I searched.. I swear! Best supercharger.. I can't find reviews :(

[Deoxyribonucleicvitriol]

I'm looking for reviews for a 4th gen camaro or firebird (haven't bought it yet.. I'm considering my options with and w/out a supercharger)

I've found these sites... and I can't find any detailed information! It's jus tlike "Here.. I'm selling this... buy it without any information"
http://www.jegs.com/cgi-bin/ncommerc...64&prmenbr=361
http://www.superchargersonline.com/p...84&tabactive=5

[Mighty Thor]

What exactly the type of review are you looking for. So far we have Powerdyne, ATI, and one Vortech. They are all custom made for our cars. But if you notice, only the Powerdyne is being marketed for our car. Even that is not endorse by the company themselves.

Shirl, Stephan, and I have had our Supercharger for 6 years. If you want a review on the superchargers, I'll be happy to give you one.

[Deoxyribonucleicvitriol]

Dude, I am so interested in knowing about it... due to my inexperience with cars... and my unfortunate inability to learn about them hands-on because of my busy schedule... I really don't KNOW, what I NEED to know...

I tried to read up about it.. and I see guys talking about 10 lb. belts and stuff and I have no idea what they're talking about... just utter confusion.

I would like to hear how it's worked for you... and what I'm looking at spending if I get the powerdyne supercharger for a 97' Camaro. I thought I'd just have to buy it, take the car and the supercharger to the shop, and pay them to install it... but apparently it takes more than that?

I saw them talking about air-to-air and water-to-water coolers... -_-' my inexperience with cars in general certainly doesn't help...

Basically any help you could offer is GREATLY appreciated.

[T-Punk]

yeah, there is only one supercharger kit that is sold and only one turbo kit (from force fed fabs at http://www.forcefedfab.com/ ). as of right now the turbo is putting more power to the ground but that has to do with it having an intercooler, and other factors. i think the turbo would be better at this point just from a price standpoint but there is something about superchargers too. Oh and dont even think about asking if the eaton M90 from the grand prix GTP will fit on our cars, cause it wont. All this said there is also a 4.1 stroker kit, bigger cams, and other engine mods that would put out more Naturally asperated power. All in all the 3800 series II equiped fbody is an excellent car, it is durable, capable of high performance, and is cheap for what you get. Hope you get one, it was the best decision i ever made.

[Deoxyribonucleicvitriol]

Dude.. it's like you're speaking another language... if you explained what each thing is as you went... that might be good... If I can get better performance for less money then I'm all for it.. but I want it to be legal... and I thought that with a turbo I'd have to replace the whole exhaust.

Also, aren't superchargers better for gas milage and all that?

[Mighty Thor]

Originally posted by T-Punk:
yeah, there is only one supercharger kit that is sold and only one turbo kit (from force fed fabs at http://www.forcefedfab.com/ ). as of right now the turbo is putting more power to the ground but that has to do with it having an intercooler, and other factors. i think the turbo would be better at this point just from a price standpoint but there is something about superchargers too. Oh and dont even think about asking if the eaton M90 from the grand prix GTP will fit on our cars, cause it wont. All this said there is also a 4.1 stroker kit, bigger cams, and other engine mods that would put out more Naturally asperated power. All in all the 3800 series II equiped fbody is an excellent car, it is durable, capable of high performance, and is cheap for what you get. Hope you get one, it was the best decision i ever made.

Again the topic is supercharger. Since he's NEW in force induction, it would be better to ask and research the different options that we have here.

Other than that, I would have been ticked off and all over you. Nothing pisses me off than to see a SC topic smeared or stolen.

[Deoxyribonucleicvitriol]

Yeah, thor, if you could reply to my 2nd post that would be great.

[T-Punk]

bro, im all about super's if they are done right but he is as you said "new to forced induction" so i was just letting him know there are other options than the powerdyne and it is cheaper than the powerdyne (by like 800 bucks last i knew). Untill i desided to design my own fi system i was gonna go with the FFF kit just for the price and because it had an intercooler, and because i didnt feel like spending more for the ribbed pully and all that shizzle. anyway back on topic. you can buy the powerdyne kit from http://www.tbyrnemotorsports.com/v6catalog.html it is a good kit but you will have to search for the john D wrap on this site to get the most out of it (it tells you how to rerout the serpentine belt to get more power out of the system). also (and i think that thor will be able to help you better on this one) find out bout how to get a ribbed pully for it. If you want to find out more about the turbo system talk to tiago (he is a mod on this site and is the one who sell the turbo kit). hope this gets you on your way.

