Im going with a bigger IC to flow more air . I guess you could upgrade it when you install the kit

 

centrifical sc 1psi per 1000 rpm 7psi @ redline vs st all 8 psi at 3000 rpm

 

UMMMMM.....5psi @4000rpm ...13.5psi @ 6100rpm...More to come

 

thats a lil better you could still build 13.5 psi @ a lower rpm on a turbo

 

Actually it would be exactly the opposite...Traction would be way worse with a 2 step.Now with the gear based boost conrtoller like the Turbo XS Dtec or Greddy Pro-fec you could ramp the boost up as you get traction in the upper gears.Thats schweeeeet..

 

Not really true.I owned a SC Z a while back abnd went to TT's and the turbos definetly make more power all around.We even did a few single turbos at the shop and surprisingly there was not any noticible lag.When people think lag, they revert back to the DSM and Supra'a where you take a smaller motor and put a BIG turbo on it which takes forever to spool up.Resulting in a big HP and TQ increas starting at around 5000 rpms.The VQ motor is a huge motor as far as the import world is concearned,basically the new big block of the imports.The VQ makes enough low end TQ and HP to spool up the single turbo rather quickly resulting in very nice and smooth power curves with no noticable lag, like people think. I personally do not like the parasitic loss of a blower and only getting peak boost at redline,but thats just me...I like hitting full boost low and holding it to redline for a very nice linear power curve
However, the single turbos on the market IMO will not be capable of producing huge hp #'s like the twins currently on the market..
If your going to go F/I I suggest just going ***** deep and getting twins, cause trust me, once you got F/I the power is never enough and your always upgrading and looking for more power

 

sentry65
Thank you very much for the time taken to type this essay up. I was also consulting with a few other vortech people. I am meeting someone this week who has one done. Hopefully he will be nice enough to give me a demo.

 

no problem. There's people pushing 475whp with the vortech kit and lots of other upgrades which is respectable even to the turbo crowd.

I'm expecting to be up in the 420-440whp range with the "NA" bolt on parts, cams, 440 injectors, return fuel and either the emanage ultimate or UTEC. My belief is that this setup will produce less friction in the engine than a ST or TT setup running the same power would since the air will flow easier. It's true though that if you get a dual exhaust like the APS one that was designed for flow and test pipes and all other bolt on parts for a ST or TT setup that it'll flow easy too.

My goal is 420-440whp. I can reach it by getting a ST or TT, or the vortech and bolt ons. Well my car already has the NA bolt on parts. If I didn't have them, it'd take a higher PSI with the ST and TT to get the power I want (like 11-13psi?), where the vortech and bolt ons don't need quite as high psi. It can reach that power with 8-9psi with the right bolt ons. That means less friction on the blower and engine. And yeah turbos get way way hotter than SC kits/engines. If I added a ST or TT to my setup and tuned it full out I'd probably reach like 500whp or higher and that's just too much power for me. I think I'd lose control of that - lose traction, not to mention the stress in the engine and other parts - axels etc would be at the breaking point. So the vortech does exactly what I'm wanting

A SC kit will require you to check/tighten the belts on occasion and plan on replacing them every 10k miles or so. There is some parasitic loss compared to the ST or TT's so that's pretty much true (debatable in some respects). It's like adding a couple or a few more AC's to the drivetrain. For my car, I'm using this to benefit my setup and am thinking that extra bit of "slow down" on the drivetrain to make driving a lightweight clutch even easier to drive. Meaning I think a light clutch would be easier to drive with a SC than a turbo. It'll also spool up the SC really really fast.

