its all gonna have to wait a while, anyway,
as right now,
i'm out of work,
so the wallet is far too thin.
i can probably get an intake system
by end of summer if i get a job "soon"
but there's no way i'll have the green
for either an SC or a turbo inside of a year,
unless i can get myself onto Tuner Transformations
;>
____________________ it is smarter to be lucky
than
it is lucky to be smart.
IMO I prefer the SC even tho the gains aren't as much as the turbo. I like the raw power through the power ban and no turbo lag. I like how the SC will keep pulling up till you pop the motor due to over-reving.
Another thing to keep in mind is what you are using the car for. In Tom's case he is drag racing the car therefor he need torque and HP to keep the car pulling hard for a 1/4 mile or longer. I do not race the car therefor I don't see the need for all out HP. Yes the SC is more money but it tends to be more reliable and will not burn out in 30-40K miles as I have heard in the past turbos do. I could be mistaken tho or just told about the turbos that came in production cars.
fx3 wrote: Yes the SC is more money but it tends to be more reliable and will not burn out in 30-40K miles as I have heard in the past turbos do. I could be mistaken tho or just told about the turbos that came in production cars.
from what i've seen in some quick web searches,
the jackson supercharger
is a lot cheaper than that turbo kit
($3k vs. $6k)
???
____________________ it is smarter to be lucky
than
it is lucky to be smart.
I highly suggest reading "Maximum Boost" by Corky Bell. It goes into great detail on turbo chargers.
You can pretty much get an kind of power you want anywhere in the power band by properly selecting the right size turbo and properly designing the rest of the system around it.
The Jackson S/C is ok. It cannot be intercooled, and isnt as efficient as the Vortech. The Vortech makes more power. But if Kenne Bell ever releases its Twin Screw-type S/C, it will outperfom all, even Tom's Turbo. A TRUE Twin Screw S/C will give you INSTANT full boost hp/torq. at any RPM 2k and up. No boost LAG. And no boost DROP OFF like you get with "Roots" type S/C's (Eaton). I'dlike to see KB release one for the SVTf, because it will own all.
jhimm wrote: fx3 wrote: Yes the SC is more money but it tends to be more reliable and will not burn out in 30-40K miles as I have heard in the past turbos do. I could be mistaken tho or just told about the turbos that came in production cars.
from what i've seen in some quick web searches,
the jackson supercharger
is a lot cheaper than that turbo kit
($3k vs. $6k)
???
The main thing I would point out with SC is that you are really bearing down on so many aspects of the engine, mounts & transmission - the cost of the SC doesn't reflect the modifications you have to make to the above mentioned parts to sure up and strengthen the potentially effected areas.
You can really mess up an engine, tranny etc if you don't upgrade a whole lot of other things that can widthstand the force being put on it. Just my 2cents
____________________ Get in, Sit down, Shut up and HANG ON!
I think both have their advantages. Turbo's so far seem to be inherently more difficult to tune on the Focus, one of the reasons that there are two superchargers that will work very nicely with the Focus, and only one tried and true turbo (without going extremely custom). I agree, that the JRSC doesn't provide truckloads of max power, but it does provide ample amounts of power to fill out the power curve. Of all of these, it is also probably going to be the easiest to install. The Vortech means moving your battery somewhere else, as well as drilling into the block in a few places, you will get more power, but I'm not comfortable having to do all that. A turbo is probably the most labor intensive of these three, you've got downpipes, oil lines, all kinds of piping, an intercooler, etc. Plus it's difficult to tune from what I've seen and heard. And after asking some questions I found that most turbo kits available have the MAFS before the turbo (I asked why, because this isn't very intuitive if you ask me). However, this assumes that the turbo/intercooler are bulletproof and are reliable all the time, if something went wrong with one or the other, you could do some serious damage to your engine...without warning. Maybe there are tuning issues with the JRSC and Vortech supercharger, but I haven't heard about them.
if your talking about the focus-power turbo kit. well, make sure you area has no floods ever because the placment of the filter is bad. you'll reck your kit because its right in front of the wheel. but i heard of people running 340 at the wheels which in my opion wow. but i think i'm going custom on mine or powerworks with a rebuild i will have 300 promise.
