Vortech Supercharger Development

Minicobra1 · 09-17-2009, 04:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1slow370

They probably won't follow through seing as there are only like 10,000 cars sold here in the us so far which is low for a first year so if one out of every 50 of those sees forced induction that would be only about 200 cars and with the number of kits on the market already and the ones sure to come from stillen and hks, not to mention on the tt kits the market is pretty small so if vortech can manage to move 40 units over the span of production(would probably take a few years) at an average kit price of 6500 it would be about 104,000 before taxes assuming 40% markup. so after uncle sam gets his grab that would be about $60,000 profit which isn't all that much for a company like vortech.

Well, I'm glad to see that your finally making a comment about superchargers and not going off topic talking about where you want to live and/or state bashing. Hey, no hard feelings, but my car is under the knife over at Vortech. I'm sure a lot of other forum members want to see this kit come to production, especially me. So a bit of positive encouragement would be great.

You make a valid point regarding the number of units they may be able to sell, I'm sure this will weigh heavy on their decision to go to production. You left out a few important things though, these cars are sold all over the world, not just the U.S.A. Many more then 10K units sold. Vortech is a global company, they sell and distribute their product in many other countries. Also, it's not always about profit at first, I worked as a product manager for a large cycle company, and we would produce products that we knew wouldn't move a lot of units, but it got us recognition, increased our brand status and moved us into other potential future markets. Look at some of the auto makers that are producing first year electric or hybrid vehicles, most lost money on every car sold for the first year or two, but if they didn't put it out there, they would never stand to make a profit in the future.
If Vortech decides to wait 3 or 4 years to produce this product, then for sure they won't be competitive in the Nissan Z game. One last thing, once they have a successful kit for the 370z, it won't take much to modify it for the Infinity G37, or other future vehicles such as Maxima, M37, etc. that may utilize the VQ37VHR engine format. When you consider that plus global sales, I think Vortech will have a lot of potential with this kit. They pretty much have the muscle car segment wrapped up, but if they are looking to expand in the import market, this would be the kit to build. So lets keep our fingers crossed.

1slow370 · 09-18-2009, 05:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Minicobra1

Well, I'm glad to see that your finally making a comment about superchargers and not going off topic talking about where you want to live and/or state bashing. Hey, no hard feelings, but my car is under the knife over at Vortech. I'm sure a lot of other forum members want to see this kit come to production, especially me. So a bit of positive encouragement would be great.

You make a valid point regarding the number of units they may be able to sell, I'm sure this will weigh heavy on their decision to go to production. You left out a few important things though, these cars are sold all over the world, not just the U.S.A. Many more then 10K units sold. Vortech is a global company, they sell and distribute their product in many other countries. Also, it's not always about profit at first, I worked as a product manager for a large cycle company, and we would produce products that we knew wouldn't move a lot of units, but it got us recognition, increased our brand status and moved us into other potential future markets. Look at some of the auto makers that are producing first year electric or hybrid vehicles, most lost money on every car sold for the first year or two, but if they didn't put it out there, they would never stand to make a profit in the future.
If Vortech decides to wait 3 or 4 years to produce this product, then for sure they won't be competitive in the Nissan Z game. One last thing, once they have a successful kit for the 370z, it won't take much to modify it for the Infinity G37, or other future vehicles such as Maxima, M37, etc. that may utilize the VQ37VHR engine format. When you consider that plus global sales, I think Vortech will have a lot of potential with this kit. They pretty much have the muscle car segment wrapped up, but if they are looking to expand in the import market, this would be the kit to build. So lets keep our fingers crossed.

They already introduced themselves with the 350z and seeing as they never produced a kit for the HR I'm extremly skeptical. Especially when they had a kit out for the camaro less than three months after it's release. When it comes to FI on Nissans the market is turbo biased so the sales aren't going to be that great. Especially since this IS a small numbers car. Look at the last camaro small numbers for it were 30,000 a year that already is 3 times the market we present. when you consider it had years of over 100,000 and even 200,000 a year it makes an application for or cars look ludicrous. Vortech is using your car as an RD source to determine it's costs for a theoretical kit to further define it's sales possibilities. they did the same thing with the HR to a fruitless end. In order for them to produce a kit there would have to be significantly higher demand than there is now. Would it be nice, yes as it adds competition to the market and drives prices down. Is it viable for larger profits simple answer is no. Especially when you consider that all the complexities in the new 370z are going to make the kit harder and more expensive to produce yet the sale point will remain around the price of other vortech kits meaning they will see less return per unit sold than that of kits for other vehicles.

