whosdady

iTrader: (6)

The guys using the 11 lbs pulleys with the ATI kit are spining the impeller at 77, 600 rpm, (which is pretty close to 80,000). Concerning selling two different kits... That sounds like a great idea, ATI has been doing this since the begining.

Besides upgrading the blower with upgraded bearings, o-ring ect... wont you need to upgrade the intercooler as it may be too small for this potential upgraded aplication?

CaneZMD

iTrader: (1)

All technical issues aside, this is one of the reason's I went with the Vortech. This Vortech guy is on the boards, discussing their product, providing helpful information, etc. ATI never seemed to care. And when MaxHax (12secondZ, I believe) blew his engine, they were like "Oh well, car must have been screwed before the kit" and "timing retard isn't necessary".

I wasn't personally involved in any of this, so I could be totally wrong, but it just seemed like they left some folks out to dry.

AmyCroft

iTrader: (3)

Like wise.. - I had a odd call to ATI - when the product was new.
I knew then I'd not spend a dime with them.

Cheers Amy -

whosdady

iTrader: (6)

Regarding ATI customer service... I had a question about what pulley sizes I needed to run 10 PSI of boost with. Yesterday I called ATI and spoke to them for nearly an hour about the effects on my tranny, radiator, spark plugs, etc. Believe me they took plenty of time to discuss my particular situation and answered all of my questions.

ATI has said before that if anyone has a question, they prefer to have it asked on their tech line. A lot of information on forums is not always helpful, so they prefer to communicate with their customers/perspective customers in a more controlled enviroment.

Sinful

so is it safe to assume if you go with either of these blowers, you are looking at about 330-360ish RWHP? on stock pulley. Not including such things as headers, exhaust, UD pulley, plenum upgrade or is all that assumed to be done already?

Coming from a supra background, this is a lot of work to just get in the 400rwhp range. But im interested in making about 5-600ish rwhp with this car all said and done on a Supercharger.

so i guess my real question is WHAT IS MY FORMULA to reach the following power levels:

stage one: 400ish rwhp- does stage require fuel system upgrade.
stage two: 550-600ish rwhp

also, i assume even with a smaller pulley to make more boost 15+psi, i can limit it with a boost controller for more reasonable day to day driving?

thanks in advance.

Sinful

and what exactly was their response as far as effects on tranny, radiator, spark plugs, ect?

I was told that the 350z has a getrag transmission in it, but i guess this one is not as strong as the Toyota supra one if people are having them changed out numorous times

S12 driver

I don't think either kit can produce 15+ psi. As someone said before, the ATI s/c is running at 77,000rpm producing 11 psi. So that's really close to the s/c's max 80,000rpm. You might want to look at the GReddy TT kit if you want 500-600whp.

12SecZ

Sorry for my ignorance I'm a reformed LS1 owner.

What is a getrag tranny?

"ATI has said before that if anyone has a question, they prefer to have it asked on their tech line. A lot of information on forums is not always helpful, so they prefer to communicate with their customers/perspective customers in a more controlled enviroment.'

I have found this to be 100% correct. It is also good to request the same tech on future calls so they know the history of your car.

Yeah we all remember the technical letter thread which is why they probably bailed. It wasn't getting them anywhere.

I think the timing is a *must* but it is behind me now and addressed after the fact.

cart213

I've noticed that this discussion has turned into Vortech vs. ATI. Where are all of the Stillen guys??? Doesn't anyone own a Stillen that would like to tout its virtues over the centrifugal superchargers? I'm not saying that I prefer one over the other, but I would like to see a more well-rounded debate going on here.

whosdady

iTrader: (6)

Welcome Sinful... I too come from a supra background (more specifically an sp63 MKIV w/510rwhp). The transmission is not the problem with the Z. The first issues you must address are the timing and fuel components. After that either kit will be able to give you 400rwhp. Its just the vortech will have to work harder to give it to you and will not be able to give you much more if any.

As stated earlier, new bearings, o-rings, etc must be changed at or slightly before going 9lbs or 400rwhp. With the ATI kit, this is not necessary. Now it was mentinoed that you can upgrade to a different trim but then you will need a new intercooler and I'm not sure where that will fit in the Z?

Once at the 400rwhp mark you will need to work on the fuel delivery and continue working on the timing. To that point you will be safe up to about 440 to 450 rwhp. Then you must rebuild the engine with forged components.

After that, you must address the tranny.