I have never driven a turbocharged car, but I have a supercharged one. I seriously doubt I will ever seek out a turbocharged car now, though I used to think it was the cats meow.
There are power gain limitations on the roots style SC, and I think when people think of SC they think of this and its unfortunate because there are solutions. Someone mentioned the twin-screw SC which is a beast in and of itself. There is also the centrifugal SC's that can make the boost levels near if not equal to a turbo.
I have an Eaton M90 roots and gives my motor a 20% gain over stock and I can get them for around $2k or less if I had the NA version of my motor.
I am definately planning to eventually slap it a twin screw though as soon as I can since their are packages for my car. Though I can make probably around 11 - 15 psi worth of boost by going to smaller pulleys but you have to be careful of Knock Retard with that. Scan and tune, scan and tune is all I can say to that.
At full boost I have about 2* of KR around the shift points, not a lot, but every little bit counts and when I get my tuner soon I should be able tune that amount out. Anyone planning on or doing either a SC or turbo would do well to see what if any KR they get cause it can make a huge difference in performance not to mention the life of your motor.
That said there are some not so well known issues with forced induction. First, a turbo generates a great deal of heat which is detrimental to not only performance but the life of your motor by just the shear fact of the heat but it also can increase KR. Obviously you can intercool or use Alky injection to deal with that. Turbo's are also very hard on the oil, shortening its useable life in many cases by half. This is not so necessarily with SC's. They can also be complicated to install. Rear mounted turbos offer a solution to that but those kits can get even more pricey.
Also turbos, operating off exhaust gases, are re-introducing to the motor in some degree what it was originally trying to get rid of. So that means that the unburnt fuel and by-products of combustion are going back through the motor which could be why they can be difficult to tune. Furthermore, even if you can tune it, you still have those gases and all the crud that comes with it going through the piping, intercooler and so forth. Think that aint going to build up after a while? Whereas SC's are taking the already incoming air and just compressing it
Superchargers generate heat as well, its just a fact of the physics involved with forced induction but do so less than a turbo because the SC doesnt use exhaust gases to work. Superchargers are generally much simpler to work on, at least roots styles are, I dont know about the centrifugals.
You can also intercool SC's as well to deal with any heat issues and you can use Alky injection there too. A progressive Alky injection system offers injection rates based on boost and most should have some type of fluid level warnings to let you know you need to refill.
My SC is on a separate drive belt, so if it breaks, Im still driveable. Albeit at a greatly reduced fun factor but I'll get home. Im not sure if a turbo would be the same way should it fail.
Turbos can and often do generate bigger numbers, but Id be willing to be that most of the time that would be compared to a roots style supercharger. Use a centrifugal or better, a twin-screw SC and I think all bets would be off. SC's also give you the power on demand and can make for an incredibly flat power curve and even Jackson Racing will tell you that you can see fuel mileage gains with a SC if your foot isnt in it which is nothing but good in my opinion. Im running 31.5 mpg on the highway with a SC'd V6. Im plenty happy about that.
As with anything it will be a matter of preference, what your tuning goals are and so forth. I tend to lean to the stock sleeper look, excellent responsiveness while trying not to give up anything in economy or durability and the SC seems to fill that bill quite well for me.
Hopefully when Spring comes back around I will be able to get in some track time and a few dyno pulls to see where Im at. I also have a SVT customer of mine that has been trying very hard to get me into an Auto-X event which I must conceed I will probably eventually try if for no other reason than just the experience and fun of it.
Oh, and BTW. You can score another one for the GTP up against an Eclipse GT. Had a run in with one this morning on the way into work and I just couldnt resist, now if I could just figure out the schedule of that blasted WS6 Trans Am that has been taunting me, I just gotta know, you know.
____________________ My car is a synner! It uses Amsoil Synthetic Lubricants.
2001 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP
It whines a lot, but I like it
It comes down to how much you want to spend and how much power you want to make.