Like I said before, getting to 4k is NO problem with a light clutch and also even the 3.9 final drive. I think the 3.9 final drive might work out well for the ATI or vortech kits because of their lack of huge torque. The 3.9 final drive basically gives you gear torque. You'll have to shift sooner, but the oomph in your seat will for sure be there with that setup and it'll accellerate you into full boost faster than normal gears. The 3.9 gearing with a ST or TT is not a good move since even the stock gearing is giving ST and TT cars a hard time with traction and the amount of boost is so huge as is. And as far as shifting more - why did anyone buy the Z if they don't like shifting? It isn't a camaro with really tall gearing

I bring it up because vertical power on a dyno chart is good and all but equally good is horizontal power - meaning how fast you go thru that power going thru each gear. That doesn't show up on a dyno unless you switch the graph's layout from "rpm's" to "time" or "speed" So when you show up for a dyno day, no one will be impressed with your gearing or lightweight clutch/flywheel or light wheels etc because it doesn't show up in the typical format with how the charts are printed off (rpm's is the most useful for tuning etc afterall)

A SC with bolt ons will sound probably way way louder/aggressive than a ST/TT with full bolt ons. Some people hate the SC belt whine. I for one hate turbo waste gate flutter or whistle (not all kits sound like that) but IMO it sounds like a toy, but some kits (greddy for instance) sound just badass. The vortech's belt squeeling issues are solved if the idle is raised to around 1000-1200 rpms. If you have full bolt on parts, you're going to probably hear more engine rumble than belt whine anyway (excluding the ATI kit since it's way louder than the vortech)

Some people with cars like supras with 700whp say they want more power and some say that they would probably be totally happy with their power if they could just HEAR their power. Turbos can be pretty quiet with stock exhaust etc. It almost doesn't sound that fast. So yeah IMO sound is a factor. My NA car is pretty loud and mean sounding - way more so than a stock Z with just a ST/TT kit. Some people like the quiet though and the sleeper factor. I like starting up my car and people across the parking lot go "damn WTF is that car running?" Then again, some people might hear a SC and think the car is broken. A ST/TT car with the exhaust/cats or test pipes changed out sounds pretty incredible though with it's tone.

However the ST/TT cars can be set up really really nice if you really address EVERYTHING having to do with power delivery and traction. It's just a lot more money and will ultimately give you more power too as in over 500whp easy.

I'm gonna get crap for this probably, but just to get an idea of what's going on is if you ever play games like GT4 or Forza motorsports, buy a 350Z in the game and put 700-800hp on it with a turbo setup. Then do a SC setup with less power like around 500hp. Both cars can have the best tires and suspension and LSD etc etc. The SC car is way way way way way easier to control on the track, the other is damn near rediculous. Making the final drive gearing really tall on the turbo car helps a lot, but the turbo power comes on soooo hard it's just odd to drive with the weak gearing because it's either slow then FAST or if you use the normal gearing it's just no traction to be found unless you drive at 30% throttle the whole time

Also keep in mind that a lot of people on this site already paid big bucks for their turbo and they're really enjoying it and thus will say SC's aren't as good. Others don't even consider SC's because shiney turbos have the bling factor right now. Others say to go turbo because of the simple fact that they generally make more power (and power is bling). I'm sure it's a rush to hit 400 torque at 3500-4000 rpms coming from 200 torque or whatever at 2000 rpm's. The torque then really starts to drop off towards redline. If you've read the latest issue of SPEED with that NA C5 corvette setup for autox (AMAZING CAR!), that guy goes on saying how he has too much midrange torque and wants to transfer that mid torque to be located at the higher rpms (via cams and tuning) so it's a little more linear. He's all about control since he does autox.

the reason many track newbies lose control of driving corvetes out on road courses is because of the big V8 torque they have down low. It's really really easy to spin out if you go mashing the pedal because the torque is huge across all rpm's. The vortech will build torque power instead of it being huge all over (kinda like a turbo)

one thing is true though, if you were to go SC, expect EVERYONE to ask "why didn't you go twin turbo?"
...and I'll just tell them I couldn't afford it. If 420-440whp isn't good enough for them, then that's cool

 

I think what the above demonstrates is that you
= clearly defined your objectives
= thoroughly did your research
= considered the pros/cons of several systems
to arrive at your solution

If others follow that, they won't go far wrong

(you can send me the $50 later )

 

That can be fixed. If you ever make it down to the Bay Area I will show you what I mean. I have no "grinding walnuts" sound from the blower or any "ssshhhh" sound from the BOV.

