Ok guys lets have a debate. Whats the ultimate power adder?
nitrous? turbo? supercharger?

I realize the hardcore guys run more than one power adder, but lets compare single poweradder systems.
Which system makes the most power, which is the most reliable and consistant?
What's ultimatly cheaper?
What the best for at the track? what about for street machines?

I'll toss my opinion in once we get a discussion going.

 

Hairdryers rule!

 

SOLID FUEL ROCKETS!!!!!!!!! :rockon: :rockon: :rockon:

 

yep or liquid...

 

thats one fast scooter!!

 

each one has its benifits.

but for all around power and driveablility, i would have to go with turbos.

 

aww cmon guys what kinda debate is this

Personally I think nitrous is the ultimate.

For the street
A nitrous system, is lighter, less expensive to purchase.
Since 90% of the time your running off the bottle, it's much easier on the engine than have a power adder stuffing psi into your cylinders. Drivability can be easily achieved when you build a mild motor that creates decent vaccum for brakes and docile manners for daily driving and gas mileage. When you want to compete, open the bottle and double your horse power!

How much power do you want to make?
as much as your bottom end can handle! there's vitually no limit do the amount of 'boost' you can run. With turbo's and SCs your limited to your compressors capacity, with a turbo especially the high end boost causes a lag before full power is acheived.
Some might argue that such lag can be a good thing for traction, with nitrous you can design a 'lag' before full power or if you have the traction you can have full power as soon as you want. It's your choice.

There are guys who will remind us that nitrous bottles run out. While that can be a minor inconvenience, and even an added expense, it will take a lot of bottle refills before it becomes more expensive than a SC or turbo setup.
filling a bottle is similar to adding race fuel for you SC or turbo.

With nitrous, you have both a mechanical means and a chemical means of adding horsepower. Nitrous both adds tremendous amounts of oxygen into your cylinders, it also cools the intake charge as it expands and increases the density the air much like those expensive and heavy intercoolers do.

Nitrous baby! yea!!

 

Nitrous also likes to melt through several Key components. ie pistons.

sure nitrous is cheap, but the dammage it does to your engine is just not worth it for street use. you can take and half your engine's life expenctancy. Nitrous also puts tremendous load on your engine while in use. more load = more wear

Turbos have lag, but they get power from exhaust energy, and not off of the crank.

superchargers have no lag, but they get their power off of the crank, robbing power from the flywheel.

boost is better in my mind, much more gentler on your engine.

BUT IT ALL DEPENDS ON WHAT YOU ARE TRYING TO DO

 

I disagree,
While people can burn down their motor using nitrous,
your just as likely to burn down your motor with a turbo or SC. Tuning does wonderful things.
Nitrous is actually gentler on your engine than an na or blown motor producing the same power. Why? because your not running your engine at such a high VE all the time, your pistons tend to spend their lives in a relative peace during most of it's operating time. An SC motor however is constantly being stressed, as is a turbo motor, although to less of a degree.
Even take an NA motor that makes the same power as a nitrous motor on the bottle, the na motor will run it's entire life stuffing the cylinders at a much higher VE and producing a much higher BMEP at all times.
Actually it's been shown, that when oxygen is released in the cylinders, the remaining nitrogen acts to slightly retard the flame front travel, which makes the reulting power somewhat smoother. Aside from helping to produce additional power, this 'softening' effect of nitrous can actually enhance the life of engine parts.
It's all in the tuning

 

In the real world, especially in competetive drag racing, nothing could be further from the truth. It has almost become a badge of honor for the turbo guys in NMCA/NSCA/NMRA racing to NOT have to rebuild their engines - some claiming to not have had to even remove the valve covers during the season, while the nitrous guys are going through pistons left and right. Turbo's have by far proven themeselves to be the more reliable power adder in practical usage.

Additionally, anyone who has ever actually ever driven a properly setup turbo car will tell you that in average everyday street driving, it's uncommon to actually make much if any boost. Turbo engine's have proven themselves in many applications to be the solution of choice when reliability and durability is of prime concern i.e. OEM applications, OTR trucks, powerplants, ships, airplanes, etc.

As mentioned, regardless of power adder used, the tune is the difference between success and failure. Nitrous engines typically have more catastrophic failures than forced induction engines becuase in most scenarios, the N20 is added suddently resulting in a significant spike in power and torque. Not only does this put a huge jolting load in the engine, but it also leaves less room for error. Forced induction engines typically build power more gradually than N20, thereby allowing a little more time to react if something goes wrong with the fuel delivery or ignition retard. With the suddeness of N20, if a fuel solenoid or soemthing fails, it's not uncommon for the pistons or rings to be hurt almost immediately as the temperature rises so suddenly it literally burns through the pistons. With forced induction you'll typically know there's a problem before the issue gets severe enough to burn a piston.

