Stillen Supercharger reliabiity
 

Please excuse if this thread already exists and point me in that direction.
My purpose here is to create a thread dedicated to the Stillen Supercharger in the 370Z and the G37.
Additionally my focus is daily driveability. I am not a track star, and will likely take my Z to the track at most once a year. I am looking to create a Z that is much more powerful than stock, and yet looks stock and drives as reliably as stock.
I am dropping off my 2013 370Z sport touring with NISMO exhaust (and currently 1800 miles) at IPS motorsports in Delaware Ohio today. The Stillen SC (and oil cooler) should be installed and tuned by Wednesday evening. I will have it dyno'd pre-install for comparison as well. Was going to have the dealership install but as they will not put UpRev software on their Nissan computers it just got too complicated.
As I understand it I will not be able to do a post install dyno run for at least 2500 miles (and until after the first lubricating fluid change) to allow for break in.
I hope others with Stillen and other superchargers will post here specifically regarding reliability and daily driveability.

I don't have a supercharger, but reliability is a function of the tune. Stillen kits seem to need a custom tune to really shine. Tell your tuner to err on the side of reliability rather than peak power. Leave it a little richer. Maybe a little less timing. Then it's on you to keep up on all maintenance. If you do all of that you can expect near factory levels of reliability.

Stillen tune
 

Thanks Chuck. That is good info. Stillen says we can get 480-520- BHP. I think I would be well satisfied with 480 - so if that will make the car more reliable that is what I will aim for.

FYI, that is crank horsepower.

That's alot of power, my STS kit put down 445 or something like that to the wheels and it's wild. Also, reliability all depends on the tune

Serious? Is this IPL's take or Stillen's? Sounds awfully conservative OR distancing.

Stillen owners: Educate me why.

Coop

I was thinking the same thing, but don't have enough experience with superchargers to know if it was a "stupid" question or not. Going by my experience with other machinery (some similar, some not), I would have guessed 5-10 hours would be enough break in. Waiting with bated breath for an answer.

Reliability will all depend on the tune.. Good luck with whatever kit u choose, just make sure to do lots of research before u pull the trigger. Would hate for u to get the Stillen kit and then be disappointed with the outcome. If u want power and room to grow in the future, look into turbo kits. Sasha's BP kit is good, GTM TT kits r good and S&R seems to have come out with a good kit as well. Do it right the first time and you can save yourself lot of grief and $$$$$$

All kits have limitations. Stillen kits can be modified for more power but its limited on what you can get out of it. Intake design, intercooler it's all limited and can't be modified that much with out bolt on additions like Water/Meth injection.

As far as plug and drive the tune that comes with the kit is fine if your not looking to be competitive. Its a conservative tune, most guy's (myself included) will take it to a tuner and run it on a dyno to get the best results out of it with out blowing it all to hell!

Yes the Stillen Kit is reliable to a point. I recommend getting rid of the plastic idler pulleys and replacing them with aluminum version from auto zone. The plastic ones tend to fail. Also the kit comes with a cheap blow off valve made by Bosh. It to is made of plastic and I have herd of them not closing all the way, will effect your tune. Recommend a Turbo Smart 25mm BOV to replace it.

You do all that and change the fluids regularly and get a good tune that's not maxing your kit out and it will run for ever..
I bought the Stillen Kit, I am looking for HP gains but nothing to crazy also the kit is cheaper than most others.

GTM is another brand, there kit comes in stages. I & II and they just came out with a Twin SC system. They are a more flexible design and can be easily upgraded to more HP .

I always liked that Super Charged vehicles got good or better gas mileage when driven normal. Thats 98% of the time for me. Thats the reason I didn't go with turbo. Stillen was cheaper and I have freinds that have them and don't have any issues.

Well hope this might have helped some. :tiphat:

If you are comparing to a N/A or turbo car to a supercharged car, this statement is false.

With the supercharger you always have parasitic loss, and in tern have worse gas milage than a turbo car (every time). This is the energy/power that it takes to spin the supercharger. It is always creating pressure (positive displacement), since it is driven by the engine, and to create pressure you need energy/power.

This is also why a supercharger will always net less HP/PSI compared to any turbo (on the same platform). It can take up to 60hp to create 10psi of boost, depending on the supercharger head unit. This power never makes it to the wheels, as it is spent apinning the supercharger.

This works much like driving your car with the a/c on all the time.

not always, maybe the centrifugal ones, but the roots style Stillen that I had on my 350Z had a vacuum operated bypass valve that relieved the pressure on the compressor when not on the gas hard.

Yes, always. In order to have air to recirculate, and relieve the pressure, energy had to be spent on generating the pressure in the first place. This comes from the engine, and is the reson all superchargers have bypass valves, and not blow off valves. If they had BOV's, it would constantly whistle, as it tries to vent the air/pressure being generated by the blower.

To be more specific to the supercharge you are refering to, the Eaton M62. In order for it to make 10psi of boost, spinning at 12,000rpm it needs 42hp. I know these superchargers very well, because I used them on some kits I used to build for a different platform.

Makes since to me! I don't want to through his thread off track with Turbo vs SC. Plus I know nothing about them. I do know Stillen makes a fairly decent kit if your not trying to go to the moon with max HP and it fits a limited budget.

I like what elperuano said, figure out what you need, find the kit that is best suited for you. Stillen fine for me, I don't need to have the biggest numbers on the forum.

I am not trying to compare the two at all. Each has it's place....just wanted to correct the fuel consumption theory.

Back on topic :)

Horsepower rating
 

I am not well educated on this but my understanding is that BHP (or Brake horsepower) is equivalent to crank horsepower - i.e., substantially higher "numbers" than wheel horsepower - but not representing real world horsepower due to drive train losses between the crank and the tire/street interface.