Quote:
Originally Posted by Throttle
Now I understand why you kept the type of supercharger a secret for so long. It has been a while since I have been able to check up on this topic and I am a bit disappointed to find that a centrifugal was chosen. Why?
The TVS is nothing short of an evolution in supercharger design yet it was not used. Did Vortec release some ground breaking new design that is on par with the TVS advancments? Or was a centrifugal chosen for ease of mounting, maintaining the stock hood or just because Stillen is more comfortable with them? Was the TVS even tested? How did it compare to the Vortec unit you are using? What made Stillen choose something other than the best?
I am asking because I respect Stillen and I know that you guys did research a lot of different options before picking the Vortec... what made the difference? Please help me to understand.
~Throttle
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We chose the Vortech centrifugal for a few reasons.
#1) Hood clearance- We built a supercharger for the 350Z and G35 that required a replacement hood. We found that this hurt sales and a lot of people did not want to be forced to change their hood. When we designed the kit we didn't think it would be a big deal because we all focus on performance before aesthetics. Because we learned that not very many people wanted to change their hoods on the 350's, we decided to stick with the centrifugal on the 370 and G37.
#2) We absolutely could have made an Eaton or Vortech top mount blower fit and to be honest, it would have been A LOT easier!!! But again, there would have been issues with hood clearance. If we went with the top mount supercharger we could have simply designed a hammerhead looking rear intake tube, retained the factory throttle body position, and designed a cast aluminum intake manifold with intercooler built in...Very similar design to our current offering for the VQ35. However, that system would have required a hood that is about 3-4 inches taller in order to clear the kit. It would have been a lot easier but we believe that the vast majority of people would not want to change their hood.
#3) Power potential, yes the new Vortech units are very nice and if you can fit an appropriately sized blower then you will have great power potential. However, fitting the appropriately sized blower would be the issue. Superchargers are designed for certain displacement motors. The smaller the motor, the smaller the blower. The larger the motor, the larger the blower. This is because the supercharger needs to be able to move enough air so that it can supply the engine with a sufficient amount of air. The Eaton roots supercharger system that we use on the VQ35 is designed for engines up to 3.5 liter displacement. It works very well up to about 8 psi. Anything more than that and it just can't move enough air. The next size up supercharger can move more air thus making more power, but its larger size means the hood bulge needs to be even bigger...The same would be true for the Vortech/lyscholm twin screw blowers.