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.

BHP = ^^ True. But ONLY a factory with an engine dyno can verify 'crank' horsepower. Separated from the chassis completely. Unless proven and documented, it's purely speculation.

Rare to have these resources, and WHP figures are substantially easier to verify and replicate. Engine HP is a great selling pitch.

This said, the Stillen product has been providing owners with glee for years. Good going!

Coop

And it was an over priced POS for the little power it made.

well, glad to know they are keeping up with tradition :ugh2:

Hahahahahaha

supercharger break in
 

Okay - so this was my mistaken interpretation from an early conversation with a Stillen tech.
However, I spoke with my primary rep at Stillen today. He says there is no Break in time for a Supercharger and if the tech is satisfied with the install the car can be run to redline for a dyno pull the same day as the install. The guys at IPS agree so hopefully the car will be ready to roll today. I will post the pre and post dyno numbers hopefully by tomorrow but if the car isn't ready tonight I won't be able to pick it up until Thursday. :happydance:

advice get a good tune. the stillen kit will serve you fine but its not make for any real power with out modification the head unit is a good unit and makes good power but the kit with water to air cooler and maf positioning limits the head units power with out modification

i will post my dyno numbers today or tommorow

436/340 @ 9psi

i added water/meth and cog pullies

numbers will be added

and if i dont go turbo next year i iwill add longtubes,ysi-trim and move the maf behind the blower with a new intake pipe

Good read in this thread and nice numbers Nissan370

As much as I love turbo I have been leaning towards a Stillen Supercharger myself just in terms of reliability, maintenance and cost. Not saying a Turbo can't be as reliable, I just imagine the SC to be more forgiving in that aspect.

Id be happy with power in the 400-440 WHP and mid 300's for tq

seems like a good tune is key no matter what application you go with.

The stillen SC is pretty enticing...

truce me guys once u get some power your going to want more
anyways if my money looks good around march-april time frame i will be selling the kit complete (injectors/fuel pump/cog pulley/ect) so keep me in mind around that time if your going to buy :hello: lol

but if not i will pull every trick i can find to get the max out of this kit
main problem i see is the intake is way to hot doing summer weather
i mean its crazy how hot that thing gets larger heat exhange and coolin container is needed

the car was pulling timing on me because the intake air was getting so hot
and because the maf meter is before the blower its not reading the correct intake temp.

This ^^^ well said!
It's proven, just like with money. Once u get some ur gonna want more! Just keep in mind ur power goals and leave yourself room for growth later on! There is no feeling like a turbo kit, once torque kicks in its just an adrenaline rush. Jus go for a turbo kit n run low boost. When u want the extra power (and u will) u can always turn it up!
Don't end up buying 2 FI kits! Do it right the first time.

Be careful trying to max out the kit, if the car is pullin timing for overheating on the intake I'm sure the motor doesn't like that. Might be causing problems and the ecu is tryin to keep it safe. ANMVQ had his motor pop and although I'm sure it was install botch I'm sure the extra runs and the stress on the motor with an over stressed FI kit didnt help.

thats one reason why my tuner tunes the car hot since the ecu does not know what the temp. is going into the motor til it detects knocking
u dont want that great dyno number when the car is cool then go to race and not know the ecu is pulling timing and your making way less power

just wish i went turbo from the start but we live and learn some times you just have to make the best out of what you have ask the woman with no arms she can make a cake with her feet:icon17:

Lol!
I'm not sure about doing dyno runs in"cold"? Maybe u mean with those big fans on the intercooler? It keeps the engine cool while tuning but it also simulates street tuning as if ur driving on the street with regular airflow.

This still will not fix the weird MAF readings, The MAF's will still be before the intercooler, So the maf/s read before the intercooler, once it hits our intercooler the maf readings change.
The only way is to dump the air to water kit and move to air to air and scap that useless intake mani.
Me and sasha are going to look into it in the spring time.
I love my stillen kit, But when its hot out -80-100 degrees The cooling system can not keep up.
Pulls alot of timing.
But over all after a good tune, the kit is great.

we were looking at doing some kinda split pipping after the blower then your maf then into your stillen intake

the combo of using water-meth and upgraded to the water-air cooler should be fine

I have a pipe that was fabed, it fits, just doesnt do what we want.
Where gonna put back on the stock intake mani, Run the piping like the stillen gen 3, have the maf's in the stock postion.
Sashas already looked at it, and said its do-able.
new intercooler upfront. Should work out good, im looking forward to it.

Irondoc,

So you are the proud owner of that grey beauty I just saw over at IPS!?! The car looks great, I can't believe how clean and snug everything looks and fits under the hood. I was really happy to see that you have your snow tires on, looks like we are going to be getting some nasty weather tonight and tomorrow (but really just glad to see you plan on driving that beast in the winter). :tiphat:

I was just stopped by over lunch to take a look at your car, which Jeff had told me about. IPS installed my exhaust and HFC's, I called yesterday to have them order my uprev and told me they were putting a stillen SC on a Z and so I definitely wanted to see it in person. I'm eager to hear how reliable the SC kit is as well, as this is most likely the route I will be going when finally pulling the trigger on going FI.

They did mention however that they saw stock pulls of around 271 rwhp on their dyno and are expecting a little over 400 with the SC now installed. I would love to hear the actual results and your impressions after you get the keys back!

Does anybody have experience (average numbers) of fuel consumption with Stillen SC?

UpRev tune hold up
 

Unfortunately we have an indefinite delay as mine is the first 2013 that Stillen and UpRev have done. IPS has done their part but the initial UpRev tune was apparently not useable. UpRev got my ROM dump over a month ago. before I bought the SC kit. According to Stillen UpRev then "cracked" my ROM and developed an initial tune that should have been driveable for fine tuning. That initial tune did not work according to IPS. So UpRev has been working on it since 9am WST 12/20.
I am hoping it will be ready today but somehow I have an irrational fear they simply won't be able to make it work. I will post when the car is back in my garage.

I get anywhere from 600-700 km's, thats all freeway/highway.
Ive had no problems with it, reliability is great!
I put down 462 on a dyna pac and 434whp on the mustang.
Sebs from speciality Z flew down here and tuned a few of our cars, the tune is great!

Do you have any pictures of the fab pipping ?

Still not ready
 

The car is still not in my garage.
Friday IPS got a tune that worked, but not well, from Stillen's lead tech. The car would run with the SC but would not go over 4K RPM. So IPS informed Stillen early Friday afternoon and as of now, a new tune has not been sent.
So, no car, and since it is Christmas weekend no one will be working on the car until 12/26 at the earliest.
I guess this is what I get for trying to do FI on a new car so early in the model year.
Looks like it could be 2013 before my 2013 Z runs again. :shakes head:

your first mistake was using Stillen's tune. I went through 8 different tunes from them when i first got my kit. Never got it working. Had to take my car to professional tuner.

That's a real bummer. After all the money you've undoubtedly spent on this kit, I'm sorry to hear that your ride is sidelined by a shoddy tune that makes the car undriveable.

:stirthepot:Everything bout Stillen sucks.