I know what you mean though... at first the noise was cool, then it sucked, but now it's all better and I am extremely happy.

 

I guess it all comes down to personal likes/Dislikes..After all it is your car and you have to live with it, so you need to be 100% happy. The good thing now is that there are so many alternatives out there for F/I that it makes doing your research fun and educational..Based on my persoanl experiences and having owned both a Supercharged Z and a TT Z, I can make my opinion based on factual basis of my own observations.I for one love my TT set up and comparing it to my old SC set up is like night and day..Whichever you end up choosing the Z with F/I is a load of fun!!

 

just curious, there's been a few people that have gone from the vortech to the APS TT and say they're way happier. I'm wondering what power they were previously running with the vortech and then the TT?

just saying, if you have a vortech kit that's doing 370whp, then do a TT doing 400-420whp, of course we know which one is going to be more fun to drive


it takes a lot of stuff to really get good power out of the vortech - headers, cams, light clutch, smaller pulley, good tuning, etc. They don't just add peak power, but can add some low/mid range power too and beef up the lower torque a little. The smaller pullies also make boost come on at a faster rate as well as give you 1-2 lbs more boost. People are only just now upgrading the vortech blower itself to higher ones. There's some real potential there, but only so many people are doing it

 

I tried all that you mentioned with my old ProCharger, but it never even came close to the feeling of my TT set up.It just is not PEAK hp that changes, the whole TQ curve comes on at a lower RPM and much harder...For it was a big difference in performance.

 

My old Vortech 395hp I think it was 326 TQ. I dunno what my APS TT is cause it hasnt been tunned yet.

 

You know, I'm beginning like the Vortech idea more and more....
BTW, the BMW M5/M6 is like 500hp but "only" around 400 ft/lbs.

 

same with a ferrari F430

http://www.fast-autos.net/ferrari/ferrarif430.html

490hp
343 tq

of course it has 8500 rpm redline

it's not the fastest 1/4 mile runner or anything though, nor is it the best at handling. It's a good mix of everything though and obviously a few leagues better than the Z. IMO it's a good role model for the Z.

By turboing the Z, you're really taking away some of it's handling capabilities and exchanging them for better straight line abilities. The gas pedal is going to be really sensitive with the torque on a turbo car. Basically a ST or TT makes the Z not so great at autox, but better at 1/4 mile. IMO the Z isn't so great at 1/4 mile at all, so why try to exaggerate that weakness? It does everything pretty well but not the best at any. Going with a SC kinda follows in that same vein.

People might say that turboing a Z makes the Z faster in a straight line, but still has the same handling - I really don't think it does if the rest of the car is stock. You'll just spin out the tires. To keep yourself from crashing while turning fast, you'll end up driving slower so you don't approach the limit of traction because if you sneezed or caughed, you just might crash if you jolted the gas pedal 2mm more and gain 30 more tq in an instant.

If people are going to be shooting for 800-900hp and expect it to still handle well, they need to model their car after an F1 race car with it's huge huge race tires and huge amount of downforce

Then again, you gotta figure out how you drive your car - on the street with stoplight and highway racing a ST would be more fun and faster than a SC

 

Hey LOUZER ..... I'm located in Atlanta GA, making it to the Bay Area is a stretch for me. Could you give me a DIY quick fix.

 

OLEG

The quatermile segment was done at a old airstrip not @ a 1/4mile track... Huge difference... The times posted were horrific...

 

This excuse and 20 more just like it . All from turbo guys that just couldnt except the findings of the test done . The fact remains... that day , same driver , same track , same conditions , the SC out did the turbo's in most tests . live with it !!!!!!

 

yeah i'm kinda thinking that the normal street isn't exactly a race prepped track either, could be wrong though. Some of the highways here have that rubberized coating which is really really nice for everything really, but it's not like you are launching on it