varrius

A supercharger offers less gains but will operate at all times. This will translate into massive torque steer in an off-the-line scenario. Overall, it also develops less power than a Turbo Charger, which doesn't require engine power to operate.

The CT-E supercharger looks very promising. Although, I'm a bit weary about it. I want to install some sort of F/I system into my car but is the CT-E supercharger really for me?

I've driven in Cobalt SS's and SRT-4s. Both of these cars, as you know, are FWD. However, one utilizes a turbo charger and the other (originally) utilized a supercharger.

The cobalt SS delivered less power than its competitor, the SRT-4, developed horrible torque steer and couldn't get easy gains like the SRT-4 could - with minor bolt-ons.

Sure, you could change the supercharger belt on the SS, but after that you really hit a brick wall gain wise, without otherwise extensive modification.

General Motors saw this flaw and now offer the cobalt SS with a turbo charger.

In our cars, we already have a large Inline Four. Most tuners have to buy stroker kits to raise their displacement to utilize a larger turbo. IE. Lancer Evolution owners generally install 2.3L stroker kits when mounting larger turbos like the GT35R kits.

We already have decent base power from our KA24s. We could easily install a large turbo kit and get off the line with minimal torque steer, no power loss, and wait for those giant turbos to spool up.

My .

Tishkevich

iTrader: (3)

well I don't know enough about this, But I know I've been looking at a TUrbo charger for boost rather in a SC since I saw the 460 HP 380 lbs ft tq on a 1st gen on the other forums. That torque sounds like hot sex on the beach to me. I'd rather not do launches in a FWD car anyway, so the TC would give me the ideal rolling 40 mph start gain I'd like Not to mention I'd only be pushing it from 65 to 140 as fast as possible on a regular basis lol

varrius

Well, if you had a larger turbine, you could potentially launch your car from a dead stop.

Since the turbo charger wouldn't spool until in later RPMs, it would be like your car was naturally aspirated off the line. Then, with torque steer defeated, your car becomes a rocket ship at higher RPMs, when the turbine spools.

460 WHP and 380 WHP, is a lot. However, you couldn't do that on a completely stock bottom end. You'd have to have serious internal engine work done to get to those number.

Nonetheless, I'm sure our engines could handle about 16 - 18 PSI of boost, to redline, without any taper; stock. That would undoubtedly give us more potential than a super charger.

Euro2JDM

when deciding turbo vs supercharger you have to look at a few things:

1) what use do you want out of it? if you want a dyno happy car that will put down 380+ whp on the dyno, but when driving on the road will take forever to get to that power then go with the BIG turbo

2) do you want the power as soon as you press the peddle, or do plan on always doing 40mph rolls. If you want power from a stop all the way to redline, Supercharge, if you only want the power high up then turbo

3) engine life: from what I have read, I may be wrong, superchargers are generally safer on motors

4) do you plan on keeping your car and its warantee? I personally purchased an extended warantee so my car is covered untill 120,000 miles. For this reason, as well as others listed above, I will be doing the CTE supercharger. By doing CTE and having the dealer install the blower, your warantee will not be void. (i never have the dealer install my parts, as they rape you on installation rates, but to keep my warantee, I will do it in this case)

with your basic mods and the cte blower you should easily be able to achive 300whp. I have spoken to CTE and they MAY, not guranteed, release a stage 2 option for our cars, as they do for the civic. This means we can easily achive 320-330whp

even after these mods, there are still other mods that can be done.

- a dump from the dp (so you dont have to have a loud ass exhaust, keep it clsoed for normal driving, and flip a switch when you want to race and have the extra power with sound

- water/meth this will give extra power when needed and is sapposed to be safer on the motor

- weight reduction (light weight rims, cf hood trunk, remove rear seats for track days, ect)


My goal is to have a 320-340 whp tsx. That will easily be achivable with a supercharger.

hopefully this helps?

HeavyDuty

Had this car come with a 4 port exhaust manifold like the 1st gens and the RDX, I would have already been gathering parts for a turbo system on my car. I don't want to get into changing the head, though, as that's a stretch for a hand-me-down upgrade. Factory equipped turbo systems are *head and shoulders* above aftermarket systems in fit, finish and no BS real world use. Yes, all out power with aftermarket systems are a given, but upgraded factory applied systems work much better, IMHO.