 

well said. I used to have three pistons at the shop to show when selling nitrous kits all were meltdowns only one was from NAWS and the other two were from blower and turbo (respectively)

 

Although my point was directed more towards 'street' power where most the engine's run time is at part throttle, whats harder on a motor a mild setup running afew short blasts of full power, or a high strung motor operating at much high VE all the time?

Nitrous injection can be variably delayed using a control box and varying the length of the nitrous line so that such a 'sudden spike' can occur over several seconds.

Can you explain why the nitrous guys are going through pistons left and right? I would despute that claim with reference to some of my 'racing pals' at the track who run single digit ET's on nitrous for a full season without piston trouble. Or so they claim.
Modern techology allows for mulitiple redudant safety precautions though, such as fuel pressure safety switches. oil pressure switchs etc. If fuel delivery failed somehow, hopefully ones system would shutdown before engine damage occured.

 

nitrous is still better.and heres my arugments.

nitrous

1. nitrous is way cheaper than any turbo setup.
2.nitrous is easier to setup and tune
3. i dont know what your talking about with turbo guys beating nitrus guys, i have yet to see such thing ....please name a race that was won between what two drivers that was won by a turbo.
4.nitrous adds brutal power, people who blow up there motors with nitrous is either they used to much or there fuel systems is not up to par.
5 nitrous adds alot of bottom end,makes it easier to get out of hole, while a turbo is lagging in the hole.
6 turbos have no place in drag racing only in road races.
7 with the same money u used to build a turbo system ,i could buy a big cube motor with or without nitrous ,that would run circles around your turbo motor ,fact.

a nitrous voter
dave

ps monty im sure u could run that 427 turbod 1000 hp on pump gas.just as long as u dont get into any boost.i dont care how effiecnt or number of intercoolers u have on there.i dont know how high u rev that motor but even at 7000 rpms bmep pressures are 280+ to produce 1000hp.

 

Dave,

If you are doubting my engine makes what I claim, you are mistaken, and I can probably prove it as well as anyone on this forum. My motor made almost 1200 hp @ 6600rpm and 1000 ft lbs @5100 rpm on a Superflow 900 engine dyno at Fast Times Motorworks, on straight 93 octane pump gas, and approximately 20 psi of boost. If you doubt any fact of that statement, feel free to ask 89Procharged, check my webpage for a scanned dyno sheet from FastTimes and a couple of .mpg videos, or call them and inquire.

By the way, the intercooler is a simple air/air Spearco sized and constructed for the application, with nothing more than a floor fan blowing over it during dyno testing/tuning.

As far as N2O is concerned, I'm not an expert on it, but I see what the experts are doing, and they're moving away from N2O except in the classes that are limited to it and they're going with turbo's. I'm not bashing N2O because it's an awesome power adder, but in my opinion, it doesn't compare to a properly built turbo setup in terms of performance and reliability. Admittedly, it is much more expensive in the short term, and they are more of a challenge to get built and setup. It depends on what your priorities are.

 

i agree, nitrous has its uses. but i honestly dont think it is better than forced induction.

what about all of the diesels out there? almost all of them out there run turbos.

nitrous falls when you look at the temperature of the flame kernel in the combustion chamber. it is really high, extremely high. that is why the pistons tend to melt through.

if you want to debate about cost. how much does a bottle of nitrous cost? how much do you have to refill it? all of these are factors in cost. whereas forced induction is more or less a one time buy everything deal. nitrous is just spread out. what about factoring in a new engine?

 

Monty, don't sweat it, I don't think anyone is doubting your claims, and I appreciate your input. personally at this point, I consider nitrous to be superior, but I welcome different views and opinions.

Keep it coming guys

 

How can nitrous be superior? It only last for so long

Are you seriously implyin that turbocharged engines are under boost all the time?? Not even by a long shot, 25% of the time tops. So there goes your point right out the window.

Nitrous is hardest on engine part. The reason being the sudden increase in cyl. pressure. Nitous decomposes at about 1200 degrees, so that's during combustion. The cyl pressure rises a great amount, this is what breaks ring lands and bends rods.

