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Superchargers! Updates and info. on all kits.

14K views 31 replies 14 participants last post by  ray 
#1 ·
Well, as you know, there are three supercharger kits (Stillen, ATI, Vortec) currently available for the VQ, and one pending (Dream Workes Racing). Of these, the ATI and soon to be Stillen (God knows when) have FX specific kits; DW is supposed to have one as well. The Stillen and DW are roots-type blowers, while the ATI and Vortec are centrifrugal. All are intercooled (Stillen w/ stage II kit). All three available kits can be had in the $5200 range. We'll get to the DW a bit later. Sport Z magazine recently did a shootout between the three available units (in out-of-the-box config.). You can see dynos (I'll try to post those below) as well as some video here: http://www.sportzmagazine.com/Z_Downloa ... harger.htm

Here are the dyno charts, (see the full sized versions at the link above):
 

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#2 ·
Here is the baseline dyno on a stock 350Z:
 

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#3 ·
Based on the dynos, I think I'd go with the Stillen for the FX; immediate low end torque that stays strong. Plus, the powerband is most similar to stock, just stronger; that's a plus in my book. The centrifrugal units are good for a lot of top end driving to get their full benefit and may actually be a bit smoother with the progressive build of power, but I think the FX could benefit from the low end punch of the Stillen due to it's extra weight. Should be able to light 'em up nicely!
 
#4 ·
Here is the latest update info. on the Dream Workes unit that I pulled off of My350Z:

TheFuture said:
Got this from G35driver.com


I met with Goran from DreamWorkes yesterday and here is what he had to say. Most of your answers will be answered here. Please excuse spelling. I was taking notes as he was talking so my info can be a little weird and my terms can be wrong as well. If it is PLEASE don’t complain!

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Avino (malx) of G35driver.com: Goran, I understand there is much hype and concern for this kit, give me a brief description of it and its options.

Goran of DreamWorkes: Well Joey, for one, the stage one kit is almost finished for the g35 and will be released the end of March we hope. As of now, the first 150 kits are already sold and we will be releasing 50 of them 2 months from then.

Joey: Goran, I understand you guys have three different kits, please explain them.

Goran: Well… Stage one is coming out soon. Stage one will is good for anywhere in between 400-410 horsepower on a stock coupe running our preset 6PSI. It comes with a piggyback ECU, fuel injectors, upgraded fuel rails, and other valves and such. The stage one retails for about 6,200 dollars and stage two will be retailing about 500-700 dollars more. Stage two is basically the same thing as stage one except there is a different piggy back ECU. This will up the boost to about 9PSI. adding about 60-70 horsepower. Again no internal modifications are needed at all and upgrading from stage one to stage two can be done no problem. Stage three you need engine modifications. This is good for about 600 horsepower and it runs about 14PSI. The pistons need to be upgraded (lowering the compression to 8.5:1) as well as the rods and other things in the engine. All kits include dual water-cooled intercoolers. Water cooling is more efficient because water has an extremely high heat capacity which means that it takes longer for it to heat up than air hence making better cooling than air.

Joey: Thanks, for those of us who don’t know, what does the piggyback ECU actually do?

Goran: Well I’m glad you asked, it’s very interesting. Just to brief, Nissan would rather us not replace or flash their ECU because of warranty issues which I’m sure you will ask about later. The piggyback ECU goes on your stock ECU with everything preprogrammed. The stage 1, 2, and 3, have different piggybacks which make the difference in the PSI and you can upgrade between kits for a fee.

Joey: What about the warranty?

Goran: Well we work with an outside company that honors your powertrain warranty. Basically it works like this. If something breaks and the kit was installed by one of our authorized dealership the damage is paid for. There is a 200 dollar deductible and you are insured up to 10,000 dollars. If something breaks basically, you’re covered but you have to pay the first two hundred dollars. The warranty can or cannot be purchased when you purchase the kit. It is an extra 800 dollars but it is defiantly recommended if you don’t plan on making your own modifications. It is also a one time fee. You are insured up to 48,000 miles. This replaces your stock waranty. If you have miles on your car there is a math equation we use to figure out and let you know at what mileage your waranty will expire. For example, if you have 10,000 miles on your car you may be insured up to 55,000 miles depending. It does not expire when your car reaches 48,000 miles because if people had 35,000 miles before they got the supercharger it would be unfair to them for their warantay to expire at 48,000 miles.

Joey: Describe what is included when you say powertrain?