[T-Punk]

oh yeah i forgot to explain some stuff. ok to start of we will get some physics out of the way. when you compress air it heats up. since turbos and super's basically compress air they also heat the air. now you always want the coolest dense air you can to go to you engine to get the most power and to lower the risk of detination... just trust me you dont want any detination. Now to combat this added heat an intercooler can be used. An intercooler is basically a radiator for air (its like a big heat sink in a way). Now the powerdyne does not come with an intercooler but it is safe to run up to 10psi (from what others using it have said) but it is not as efficient without an intercooler. one guy (greenglow) fitted an intercooler to the powerdyne (it took some work) and it showed pretty decent gains. also i am going to do a little comparison of turbos and supers just for you to refer to. now remember neither is better than the other but they do have different traits. superchargers are run off your serpentine and takes power from your engine to run them (this is refered to as parasidic loss and is part of what lowers your gas mileage when using a supercharger). they offer instant power, biger cams are more pheasable because they do not add backpreasure on your exhaust. now turbos are run off of your exhaust so they dont "take power" to run, but they do add backpressure which makes your engine less efficient. They have what is called a boost threashold which is where they start adding power. this can be good and bad. for one thing when you are just driving around under normal conditions you get about the same gas mileage as you would if you didnt have the turbo, but once you reach that threashold the mileage is greatly reduced. Now the bad side of boost threashold, it adds "lag". in other words when you hit the gas you have to wait for the turbo to come online (around 3000rpm with the turbo kit for our cars). that is about the best comparison i can come up with. you seemed to want to know what all was availible but you also seemed to not really understand it all that much so i was just trying to clear some stuff up for you so you can make the best decision for your needs.

[Deoxyribonucleicvitriol]

That's what I'm talking about man.. Excellent help. Great explaining. That's what I need behbeh that's what I need! Talk to my idiot-style haha... the more dumbed down the better. Sometimes when I read on here it's like my parents trying to understand my geek talk about forwarding ports, or servers, or gigatexels or whatever I'm talking about at the time.

I'll just number my questions as I talk to make it easy to reply [img]tongue.gif[/img]

I thought for some reason that it might have helped gas milage or something. Thanks for clearing that up. I hope 1) it won't have TOO big of an impact on milage... will it?

I tried to read up on the John D thing on http://www.camarov6.com/cgi-bin/ulti...c;f=4;t=001470 and I'm pretty confused.... I think I might put in a trans go shift kit and a supercharger if I can find a good camaro for cheap enough.

2) About how much will it cost me to get a mechanic to do this..... 3) or do you think that I could do this on my own? I'm good with my hands and am perfectionistic when it comes to instructions... but I just don't want to blow it when it comes to almost 4000 bucks y'know?

It doesn't have to have bleeding edge performance so 4) I don't have to worry about detination if I just buy a better belt or do that John D. Mod right?.. I'm not into pushing it to the limit... that's when I have to baby my car all the time...and I just want it to work well without worrying about it too much.

I'm psyched man! Thanks again for taking your time to help.

I literally don't think I've ever been in a car in my life that can slam you into your seat. I want to be as good of a citizen as I can, so I don't wanna be mr psycho-speed-demon-weaving-on-the-highway... but being able to accelerate really fast and being able to just SLAM it onto the highway (and pwn my friends if they do want to "race") will be fun. I think my car is something like 140 hp right now... it will be insane doubling my hp.

[Teufel Hunden]

1) depends on how you drive. For normal day-to-day driving, the impact will be small.

2) depends on the mechanic... out here most of them quote about $1000 to install a kit.

3)Superchargers aren't too bad when it comes to installation, i know plenty of people who have never touched a car before but did a nice job installing their kits (with the help of clearly written instructions of course)

4)you don't need to worry about detonation if you're running the stock boost setting the kit comes with.

[Mighty Thor]

T-Punk explained it really well. FFF kit is fairly new and the price has been great. The Group Purchase will even give you better price still. A couple more others here have done their own custom design of the turbo, which have been awesome.

