Soooo you want the GTM?

seems pretty clear that's the directions its headed, lol.

PM sent your way to keep this thread from going further OT.

I can't blame Steve. Honestly, the Targa series will bring more coverage than the RTA series. It will certainly have a better ROI. The GoTo team, I believe (don't quote me), are also looking at other options for their GT-R. RTA just doesn't bring in the media coverage or fan base necessary for large scale teams. Just make sure to tell Steve to be on the lookout for this Martin Donnon fellow when down under. He will try to fill the GT-R transmission with snake oil and Chinese clutch packs. ;)

Racing the 370Z in the Street class in RTA would be ok, but I honestly would recommend setting your sights on starting in Modified. I think you guys should be able to compete with AE Performance and Double Down. I'm sure other teams will pop up with the 370Z this year, as well. Though, watch out for that Paul D of AE...the kid's got mad driving skills. :) Unlimited is going to be very fun to watch this year. I think there is going to be some extreme competition.

Just my two cents...and I say this to be positive. I want this thread to stay on track, but I think that it sucks that Kyle feels the need to apologize. IMO he is doing us a favor keeping us in the loop, even if only to a certain degree. Granted he is a salesman, but still....
However, I enjoy the heated debates. It shows enthusiasm and shows the knowledge of the forums members-from which I obtain a ton of info. Debates bring about knowledge (sounds corny) but true. Nothing wrong with heated exchanges but lets not get personal or we all miss out. A few pages back before it got personal there was some great info being thrown out because of differences of opinion, difference was it wasn't personal. I can't speak for Kyle or Josh, but I would think they also appreciate the debate and enthusiasm...but not the negativity. I like the thought of everyone being on the same page, even with different opinions.
If all this crap doesn't stop tho....I'm gonna start dvring my shows cause this is way more entertaining hehe

umm, helo :) there may be another in modified if I can get my act together

well stop being lazy travis and get that bad boy published ASAP!

haha... working on it... damn thing won't start right now... more updates on my journal

sorry, kyle and josh, getting a bit off topic here again

My last OT post in this thread...unless Kyle would like to continue talking racing. That I can do all day. :) CinZinnati, you bring up some very good points and I, too, hate the fact that some of this turned personal. That was never my intention and I accept my responsibility in returning fire when first fired upon. That said, I believe you do see the point of my posts...passing on my experiences and first-hand knowledge to those who come after me all the while trying to keep vendors honest.

I will say that I believe I have jumped on Kyle a bit too harshly for not posting the PSI, but in my own defense, it was too reminiscent of other forum members' past experiences with other vendors. Secrecy and false claims have led to other vendors' (VRT, SGP, RA, PF, etc.) fleecing the 350Z and G35 communities, so it struck a bit too close to home. Stillen is not amongst these vendors, so, admittedly, I should have treaded a bit more softly.

One thing I do want to state my opinion on is something that both you and Phim brought up - reasoning that Stillen, AAM, GTM and other vendors are somehow doing us a favor by posting on these boards. This is completely untrue. WE are their clientelle. We are the reason they are in business and why they develop aftermarket products. Posting tidbits of information and updates only serves to entice their market base. Without forum members reading their threads, updates, and marketing, their sales would dwindle drastically. Sure, we all love the updates, but the vendors NEED to post these more than we need to see them. Just food for thought.

BTW, the old addage of "any publicity is good publicity" remains true. I'm sure I've sealed the deal on a few kits...especially with the fanboys. You never know - Kyle may be paying me to post. :rofl2:

So true, as a consumer we are putting our hard earned money into venders pockets so we want good quality, fair priced products. But we need good and true info to make our selection. I can wait for the final release but if I am promised something then I want it and if its not there then some credibility has been lost, but can be regained by a good product with fair pricing. We, the consumer should demand this and these forums can help with that, and help both sides. Us letting vendors know what we want, and vendors by giving good info when ready.

I am patiently waiting for the release. Well semi patiently.

Yeah, there's always a trade-off when it comes to sizing. It comes down to what your priority is, more peak power potential or more mid-range power. Was wondering what your thoughts were about that?

Mine personally?

Yeah, sure. Would a 10-12 whp advantage at the top end be worth it if there was a 20-25 whp disadvantage in the mid-range?

On a side note, it hit 60 degrees here the last couple of days and has just been gorgeous outside. I put a smile on my face every time I think about meeting RCZ 'half way' and putting together an awesome show for everyone! What a difference the days make on how much you can truly enjoy driving the crap out of the car!

