbo engines were ahead of its time as there was no transmission or racing tires that could make full use of the horsepower being produced.

Racing has always been the "R" in auto aftermarket R&D, and Keller and his friends following the time-honored entrepreneurial tactic of keeping their "day jobs"-founded Turbonics to "develop" and continue their obsession. The plan called for making turbocharger kits for small- and medium block Chevy, Ford and MoPars. The Press coverage helped, a writer concluded, "Once you realize the actual potential of a turbocharger, such as the one marketed by Turbonics you have to admit it's senseless to go any other souping route."

Turbonics went on to be acquired by Echlin, which renamed it TurboSonic and hired Keller to run it as a division under the mighty Accel marketing umbrella. From Echlin/Accel and Roto-Master, Turbonetics was created in 1978.  From Grumman to full-time turbo man, Keller and Turbonetics have not looked back.

The ceramic ball-bearing turbocharger that they developed, is one of  several patents related to turbocharging that Turbonetics own. The breakthrough-design dramatically improves "spool up" and, more importantly, withstands up to 50 times more thrust than conventional bearings.