I'll be optimistic for once and say that the vortech unit may be a viable solution as they use primitive pressure regulators instead of ecu tuning to adjust fuel so it may circumvent the complicated ecu that seems to be kicking the tuning companies @**es. Although I can't say I've seen to many 350z vortech cars that haven't thrown out the stuff vortech uses and gotten some other kind of fuel and timing control.

Quote:

Stopping sipping the full fat whole milk and wake up. You make yourself look like a fool in every post.

What thread doesn't go off topic eventually because it starts to stale up? Personally I think you're foolishly optimistic. How bout a $1 bet that this kit never sees the light of day? I'll even mail it to you with an apology letter. Hell if it comes out before the end of the year I'll drive it out to your shop.

MMC Racing · 09-18-2009, 12:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1slow370

They already introduced themselves with the 350z and seeing as they never produced a kit for the HR I'm extremly skeptical. Especially when they had a kit out for the camaro less than three months after it's release. When it comes to FI on Nissans the market is turbo biased so the sales aren't going to be that great. Especially since this IS a small numbers car. Look at the last camaro small numbers for it were 30,000 a year that already is 3 times the market we present. when you consider it had years of over 100,000 and even 200,000 a year it makes an application for or cars look ludicrous. Vortech is using your car as an RD source to determine it's costs for a theoretical kit to further define it's sales possibilities. they did the same thing with the HR to a fruitless end. In order for them to produce a kit there would have to be significantly higher demand than there is now. Would it be nice, yes as it adds competition to the market and drives prices down. Is it viable for larger profits simple answer is no. Especially when you consider that all the complexities in the new 370z are going to make the kit harder and more expensive to produce yet the sale point will remain around the price of other vortech kits meaning they will see less return per unit sold than that of kits for other vehicles.

I'll be optimistic for once and say that the vortech unit may be a viable solution as they use primitive pressure regulators instead of ecu tuning to adjust fuel so it may circumvent the complicated ecu that seems to be kicking the tuning companies @**es. Although I can't say I've seen to many 350z vortech cars that haven't thrown out the stuff vortech uses and gotten some other kind of fuel and timing control.

What is a Vortech kit.. It is fabrication of custom mounting plates and brackets, a bunch of off the shelf parts, and a few car specific pieces like something to flash the ECU or piggyback on to it. A company this big can probably fab everything themselves and maybe even manufacture the parts. If the cost to entry was so very high, how would a much smaller company like GTM ever produce a custom kit?

Also, what does the Camaro kit have to do with a 370z kit? They already built the kit, why would they not move on to another new car if there is a profit to be made?

As to the 350z kit, I own it and still run the split second box. If you know what you are doing when tuning with it, it is a great tool for boost levels a stock block can handle.

My assessment - you are talking way above your pay grade. What is your profession?

Minicobra1 · 09-19-2009, 05:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MMC Racing

What is a Vortech kit.. It is fabrication of custom mounting plates and brackets, a bunch of off the shelf parts, and a few car specific pieces like something to flash the ECU or piggyback on to it. A company this big can probably fab everything themselves and maybe even manufacture the parts. If the cost to entry was so very high, how would a much smaller company like GTM ever produce a custom kit?

Yes, this is exactly what was told to me, they already have self contained kits, it really is just a matter of getting the brackets to fit and the belt to route properly, as well as making an air charger with 2 outlets. I also mentioned to the engineers to leave room to mount an oil cooler, because it will be needed.

Nikon FM · 09-19-2009, 06:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Minicobra1

Yes, this is exactly what was told to me, they already have self contained kits, it really is just a matter of getting the brackets to fit and the belt to route properly, as well as making an air charger with 2 outlets. I also mentioned to the engineers to leave room to mount an oil cooler, because it will be needed.

Looking forward to updates when you get your car back. A dyno curve would be great too.

Thanks!

Minicobra1 · 09-23-2009, 10:25 AM

Over one week at Vortech, no news yet. I'll shoot them an email today. :-)

Nikon FM · 09-23-2009, 09:18 PM

Looking forward to good news!