...cant wait.

Well, if you phrase it like that perhaps not. However, that's not exactly a realistic situation. A big factor with this kit is going to be upgradability. A supercharger that has a larger housing from the start may suffer a little bit on the low end, but has much greater potential. I think with those figures you were referring to the power levels between the stillen kit and the gtm kit? If Im not mistaken that was around the difference in the power curves.
This is all purely theoretical because we have no idea what the production power output of the CARB legal Stillen kit. They have said it several times. It may end up being higher or lower. So to answer your question I'll say this:

It is absolutely worth it to me for two reasons. 1) The power potential and 2) Price of upgrading. You say 10-12hp peak advantage? I say you aren't scratching the surface of the potential of having a bigger housing at 10-12hp. I think You are looking at more of at least a 50+whp power difference with some very slight alterations. That takes me to my second point, ease and price of upgrading. Changing a pulley and a tune may cost a few hundred bucks all said and done, labor included. So if you wanted to upgrade from say a stillen stage 1 to a stage 2, you would simply keep the compressor housing, but change the pulley and the tune. Correct me if I'm wrong, but GTM said that each staged kit uses a different compressor housing. That means that if you wanted to upgrade from a stage 1 to a stage 2, you wouldnt be looking at a $300 anymore, now you're looking at a $1000 minimum between parts, labor and a tune.

So absolutely, its worth it for me to lose 5% of power in the mid range in exchange for the potential to make so much more and very cheaply. After all, in any situation where you are actually using the power, your RPM's aren't dropping below 4k. That little bump in mid range tq more or less becomes meaningless.

(just to clarify, I don't know that upgrading Stillen will be $300 or that upgrading GTM will be $1000, those numbers are just there to point out the fact that there is a BIG price difference between a pulley change and a compressor change)

No, my numbers were just hypothetical. The curves for the GTM and Stillen dynos were a bit different than that. They had bigger differences in the mid-range and a smaller difference in the top end, but I didn't use those because those aren't the final numbers.

Oh alright, I didnt pay too much attention to that since Stillen's numbers werent final, but there you have it. That is my opinion. What do you think?

Also just want to add.... when you get into GTM's stage 3 kit with the bigger compressor housing, that difference in mid range between the two kits disappears since now you are running similarly sized units.

But it works for the celebs and pro sports guys!:icon14:

So are you saying one kits stage one will be smaller than the others stage one? So one will be good for low-mid gains and the other for mid-high gains?

Interesting points. Thanks. It'll be cool to see more performance data on all the different stages for these kits when they are eventually released.

RCZ - I will reply here instead of in PM for two reasons:

One, I am not here to make friends. I am here for the same reasons I have been on my350z, g35driver, mygfrenzy, 350zmotoring, NAGTROC, et al and this is to learn, to share and to try and better the community that I am currently involved with. I may be new here, but as I have explained before, I am certainly not new to this game. You, like many others, tend to look at someone's "join date" and downplay what they say as their being 'noobish'. But, in this instance you couldn't be more wrong. My join date signifies when I purchased a 370Z. Before then, I had no reason to be on this forum partaking in what it has to offer. In case you didn't bother to read, I came from a GT-R.

Secondly, you have been on my heels since my first post in the GTM thread. You have tried to negate anything positive I have said in reference to the GTM SC kit and have shown yourself a Stillen groupie. I don't discount your loyalty to Stillen. It's all well and good. But, when you jump on your "Holier than thou" soapbox while trying to discredit my experience and opinion, this is where I call a spade a spade. So, I owe you nothing and my response to you will be public. Now on to that.

Thank you for admitting that I am correct. You will find that I firmly believe in posting things that I know to be fact instead of conjecture. But, your stating that I did not address that the smaller housing is a limiting factor for horsepower is incorrect. I quote myself from post #837 of this thread - please note text in bold:


For positive contributions, either wait or check my other posts in different threads. Granted, nothing of true significance yet, but there will be. That said, there is no backpedalling on my behalf. I have asked, on multiple occasions, for Kyle to post the PSI used to produce the posted dyno chart. He has adamantly refused. Whether for good or for bad, I respect his decision and will not continue to rehash the same issue. I will leave others to decide what they think of the reasoning posted. I did feel the need to extend a minor apology to Kyle for being as crass as I was in some posts, but this stems from my own conscience, not from any desire to "win friends".