OP, I don't know for sure, but I'd be willing to bet $1 the SRT-4 and now the turbocharged Cobalt have LSD's whereas the s/c Cobalt didn't. That's speaking to the torque steer issue. FWD cars have it whether it's stock or highly modded.

Turbo cars are much more suceptible to big problems with 'typical American' maintenance than a s/c car would be. The recommended Mobil1 in the SRT-4 to me, speaks volumes about that very issue.

Too big of a turbo is great at the track, but sucks on the street. The 2nd gen Eclipse's are a good example of that. On a fairly well modded DSM, a 20G (not really that big) is a mutt as you're constantly waiting for boost to build between shifts. Then, when it *does* come on, it's like sex...as soon as it gets really good...it's over. You can't take advantage of the high rpm power a too-big turbo provides because with a stock bottom end, it won't hold together long enough to use that power.

With enough HP/TQ, in a FWD car, torque steer is torque steer and if it's high enough, not even an LSD can control it very well. Long term driving in a base boost 8 psi Vortech aftercooled 246whp/169wtq 99 Si with a Quaife proved that to me. Needless to mention when a smaller pulley was employed bumping the boost to 10 psi. You better have a firm grip with both hands when you hit BooTec cause the damned thing is going wherever you have it pointed at the time.

16-18psi on a stock rotating assembly and stock head bolts? That's *a lot* of boost on what was orignally a N/A car. I doubt it would live very long, but I could be wrong.

I don't know what you mean about a lack of taper varrius. Do you mean boost falling at a higher RPM? On most turbo or s/c apps, it falls slightly at higher rpms. Sure, you can overclock a turbo with a boost controller in an attempt to compensate but an appropriately sized system is designed for optimal off-idle > midrange power. Too big to keep high boost at the top end will result in a loss of usable power down low, and the opposite is true on one that's on the smallish side.

Euro2, boost is boost. Without proper management, both s/c and turbo's are deadly, needless to mention an improperly setup N2O sytem. It's probably more of an issue with turbo cars on account of people using those stupid bleeder valves to trick the wastegate actuator solenoid to raise boost levels that gave turbo applications a bad name in regard to your comment.

Just to add a tangent to the thread, there's a difference between a roots type S/C (CTE, Jackson Racing) and a centrifugal like a Vortech. The Vortech doesn't have much boost at all down low, but comes on like a freight train at higher rpms. That might be an alternative if one doesn't want it instant on. BUT...heh...the previous gen Vortechs (a turbo on a stick) was an OK idea, but had *horrible* implementation with their drive rod...shaft that had the blower at one end of the engine and an underdesigned pulley and bracket at the other end.

I agree with all of you in that let's keep it to a 'real street' vein and not 'king of the dyno' conversation. There will be plenty of people looking to push the envelope, but rule #1 of hot rodding; "Always have a second or backup sh!tbox daily driver." For those dyno kings without alternate transportation...be prepared.

varrius

Interesting post.

I've never owned a supercharged car. Nonetheless, I've driven quite a few. From my experiences the turbo charged cars, in FWD form, were much more fun than a supercharger.

When I was speaking about torque steer I was talking about taking a stock 2nd Gen TSX and applying a F/I system to it.

Of course, as you said, torque steer is going to be there in a FWD car, no matter what. All I'm saying, is with a turbo charged system where there is no real power increase in the lower RPMs, it's not going to be as bad.

This translates into running fast 1/4 mile times.

HeavyDuty

Positive displacement or 'Roots' style blowers are 'instant on'. Turbo's have a slight lag and centrifugals turn on even later, agreed.

IMHO, on the top end, those rankings reverse, with a roots falling off, stock setup turbo staying in the middle, and a centrifugal gaining ground like *mad*.

On an appropriately sized system same for same, the newer turbo systems have closed that gap by way of ball bearing cartridges (less resistance to spin) and variable turbine vane technology that changes the angle of the blades on the turbine housing for a huge reduction in lag down low and subsequent lack of backpressure up high.

(Google Mike Kojima's 'Turbo Theory', it should still be able to be viewed on SE-R.net still. Now that's a guy whom I wished I knew 10% of what he's forgotten...scary smart.)

My point with turbo systems is that if they're not OE based, they all suck. Ones with external wastegates suck the most. Not something I'm willing to constantly futz with on a daily driver. Needless to mention all the plumbing and heat issues inherent with the design.

If I had the 2.3T to begin with...totally different story.

Tishkevich

iTrader: (3)

so what you're saying is, I need to get money before I go boost. Got it