There is also some brackets that Pathogen design out of Stephan's custom ATI. It will allow you to download and take the design to a metal shop for fabrication and all you'll need to buy is the head unit and intercooler.

Powerdyne kit has been around since mid 95 when the 3.8 first came out for the f-body then marketed in '96. I'm one of the original Vector Perf. installed and tested vehicle. The new tensioner bracket was tested on my car.

But PD has come a long way. The early design was plagued with reliability issues: leaky lubrication on the bearings and it burns up, tensioner pulley tend to sieze, internal belt tends to break. Plus on our system, the belt slippage was a big issue.

Ofcourse, things have gotten better. The inner belt is now Kevlar sprayed, bearing are now rated at 7 tons, and no more tensioner pulley. Plus with the JohnD wrap and Greenglow's groove, belt slippage is no longer an issue.

Unlike Turbo and ATI, Powerdyne is not intercooled. But several guys here have made custom intercooler, and I hope to be.

Good books to read, I highly recommend Corky Bell: Maximum Boost and Supercharged.

Good Luck

[Turbo V6 Camaro]

well since i got my car I ALWAYS wnated the power dyne kit, then the talk of turbos cam along, and i went on www.howstuffworks.com and found the basic of how both turbo and supers work,

for me it was the price of the turbo kit and to be alittle different. not only that the ssuper still need work after....

Turbos - normal driving you dont even know there under your hood, now you puch it and you get INSTANT BOOST when you hit 2800-3000 RPM like from 0-1 PSI to 7-10 PSI (depends what your set at) and turbos offer easier "selection if you will" if you want more boost for say the track or a street race you simply go under the hood and tune up the boost with a few turns on the boost controller. less you just turn it back down. for <b>me</b> the turbo was better and offered room for bigger mods then the SC does. its was also easy b/c the maker of the kit is on this board and we hav his AIM name for any questions. the the sound the turbo make is great (do a search for "teaser video" )

Supers: they have that nice wine to them, and they offer some boost below 3000 RPM, to up the boot you have to change the pully out needing tools (still not hard) but for a last second street go.... lol the supers that offer the IC would be better in the long run and much safer.

with turbos and supers you have to use higher octane gas

you ask why did't i choose the super?? well i want to run about 20 PSI of boost....... and the supers for our car make out about 15PSI MAX (as far as i know/could find)

see my web site

but for what you want eather basic kit will do fine the turbo is 2800 in the GP, its full bolt on and go.....

the supers (power dyne) cost more and you have to buy a pully still. i dont know about the other kits so i won't go into them

for <b>me</b> the smarter choice was the turbo,

its really up to you and you wallet,

eathier way they will both put a smile on you face :D

[T-Punk]

yeah Teufel Hunden pretty much nailed every question. Now if you get the supercharger kit (you seem to be set on the super so i will just continue this thread as if its your only option) take a look at it before you take it to a mechanic. From what i have read its really an easy install but if it looks out of your league by all means shop around for a mechanic (dont just use the first one you go to because you might spend too much), you dont want to screw up somthing that costs so much. i dont know what to tell you on being confused on the john d wrap... there was an aske "diagram" ,if you can really call it that, on here a while back. maybe someone can find it cause i couldnt. Oh and BTW if you only have 140hp then a supercharged 3.8 camaro will give you more fun than you can handle (plus rear wheel drive is fun in its self)

[Deoxyribonucleicvitriol]

I looked at the supercharger and doesn't look like anything too complicated... for saving 1000 bucks... dude, I will DEFINATELY do it myself.

haha... about the fun thing... yeah, my dad is always telling me will wreck when I get my bird or camaro. If we're behind a granny I'll be like "Pass them dad... c'mon.. (it's a 2-lane road... but you can see up for 1/2 a mile and noone is on the road)"
Dad: "Can't."
Me: "Yeah you can, there's noone up the road."
Dad: "It's double yellow."
Me: "She's going 10 under. If I had my 'bird I'd be like VRUM VRUUUUUMMM, and pass her."
Dad: "When you get your sports car, you'll wreck it in a week"

lol. I'm actaully a pretty good driver. My friend and his porsche.... He is a "skilled" driver, but a very "bad" driver if you know what I mean. He does stuff like outrun police into a different city because he knows it's out of their jurisdiction. nutball >_>