If you do go with the ATI procharger... Most guys buy the tuner kit and purchase new injectors and have their ecu reflashed by technosquare. This is by far the best option available for the Z at this point in time IMO.

Houston G35

Whosdady,

Respectfully, your post does not make logical sense. IF you are correct that “new bearings, o-rings….) need to be installed at 400rwhp. THEN this should be the case with either the ATI or Vortech. The engine does not discriminate based on the brand of SC. It only knows how much stress it is taking. 400 rwhp is the same from both.

You said “Once at the 400rwhp mark you will need to work on the fuel delivery and continue working on the timing.”

The Vortech kits have auxiliary fuel pumps and piggy back ECU’s. At some point you are correct, real upgrades to the internals will be required, but I am quite confident that 400 rwhp is not that point. I believe Grubbs will back me up on this and many others on this forum that are at this level of performance.

You wrote: “Once at the 400rwhp mark you will need to work on the fuel delivery and continue working on the timing. To that point you will be safe up to about 440 to 450 rwhp. Then you must rebuild the engine with forged components.”

ONCE again I think your estimates are low. Injectors may need to be upgraded and some other items, but as long as A/F is under control, I don’t think forged upgrades are necessary at this point.

I do agree that doing these things would be a good idea, especially if you have future upgrades in mind, but if your final goal is at or around 400 rwhp, then internal upgrades are over precautionary.

tig488

iTrader: (18)

i think he means "bearing and o-rings" on the vortech blower itself, not the engine.

LSs1Power

I disagree on if u got ur AF under control u wont need forged upgrades. Of course AF is a really important part of saving the engine and make it perform well (It cool things down and keep detonation away), but there is something called cylinder pressure and u can only run soo much boost even with a perfect AF until the stock piston, rods, etc... will give because of the pressure, not detonation. Its about strength of the internal parts and fuel delivery, but its not only fuel.

Loren04G35

Actually, you should give a call to Greddy and talk to one of their design engineers about this. Calling NISMO or JWT will also get you the same info. Above 440 rwhp, the problems isn't o-rings or bearings. The big problem with the VQ35 is the rods. When Greddy was prototyping the twin turbo kit on stock motors, they had 2 motors that the rod bolts snapped at 10-12 psi. The stock rod bolts are extremely thin. So are the rod shafts.

If the intention is to go above this, then internal work is necessary. I don't see a point in getting the Greddy TT kit unless you are going inside the motor since each of the turbos supports 400 hp. Using that big of a turbo for low boost is a waste since you aren't getting the power, they spool far slower and are much less efficient than using smaller turbos.

If your going to swap rods, a good set of low compression pistons should be on order. You can get by with the stock crank (it is a forged piece with chamfered oil holes). You will need rod bearing and rings, but you can still use the existing crank bearings (unless you turn the journals). Also, you can't use an o-ring gasket on an open deck block. Remember that these are aluminum block with iron sleeves that have water jackets around them. It isn't an iron V8 or 2JZ where you can just cut an o-ring into it. On the other hand, the factory 3-layer metal gaskets are extremely good. They are far better than what most engines come with.

Loren04G35

Responding to the original thread, Vortech all the way. I don't understand the comments about how the ATI at 7 psi makes the same power as the Vortech at 8 psi. The only thing I can think of is that they are ONLY going by the Z magazine article. Here is what the Vortech has done on real peoples cars:

On a G35 6MT sedan (260 hp stock) with a borla exhaust as the only mod it put down 355 rwhp after tuning.Zimbo's 355.3 rwhp dyno

On a 350Z with a Crawford plenum, gutted RT cats and a borla exhaust it put down 396.9 rwhp after tuning.
396.9 dyno thread

Show me dynos from people with ATI kits that can do the same? ATI also has 1 major disadvantage, it has no timing control/protection. Vortech does. A few people have blown motors as a result of this. Yes you have to run an oil line with the Vortech, but it provides a constant flow of lubrication for longevity. The also means that you have no additional maintenance. The ATI requires routinely changing the SC oil as additional maintenance.