Goran: Well there is a lot of controversy about this Joey. As powertrain we mean anything that creates power. That includes the engine and transmission in the warranty. People say otherwise but do not listen to them, you engine IS INCLUDED!

Joey: Please elaborate on authorized dealerships. What do you mean?

Goran: As we know the new Nissan vehicles are the hardest to tune and modify. Who knows our cars better then Nissan? No one! They made our cars! We are working more on this but currently we have confirmed dealerships (one being right here in New York) that will install your supercharger for their rate. If installed by them, your warranty valid if you don’t up the boost or change anything about the kit?

Joey: On these kits you can up the boost?

Goran: Well you would always be able to change the pulleys and anyone with experience can manipulate the kit. The problem is that everything, even the tuning, will be thrown off. The main way to up the boost is to buy a kit upgrade, IE, if you have stage one, buy the stage two upgrade. If you throw a new pulley or something else you could break something, also, you car would not be in its warranty anymore.

Joey: So your piggyback ECU will upgrade the PSI safely?

Goran: Yes Joey.

Joey: Back on the ECU, what about tuning and its relation to your ECU?

Goran: Well, because we are able to piggyback the stock ECU safely, once the kit is installed no necessary tuning is needed at all. That is the one problem with forced induction on these cars today is tuning. As you know companies have rushed their product and some fuel ratios are inconsistent throughout the RPM bad. Our piggyback ECU, Fuel rails and injectors fix this problem with no tuning needed.

Joey: So once the kit is installed by Nissan we can drive it out of the service department with no tuning at all?

Goran: Yes. This is good because you won’t have to worry about some tuner messing up your car. The Piggyback ECU is pre-tuned perfectly I assure you.

Joey: Now what about Gas mileage? Superchargers, running off of the existing pulleys use a lot more fuel. What are the numbers with your kit?

Goran: Well we have a power bypass system included in the kit. Here is how it works. When your car is at idle speed or under 1800RPM, the bypass kits in. The only power needed by the supercharger is to turn the supercharger turbine but does not generate power. Once 1800RPM kicks in, the power is used. When you’re highway driving and not flooring the car, it also kicks in to save gas. When you need the power, the supercharger utilizes all of it and will use some extra fuel. In total, with normal driving you will lose maybe 1-2 MPG if that, sometimes none at all.

Joey: What about the ease of home install?

Goran: Home installing the kit will void the warranty.

Joey: Can you just briefly explain the different between this kit and the others?

Goran: Well Joey, I’m glad you asked. The kit uses a root type system. We studied the Jaguar XJR to build this kit. The kit replaces the top piece of the engine and no hood or body modification is needed. The top piece of the engine needs to be removed and replaced with our kit. Other then that, it is purely connecting the parts. It is very difficult to remove the top piece of the engine, you need to know what you are doing and we do not recommend attempting the install at home unless you are very experienced with these vehicles.

Joey: Anything else you think we at G35driver should know?

Goran: Yes, payment methods. DreamWorkes is currently working with a credit card company (hopefully be done by May) where you can get a credit card such as a Visa and MasterCard and you can finance our kit through this company. With good credit, you can have a payment plan with interest as little as 8 percent for, not just our superchargers, but any number of our products. If you do not have the money to burn right away.


Hmm, well if it ever does come out, it looks to be a nice unit with some nice advantages, but costs $1k more plus the optional warranty (Add price of installation to all kits). The Stillen is looking the most attractive to me still. I like the bypass (not sure if the Stillen has that), but that's just WAY more than I'd ever be willing to spend; that's getting into TT territory.
 
#5 ·
More than likely, I'll just stay N/A; with all of the bolt-ons available, plus an ECM re-flash, you can put an extra 50+ HP to the wheels for around $3k. DC sports just came out with a set of equal length headers for under $500; less than half the cost of similar offerings by Stillen and Crawford. Plenum $400, Intake $250, UR crank pully $230, cats $400, exhaust $1000, TS ECM flash $600 = < $3400 with none of the extra wear or longevity issues of a supercharger.
 
#6 ·
i still would love to throw a supercharger in the FX after the car is payed off and i can use it as a "second" car. then i could take it out as my weekend terror machine!
 
#7 ·
Stillen hands down. Look at that torque curve!! :shock:
 
#8 ·
ujmot said:
Stillen hands down. Look at that torque curve!! :shock:
Yup, I aggree. Higher torque than the ATI and over more of the curve. Bit less HP, but not much.