As far as the publicity goes...well, the onus is on Stillen to handle the PR however they see fit. If someone chooses not to buy the kit based on my questions, so be it. If they choose to buy the kit based on a disdain for me, so be it. My ultimate goal is to have truth in advertising and transparency from the vendors we support. I am sorry that you cannot grasp this concept.

Uggh. Nobody cares...

seriously wtf save the drama for your mama.. tired of reading **** like this.

Proper use of the ignore button probably would've reduced the size of this thread in half, LOL.

+1000000

I think everyone is tired of reading this bullsh** back and forth bickering. Someone please be the better man and just not repsond to the other...let it go.

Yup ignore button has been put to use since i last posted, so I can't really know if he posted anything back, not that I care. In fact I'm taking down all my unnecessary posts to reduce clutter.

Absolutely lets get back on track with this thread.

Yeah well, I'm sure Stillen will correct me if I'm wrong and I dont want to speak for them, but the stillen Stage 1 compressor is the same size as the other stage compressors. The only thing that changes is the pulley and tune. That's why its very easy and cheap to upgrade.

GTM on the other hand has different compressors for each stage, so yes the GTM stage 1 compressor should be smaller than (less peak power in exchange for a bit more low end torque) than the Stillen Stage 1.

i hope RCZ gets a GTM kit and do the review of the supercharger... and who ever is a GTM fan boy who is knowledgeable enough to do a review of the Stillen kit... hahaha

Well that makes things more interesting, I will stay stage 1 if I get one so I guess I would want more tq than high end hp. But as always, once you have the power you want more.

I'm curious why you think its better to run a compressor out of or on the low end of its efficiency range rather than just be realistic about your power goals and buy a charger based on that from the beginning? I can't see choosing something based on what i might do later when its not the best option for what i am building right now.

I think it comes down to people becoming power hungry when they are exposed to boost. Giving a kit that produces great numbers out of the box is great, but giving people the ability to make big power when they are ready without changing major components, even better.

The same design philosophy is used by Greddy with their twin turbo kits.

It only took 66 pages but we've come full circle!

As we said in the very beginning of this thread one of the things we learned with our vq35 supercharger was that people might want really good low end power today but next year they generally want to bump up that power output. Which, as I said in the beginning, was something we kept in mind with this supercharger and one of the reasons we chose the vortech blower...it is very easy and inexpensive to add power later on.

But I think he was meaning if you buy the under powered kit to later upgrade, then upgrade right away.

By the way...this thing pulls HARD at low rpm! One of the things that steve reported during his test at el toro is how impressed he was with the throttle response at low rpm when he was accelerating out of the turns.

Sounds good but we need the new dyno, as of right now the one posted was a little low on the tq compared average wise, so we are waiting for the new one, soon?

Love the name buddy. This is all I gotta say. b43, b13, b82, b84. lo3.

Many reasons such as a limited starting budged, wanting to build the motor later on, getting power hungry or maybe even wanting to detune from a higher staged kit. For me its simply just wanting more, I'm one of those guys who is rarely ever satisfied for long. Plus we all know you can never go fast enough..who are we kidding?

But if you can spend up to 7K on the kit and labor then how much would it cost for the pully and all to get the kit into its max efficiency to begin with? I can see the advantage of being able to upgrade easy just cant see starting under its efficiency, but like you say everyone is different and do things differently. I just hope I can get my money from the Army soon so I can buy one of these kits.

The swap to the z is going very well. It's taking a little while longer than normal because our engineers are documenting the install for 370z specific instructions. The good news...the only difference between the two Kits is the fuel pump and one small bracket by the intake.

I completely understand what you're saying but I don't think I've done a good enough job explaining it to you.

Let me think about how to properly write this so that it makes more sense to you.

Long explanation short...It's not that the blower is starting under its efficiency, there is a lot to take into consideration on this and I need to elaborate on that.

let me fix that it won't cost much for the pulley and a new tune to get the vortech into it's efficiency range the problem is can your stock engine handle 15-20 psi with over 700hp without going bang. thats why you start with small power on a big blower. then all you need to really spend cash on later is your engine instead of having to buy another 2500-3000 compressor (vortech pricing)

Edit: there now kyle can relax in the morning when he gets back on his computer. So the kit fit under our massive strut bar?

Yeah, given the tuning is solid, I wonder what the stock engine's limits are as far as how much boost it can take reliably on pump gas?