What's worse is that the gap isn't as bad between the two for Z owners as it is for G35 owners. Because of ATI's bracket design fitting on the G35, they additional problems. The reason for this is that there isn't enough room to put a filter in front of the compressor. Instead, they just put a screen to block large debris. This does allow some foreign debris to enter the blower. But, don't worry because it won't enter the engine. This is the only SC kit ever made that uses an air filter between the SC and the engine. Yes, you blow through the air filter. In my discussions with ATI, the reason why the boost is so low is that turning it up damages the filter and where do you think it goes when it comes apart? Early ATI would lie about the issue and say that the reason for the lower boost was because of different ECU tuning as a cover up. It is just plainly a bad design and why they are extremely reluctant to allow pulley swaps on these kits. I would feel a lot better about ATI if they just redesigned the bracket to fix this issue, but it isn't a problem for vortech. Hence why Vortech gets the knod from me.

tig488

iTrader: (18)

once again, when he says "new bearing and o-rings" he means in the vortech blower, Forced stated that in order to upgrade the blower it would have to be returned to them and have upgraded bearings and o-rings installed to make it a heavy duty blower.

whosdady

iTrader: (6)

HoustonG35 and Loren04G35,

As tig488 mentioned I am only referring to the blower unit when I reccomended new bearings and o-rings. I was only echoing what has previously (in this thread) been said by "Forced," a representative from Vortech. He suggested if you increase to a 9 lbs pulley as part of the vortech kit, then those changes NEED to be made. I made the comment earlier that if some of the guys already running 9 lbs did not upgrade these items soon, that they could destroy the blower which could potentially destory the engine because they both share the same oil.

Also already stated in this thread, the impeller speed of the vortech v2 blower is close to redline with only the 8 lbs pulley. The c2 blower from ATI has a redline at 80,000, so no changes need to be made to that blower. Unless you decide to increase to 12PSI. In which case you would need to look at bearings, o rings etc... (on the blower)

Concerning fuel delivery... I would love to see you or any other vortech user, try and increase your boost to 10 PSI without changing the fuel system. I am referring to the regulator and fuel pump specifically. You would be the first that I know of that tried this and did not blow an engine. The dmfu and external pump may hold up for a couple dyno runs but probably not much longer. The problem would be flow. Even with the TS ecu flash and larger injectors, I began running lean over 8 psi. I had to purchase a walbro 255 fuel pump and an adjustable regulator. This is what all the turbo guys have to do as well, if they decide to boost up to 9 PSI. Remember that the ATI kit also comes with an external pump and DFMU. I ditched that for reasons shared to me by Techno Square and by others that blamed their engine problems as a result of the external pump and DFMU.

Concerning the engine. 450 rwhp is the mark that you quoted me as saying internal modifications need to be made. I am not the first to say this... From Greddy to Top Secret, even some hardcore racers in PR said they have seen a couple engines go at 445-450rwhp, simply becasue the rods couldn't handle it. This is by no means a secret. However, if you think either of your cars are stronger, be my guest.

Loren04G35,
If you want to see higher dynos I would be happy to share mine with you. My car is a 5AT which dynos lower than a 6MT, usually about 3-5% at least. I made 368rwhp with only the ATI kit and Stillen exhaust. Add 5% for the change in tranny and that is 18.4 rwhp. So that is roughly 386.4 rwhp at 7 PSI with only exhaust. Show me a vortech dyno at 7 PSI (which they don't have a kit for) or even 8 PSI that is higher (with only exhaust.) Not going to happen... That is why the commments have been made about the ATI kit being stronger at lower PSI's. The sports car challenge is one of many tests that has proven this point. If you want to see the lowest dyno I have seen on the net look at the vortech website, where vortech dynoed their kit and made only 302 rwhp at 8 psi. This is mainly because the votech kits plays with the timing too much. With the R4 software this can be adjusted but at an addintional cost. IMO, the Techno Square capabilities are far superior and offer more performance oriented uipgrades than what the SS box is capable of.

Again, I am not trying to rip the vortech kit apart. I simply have expressed the reasons why I chose ATI over vortech.

If I didn't mind only running 8 PSI of boost without upgrading the blower?
If I didn't mind running less horsepower per PSI?
If I didn't mind removing the blower to change the air filter?
If I didn't mind risking the destruction of my engine by sharing oil?

If the above items didn't bother me so much I may have chosen the vortech kit.

I would guess that half the people on this thread that own vortech kits learned lot about their kits from this thread. Obviously it is quite clear that HoustonG35 (sorry to single you out) learned that it is easier to upgrade the ATI kit than it is to upgrade the vortech kit.

To make the vortech kit as powerful and reliable as the ATI kit a lot of work needs to be done. I have yet to get an answer about the intercooler. I have already been told you do need to upgrade to a different intercooler with a differnet trim but I would like to hear Forced tell me so in this thread.

