STILLEN 370Z Supercharger System - Announcement!!!

Kyle@STILLEN

The discussion of air to water and air to air intercoolers is currently going on in the GTM thread but I did not want to jump in on that thread so I will post our reasoning for air to water in this thread...

Please feel free to do any amount of research on this as you like. The results will always be the same. The bottom line is, water is a more efficient cooling method than air. Water is four times more efficient at dissipating heat than air. It's thermodynamics, not some STILLEN voodoo...It just is.

This is a pretty good explanation of the benefits of air to water intercooling:

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I don't know why this says browser warning but it works fine...

One of the other benefits of the air to water intercooling is that the heat exchanger in front does not consume all of the airflow to other vital coolers such as engine oil, power steering, automatic transmission fluid, a/c condenser.

yes, there is a bit more weight in the air to water intercoolers because you do have to account for the weight of the water and additional pumps, but we're talking fractions of a percent when comparing the overall power to weight ratio of the entire vehicle.

The other thing to consider is that the majority of O.E. manufacturer's with supercharged vehicle's use air to water:

Ford
Ford GT Supercar
Lightning
Ford GT500
Ford Mustang Cobra

GM
Corvette ZR-1
Cobalt SS

Toyota
TRD supercharger for the 07+ Tundra
TRD supercharger for the older Tacomas

Aftermarket supercharger manufacturers who use air to water intercooling:

Edelbrock
Vortech
Magnuson
Whipple
Kenne Bell
Saleen
Steeda

As everyone has said...Air to air is less expensive, if it was better, wouldn't major manufacturer's use it in their supercharged applications?

fstrnldr

Kyle you conveniently left out the fact that a good portion of those examples have no choice but to run air/water. Almost anything w/ a roots or twin screw style blower is going to be more than slightly difficult to make work w/ an air/air system. There are probably far more examples of factory forced induction cars operating w/ air/air rather than air/water.

That being said the biggest question i would have isn't what is better between air/water and air/air. I personally think they both have their places depending on the intended outcome of the build. The question would be is the system in question large enough to keep the temps under control for the vehicle/blower combination. The only way to prove or disprove this is w/ extended driving monitoring in and out air temps. Not 7 min of dyno runs on a "HOT" 72° day.

RCZ

Really?

If I have to hear Kyle talk about all the real world testing that has gone into this car one more time I'm gonna throw up.

#1001 coming up - Cue Kyle - Go!

fstrnldr

I know they keep posting about all the real world testing, but i would like to see even a portion of the data they obtained. Something in graph form, showing ambient temp, pre IC temp, and post IC temp, and boost. This would tell EVERYTHING. comparing ambient to pre IC will give you a good idea of how hard they are working the SC, and if its close to its efficiency range, and comparing pre and post IC temps will tell you how well the IC is working. If i missed that somewhere in this thread please point me in the right direction.

travisjb

if they do that, you're going to buy the kit, right?

__________________
2009 370Z #104
*For Sale*

CBRich

LOL. Of course he will.

Why does everyone feel the need to swing from any pair of nuts they can find? These are two great looking kits. And in a few years you can come back and post in either thread, "Ha! Knew our's was better and more reliable . . . ", but until then just stuff the comparisons. You people are absolutely silly.

de_dust

its not smart to not do ur due diligence and purchase a kit with out all the information... it is even more questionable to make that statement when at the same time your are implying that you basically bought a kit solely because you are towards a particular brand... it is a factor to consider, but not the only factor...

stuff the comparisons? ... when purchasing your Z, did you compare it to other cars? ... comparing like items is a common strategy to making an informed decision... since there are no independent information out right now, all somebody could do is to predict how one kit would perform against the other... and at this point you can only do this by analyzing the theories behind each kits' design... air to air vs water to air... vortech vs rotrex... MAF locations... etc etc...

justification/insecurities... since ur initial reaction is this and not to try to share ur opinion about such concerns.. r u admitting that you didn't really consider these topics up when placing your deposit...

Kyle@STILLEN

I will gather this information and post it soon. What I can confirm right now without having exact dimensions is that the bar and plate heat exchanger that we use on this supercharger system has more surface area than the old tube and fin heat exchangers that we use on the Titan and 350Z kits...Which is actually the same heat exchanger that Magnusson uses on their Corvette supercharger systems.

You are correct and I should have written a bit more in that post clarifying that there is no need to be concerned about reliability. The primary thing I was trying to point out is that it is reliable enough for some of the largest manufacturer's out there.

You bring up a good point about the need for air to water intercooling in those applications. Another thing I left out of my last post is that one of the primary reasons companies like Bugatti, Ford, or GM choose air to water intercooling over air to air is airflow...Not just the air traveling through the intercooler or directly in front/around it. What else can that air be doing? Take a look at just about every car that comes from the factory with an air to air intercooler and look at the placement of that intercooler. It is almost never a front mount. GT R intercoolers are on the side. 300ZX intercoolers are side mounted, Toyota Supra intercoolers are side mounted, Subaru WRX intercoolers are top mounted. Why is this?

Because the engineers at those manufacturer's understand that fresh airflow to all of the vehicle's coolers is extremely important. The goal is always to get fresh airflow to each cooler. By mounting a large front mount intercooler directly in front of all of the other coolers means that the second or in some cases third and fourth row of coolers are not seeing fresh air. By the time those coolers see outside air it has already been heated by the intercooler, oil cooler, auto trans cooler, power steering cooler, a/c condenser...you see where I'm going with this.

I am trying hard to convince our engineer's to let me take apart the black car again. Just to take off the fascia so that we can take a picture to show you what I'm talking about. Fortunately, and unfortunately, our engineer's are more concerned with testing and putting miles on the car than they are about marketing.

You also bring up a great point about "The only way to prove or disprove this is w/ extended driving monitoring in and out air temps. Not 7 min of dyno runs on a "HOT" 72° day."

We have done this...Our 5AT G37 coupe was tested at El Toro air force base for high speed runs, heat soak testing (0-140 MPH run after 10 minute heat soak to check heat exchangers ability to dissipate heat from coolant), drifting/abusive testing (tight radius, low speed high RPM turns which keeps airflow low but heat high.) and much much more...

Also, Steve Millen has taken our 6MT red 370Z to Las Vegas, Nevada and back. Then he took it to Virginia City and back with a stop off in Mammoth in freezing temperatures to check the performance of the intercooler and supercharger system in cold climates. Steve stayed the night in Mammoth after a snow storm, let the car sit overnight and fired it back up in the morning. On this trip the car went through high elevation, and cold weather testing.

I personally have also driven the red Z on numerous occasions, sometimes even to local car shows like the Cerritos meet.

Yesterday our head mechanic took our customer's 7AT black 370Z to Baker and back...accidentally missing the 91 freeway entrance and going to Temecula instead...another 350 mile round trip.

We have thousands of miles of testing completed so far. We have the kits driving around the streets on three vehicle's with three different transmission setups so we can make sure that the kit works perfectly on each.