Just for fun: I was born Cali and lived in Torrance (many years ago). I still like that place

Minicobra1 · 09-19-2009, 05:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1slow370

They already introduced themselves with the 350z and seeing as they never produced a kit for the HR I'm extremly skeptical. Especially when they had a kit out for the camaro less than three months after it's release. When it comes to FI on Nissans the market is turbo biased so the sales aren't going to be that great. Especially since this IS a small numbers car. Look at the last camaro small numbers for it were 30,000 a year that already is 3 times the market we present. when you consider it had years of over 100,000 and even 200,000 a year it makes an application for or cars look ludicrous. Vortech is using your car as an RD source to determine it's costs for a theoretical kit to further define it's sales possibilities. they did the same thing with the HR to a fruitless end. In order for them to produce a kit there would have to be significantly higher demand than there is now. Would it be nice, yes as it adds competition to the market and drives prices down. Is it viable for larger profits simple answer is no. Especially when you consider that all the complexities in the new 370z are going to make the kit harder and more expensive to produce yet the sale point will remain around the price of other vortech kits meaning they will see less return per unit sold than that of kits for other vehicles.

I'll be optimistic for once and say that the vortech unit may be a viable solution as they use primitive pressure regulators instead of ecu tuning to adjust fuel so it may circumvent the complicated ecu that seems to be kicking the tuning companies @**es. Although I can't say I've seen to many 350z vortech cars that haven't thrown out the stuff vortech uses and gotten some other kind of fuel and timing control.

What thread doesn't go off topic eventually because it starts to stale up? Personally I think you're foolishly optimistic. How bout a $1 bet that this kit never sees the light of day? I'll even mail it to you with an apology letter. Hell if it comes out before the end of the year I'll drive it out to your shop.

I don't think they did the previous kit because it was the end of the model year and they were not sure that Nissan would stick to the DTB design in the next engine to be introduced into the Z.

I do respect your opinion, and everything you've said thus far is something I'm sure the bean counters over at Vortech have all thrown out on the table. I'm sure they have had meetings regarding this. There are so many more factors to consider, which I will not go into at this moment. Originally I started this thread to get feedback from forum members as to what they were looking for in a supercharger, their expectations on price, performance, reliability, etc.

This was not a thread intended to discourage Vortech or any other manufacturer for that matter from building such a kit. In fact I forwarded the link to the Vortech Engineers and they have read through this thread as well as other similar supercharger threads, and at some point will probably chime in with answers to all the critical questions, etc. So, once again, a bit of encouragement, positive input and optimism would be greatly appreciated. Think about it, I know this is a high dollar item, but it's not so different then a hi-end carbon body kit or titanium exhaust, you wouldn't go on those threads, and bet the other forum members, that based on the numbers, the manufacturer wouldn't or shouldn't build them, what does this accomplish? This is for the benefit of the 370Z community, betting me a dollar that they will not build it, does not accomplish that.

View Poll Results: Do you plan on supercharging your 370z?
I want to puchase a supercharger within a year	47	26.26%
I definitely plan on purchasing a superchager at some point	49	27.37%
I plan on running forced induction, but not sure what route to take	50	27.93%
Happy with bolt on's for now, but would consider it at a later time	38	21.23%
Not for my 370z	9	5.03%
Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 179. You may not vote on this poll

09-23-2009, 10:25 AM	#6 (permalink)
Minicobra1 A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Orange County, CA. Posts: 1,205 Drives: 370Z Tour, Spt, 6mt Rep Power: 645	Over one week at Vortech, no news yet. I'll shoot them an email today. :-) __________________ 370z Tour\| Spt Pack\|Navi\|BERK CBE\|Berk HFC's\| Eibach Springs\| Hotchkis Sway Bars\|SPC Camber Arms\|15mm Ichiba Wheel Spacers\| 19"Factory Nismo Wheels-Matt Black\|Stop Tech Rotors\|TWM Shifter\|3M Tint\|Black Fangs\|Black Rear Valance\|JDM Fog Light\| MY BAND-www.myspace.com/petroleum

09-23-2009, 09:18 PM	#7 (permalink)
Nikon FM Track Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Snoqualmie WA Posts: 973 Drives: 03 996TT Porsche Rep Power: 607	Looking forward to good news! Just for fun: I was born Cali and lived in Torrance (many years ago). I still like that place __________________ Buddy Revell: "One man's sooner is another man's later"

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