CaneZMD

iTrader: (1)

Whosdady, Wow, that was REALLY long post. I have a few short rebuttals.
True and false: only about 9 psi w/o a bearing change on the blower
Arguable: less HP per psi. people have gotten 370+rwhp on stock z's @ 8psi which is very comparable to ATI numbers.
True and false: removing the blower to change the air filter. This is correct if you use the Vortech filter, but my post, as well as others show ways around this for less than $50.
False: risking the destruction of my engine by sharing oil. returned oil is filtered before it is pumped back into the engine so this shouldn't happen. I would be more worried about destroying my engine from the lack of timing control on the standard ATI.

I agree that the ATI tuner kit, with Technos ECU and new injectors is a great setup, but that's not sold by ATI. I think it's fairly safe to say that the standard kit offered by Vortech with fuel AND timing control by the Split second box is a safer kit than the standard ATI kit. We have to compare what they sell, not what we can do with what they sell. If that was the case, I would buy a S model Vortech SC, injectors and a technos ECu...plus a J&S so I could run timing as close to detonation as possible, but if I were spending that much I'd probably go TT anyway!

esemes

wow

brand loyality at it's finest....


before you rip the vortech posted output of a lil over 300, REMEMBER their baseline efforts (the ONLY numbers to really consider when grading this!!); they use a load control inertia dyno (mustang)...... not the typical drum spinners.....

with that same dyno, i originally netted 304 rwhp, (with the stock SS/r4 setup.... making it VERY safe, regardless of/if you have exhaust intake, plugs, etc....)... IMO that is the name of the game...

i then had my car remapped (to BETTER add to the fueling and timing, and exploit the geographic conditions of my location) and am at 365 rwhp...... (add 7-8% to get in snych ± with the posted numbers from the others)

chasing numbers around is a futile and dangerous activity, IMO. i am supplying mine only to clarify the above comment on vortechs LOW numbers)

understanding WHAT and WHY dyno outputs are for/done is the key.... to measure CHANGE

its like weighing yourself on your bathroom scale and me weighing myself on mine..... (who really knows?)

i prefer vortech for the out-of-the-box safety and setup. Its also not the first one i have owned either (prolly not the last either)

best bet it to find a DECENT and CREDIBLE tuner (with full - on wideband tuning dyno) and feel them out.....

these people (aside from the original installers) hold the fate of your car ideally...

eS


hey FORCED---- i have a question for you. I have always ONLY showed 7lbs of boost on my guage. Before and after the tuning as well.....

am i seeing an inacurate reeading (autometer ultralite series) or does the kit NOT give 8lbs??? I am not hearing beltslip, or the like...)

thnx...

(guess ti makes my numbers more impressive!?!?!)lol

Houston G35

To All:

I would like to say that I have found this thread to be helpful and informative. A good discussion is always interesting.

Whosdady:

Sorry, I did not catch the o-ring/bearing thing.

As far as needing to make changes to the Vortech blower at 9lb PSI, I think something does not make sense. First, I and a couple of other guys have a full 3 year warranty from Vortech with our 9lb pulleys. Henceforth, Vortech has stated if anyone wants to upgrade to a 9lb pulley they will give a standard warranty of 1 year (equal to the standard ATI warranty). Thus, it does not make sense to me that internals to the blower need to be changed at 9lbs.

One of the major selling point for the ATI, IMO, is the 80,000 rpm max impeller speed. I did seriously consider the ATI, but ultimately thought the Vortech was a SLIGHTLY better package.

Your comment about upgrading to a 10lb pulley is noted and I will keep this in mind if I decide to go to that level. At this point I intend to take baby steps after my most recent extreme makeover.

Concerning the 450 max safe hp with stock internals, I guess there is some room for debate. Personally, I would most likely do the internal upgrades at this point. However, I have heard a lot of people say they think the safe limit is 500 +. Also, one knowledgeable from an Infiniti service department told me that Nissan has rated the VQ block and internals (stock) at 800 hp. I find this hard to swallow, but I thought I would bring it up just to get feedback.

I really think the oil contamination argument is weak. If someone is seriously concerned about this complication, they really should not even bother with an SC. In fact they should just not even bother owning a car at all (it could break down. LOL)

At this point it is not clear to me if the Vortech or ATI is easier to upgrade. They both have their pros and cons. For me, at this point, I am very satisfied with my choice. I think, if I ever get to the point that the Vortech can not give me what I want, I would simply go with a TT. If I reach this point, I don’t think it would make any difference if I had the ATI or Vortech.