No idea what's up with the Vortec; the numbers are all over the place. The vortec performed lower than the ATI, but was running 8lbs of boost to the ATI's 7. Both the Vortec and the Stillen use plug and play piggy-back ECMs to manage the system (the ATI uses a user adjustable mechanical FMU), so there shouldn't have been much tuning to do; they may need ot work on their unit a bit more.
 
#9 ·
I ordered the Mag and while the Stillen is strongest these are comparisons of unequals
 
#11 ·
The stillen makes alot of power down low and the procharger seems to like the upper range. I would be torn between the two. Look how Stillen's dyno shows the power steeply dropping at around 5K rpm while the procharger somewhat plateaus then drops off much later.

Votech looks like garbage.
 
#12 ·
so.....my goal is to enjoy my fx for my financing term, and probably in the last year, i would love to do some "hard-core" mods. i plan to keep this car for a while after i pay it off and use it as a weekend car, so im thinking about doing a supercharger at that point.

my question is this ..... how BAD is putting a supercharger on an engine like this? does it dramataiclly reduce engine life? im not planning on racing with it or anything, but i would love to have some fun on the twisties now and then, and be able to just smoke past folks at normal driving speeds and mid range RPMs.

anyone here have experience with superchargers in the past? any on the VQ?
 
#13 ·
The supercharger is probably the best interms of engine life. I am thinking along the same lines as you bradical.
 
#15 ·
We've got two supercharged Grand Prix GTPs, a '98, and '99...no problems with either of them engine wise. Both of them have only roughly 50k miles though. GM has been using this engine/supercharger combo for quite a while, so it's pretty reliable. It gives a nice kick, though it's no FX at only 245 hp.
 
#16 ·
FromHereToInfiniti said:
We've got two supercharged Grand Prix GTPs, a '98, and '99...no problems with either of them engine wise. Both of them have only roughly 50k miles though. GM has been using this engine/supercharger combo for quite a while, so it's pretty reliable. It gives a nice kick, though it's no FX at only 245 hp.
cool. im thinking that a supercharger would look really slick and add some good torque to the V6. i certainly dont want to "void" my warranty though so i think im going to wait a while one this one in addition to seeing that these units get some more field testing too.
 
#17 ·
#18 ·
particlefx said:
Voiding the warranty is a possibility, I guess, but how about loosing your auto insurance coverage because you did something as simple as adding lowered springs! :evil:
uhhhh...thats no fun :roll:

im definately going to have to do some research before this sort of thing. its bad enough that we pay such high rates and in VA we also pay personal property tax too.
 
#19 ·
I have raced the turbo 3.8 and the supercharged 3800.On the street the SC is better and got lots of miles off both motors...heat is an underhood issue for tubos...dries everything out(hoses,wires,etc)

That insurance article is crazy and scary.I have modified every cae I have owned and never an issue(they were also rated for Hi-Pro though).
 
#20 ·
Has anyone actually seen the article? I have not, but I just spoke to the guys at Vortech and they mentioned that they were the winner in this competition? Difficult to know which way to go as the answers seem to be based on who sells what. I have heard that the roots has the upper hand in low rpm, but also that it is less efficient and has difficulty getting rid of the heat? Any inputs?
 
#21 ·
Hunt around on My350Z and you may find more info. regarding the article. Vortec is a moot point right now anyway, as they don't have an FX specific kit. IMHO, the Stillen is much better suited to the FX due to it's torque curve and the vehicle's extra mass.

Roots blowers DO produce more heat, but that's why you intercool the system. No big deal. The majority of long lived OEM superchargers are roots-type blowers.
 
#22 ·
I gotta stop reading these **** SC posts....

I'm getting depressed.

:(
 
#23 ·
You and me both. :(
 
#24 ·
The stillen and procharger are both intercooled, in the fx application but the cars had diff mods to begin with.You cannot go wrong with either...but get the mag dyno charts are interesting but the article says more.Vortex is no where as it is no where in racing today!
 
#26 ·
As I have already stated ,I only advocate 2 of these options.Most of the Roots tyoe applications are Eaton and they do come in a couple of sizes and they fail as does everthing.They need lube changes a major cause of failure.Most applications are not intercooled(so it is just a manifold and a drive system).Intercooling a Roots type is tricky,but doable(Stillen)Failure,ask any Buick service department ,they have had more eatons in use than any other blown factory car and know the failure rate and causes.Ask Eaton (Calif)or Diesel Power in Miami a certified Eaton repairer.Cost to the Manufacturer may be very low especially since they do not intercool?Why for a manufacturer is often not performance.

Your question is much more complicated than what is in use.
 
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