There are different ways of explaining how a turbocharger works but here is mine:
At the core....a turbocharger is like a vacuum....its sucks air into the engine. An engine needs a mixture of air and fuel in order to create power. Hence if you have a turbocharged car it allows for extra air to be sucked in with the potential of making more power...key word being potential. There are other factors to take into account: More fuel will need to be added to this mixture, also hot air is bad for an engine and the materials in the block like the pistons, rods, main caps and bearings and crakcshaft must be capable of handling this new found power that they were not originally designed for.
A turbocharger is attached to a turbo manifold...every car has a manifold that aatches to the engines and channels the exaust towards the bottom and back of the car through a series of pipes. A turbo car has a manifold that channels the exaust into the turbo. This hot exaust is channeled towards a fan called a turbine....this high pressure air rushed towards the turbine and pushes it....causing the turbine to spin. This turbine fan is attached to another fan by a small shaft. As the turbine fan spins the shaft spins and the other fan: called the compressor also spins. This other glorious fan is what sucks in the new, clean, fresh air into the other side of the turbo around the snail shaped tube and eventually into the engine.
Now think about it...this turbo is basically recycling...it uses what ever nasty air the engine produces to pull in even more fresh air....and then this new air sucked in creates more nast exaust air which makes the turbine spin faster which allows the compressor to suck more air: It's a kind of dominoe effect. A turbo is also limited by a device called a wastegate that is attached to it. The wastegate limits the amount of air that the turbine receives and thus the speed at which the compressor fan can spin.
First lets deal deal with fuel wasbinator: A perfect mixture of air/fuel is called stoich and is considered 14.7:1 meaning there 14.7 times as much air as there is fuel. In an example if a car was running 11.7:1 then it would be called rich (too much fuel and not enough air)and 16.7:1 would be considered lean...that is too much air and not enough fuel. If your car is running lean...you get high combustion temperatures and can lead to detonation (very bad).....if you run rich you burn alot of gas and lose hp but the engine runs cooler and safer...when tuning you seek to obtain close to stoich and let the engine run a little richer on the top end for safety and longevity.
Next is air temperature: Hot air is bad...as a general rule we know hot air expands and cold air is dense. Hot air is bad for an engine as it can also increase combustion temperatures and lead to detonation. In order to solve this problem becuase air does flow hot as a result of a turbo...it is sent through an intercooler. There are 2 types of intercoolers: air to air and water to air. Most times you will see air to air....these are the front mounted ones that look like a radiator but you see aluminum piping on the sides which has the air inside. After air is sucked in from the turbo...it is sent through the intercooler to become denser and sent to the engine. The other intercooler is called a water to air intercooler and has water in it to cool the air as it passes through. Intercooler help increase hp and drop intake air temperature.....the only disadvantage is the larger the intercooler the greater the drop in boost...more on this later.
The Internals: Remember when you engine came from the factory it was not made to hadle the stressed of all the extra power from a turbo setup. So you have to do some research and find out what kind of boost your engine will be able to handle. Most guys measure boost by PSI (punds per square inch) however you can measure it several other ways. Most cars that run aftermarket turbo kits or cutoms kits usually run low boost because they do not want to risk blowing up their engine. In such kits all the parts for proper fuelling are given but there are no parts given to upgrade the piston, rods and other internal parts within the block. Most guys run settings of 5-12lbs based on the engine and general understand from other tuners and aftermarket vendors, magazines etc about what boost to run with stock internals. Remember the higher boost you run the more power you make but the more stress you put on your engine. This is how most people destroy their prized engines cuz they get power hungry and turn up boost to high.
Detonation: Detonation happens when the air/fuel mixture ignites before the spark plug fires. In essence..combustion is happening prematurely or earlier than it is supposed to....not good...Why? Because as the piston is still coming up and has not reach the top yet (called TDC..top dead center) it is being forced down again...this puts stress on the piston and can bend your rod, create a hole in the piston, blow your head, throw a piston...all kinda drama you never want to deal with.
I am not familiar with your engine so I can't offer advice but...you can turbocharge any engine...it will vary as to the amount of work and money needed to successfully accomplish such a task.....certain engines need less prep work and others will now....you will have to talk to people who have knowledge with your engine in specific. But to turbo charge a car you will need the following: a turbocharger, turbo manifold, oil line to turbocharger with wastegate (can be internal or external) and return line to oil pan, extra fuel accomplish in different ways: larger injectors, piggy back computer like the Apex SAFC, some turbo kits don't come with intercoolers...but in a hot place like Trinidad it is highly recommended. There is alot more to this whole topic..I recommend you go to
http://www.sportcompactcarweb.com and read the tech articles and learn...I too knew nothing about cars, engines and turbocharging but you just need to read and learn. Another really good dite to explain all this is
http://www.howstuffworks.com Hope this helped you somewhat