Marck

 

Dave, you realy need to do your homework on turbos, They are the way of the future. Back in the 80's we only had few cars with turbos setup, in the 90's they were so many manufactures building their cars with turbo setup from the factory and now every major manufacturer has some sort of turbo setup or forced induction setup they offer with their vehicle line. A couple of weeks ago, I saw my buddies GN make 505 RWHP and close to 600lbs/trq with a 3.8 V6 turbo w/22lbs of boost. There is no way you will able to do that with NOS on the same motor without the turbo setup. Look at all the imports that are running 7's and 8's do you thing they can acomplish that with NOS alone on a 2.2 or a 2.0 4cyl motor? I don't think so. A turbo set up is better for drag racing than road racing because once you reach full boost (which is pretty quick if you have the right setup or launch the car with a trans brake you can pull of a 1.3 to 1.5 sixty foot time with good set of slicks ) just pedal to the metal and run throught the traps. I drive my 10 sec GN on the road and have beaten plenty of Mustangs that sprays the crap out them without any problems and I still get 24 mph to a gallon. By the way I run 93 octane with Alcohol injection on the steet. I know that my TA is much quicker than my GN and it is also setup for the street. I don't see a 9 or 10 sec car that can be driven on the street and to the track and back with out any problems but I do because of the efficiency turbo setup.

Hey it's just my opinion ONE MORE FOR THE TURBO

Prasad

 

Turbo.

There is nothing anyone can say to sway me either and here is why.

1.) as mentioned above its harder on engine parts
2.) in the LONG RUN IT IS MORE EXPENSIVE
3.) It will not match the power a turbo can make
4.) turbos do not wear on your main bearings by way oif a huge cog or 8 rib v-belt

And for some jsutification, look no further than the aforementioend NMCA/NMRA racers. All the classes where turbos are paierd against nitrous and blowers, the turbo cars ALWAYS have to carry more weight. Why? because the performance advantage is so great. Its not uncommon to see a typcail class setup as follows:
nitours cars: 2800 pounds
blower cars: 3000 pounds
turbo cars: 3200 pounds

Why is that? Because they make more power.

Ever seen a racer at the track with nitrous? Know how long a 10 pound bottle will last when you are running a two stage or a single 250 shot through a motor? And along with that, nitrous carrys more performance when the bottle is closer to full.

Know how much a bottle costs to refill?? about $40-$50.

If you are a racer out there doing it every weekend its going to get AWFULLY expensive in a hurry. I have under $5000 in my turbo kit.

A properly built nitrous system is going to base around $1500 with the blanket, blowdown tubes, purge kit, safety shut offs, etc.

take my $5000 - $1500 = $3500

$3500/50 = 70 nitrous bottles. I can see that going up in smoke in a season EASILY if you are a racer out there doing it every weekend (like when I get back to racing)

turbo... hands down.

 

Turbo motor don't run full boost all the time, granted, but they do run with some psi most of the time. More so than a nitrous motor IMO.

An engine, for it to make a certain amount of power, has to produce BMEPs in the cylinders to get your power. Are you saying turbo's are able to produce more than a nitrous setup, which is virtually unlimited 'boost' capability?
Turbos must therefore build 'safer' power. explain this please.

70 bottles in a season? maybe if your racing during the week also!
on 70 bottles you can probably get 5-600 passes in. thats quite a bit of racing before they get behind the game.
Many guys run alchohol injection on their turbo cars to prevent detonation, how much does that cost to run?

How heavy is your turbo setup Guido? including your intercooler, compressor, exhaust manifolds, up/down pipes and intake
Even if I ran 2 bottles (placed at the rear of the car where weight should be) I would be at least 50lbs lighter.

Wicked twin turbo, are you trying to imply that no nitrous car can run 10's!? and worse yet, a nitrous motor can't be streetable!?
quite the opposite. Also in my experiance, those 'properly' setup turbos usually have a small shot of nitrous off the line to help get those quick 60's

 

You don't need N20 with a turbo to get a quick 60' time, just spool it up at the line. The turbo racers have comparible 60' times as the supercharged or N2O guys

For drag racing, what most racers (NMCA/NSCA/NMRA) is retard the timing and enrichen the mixture so that the combustion is incomplete in the chamber allowing unburned fuel/air to hit the headers/turbine and create a secondary ignition that spools the turbo with a reduced load requirement. Most serious racing series' do not allow dual power adders, and they are not necessary on a properly sized system - and we're not talking about the Supra crowd either....anyone who thinks that a drag race starts from a 40mph running start is dealing with a poorly designed system for practical street use.

On the street, as well as racing, the key to spooling the turbo up at the line is merely a properly matched torque converter. Even on my street car, I can get boost off the line if I really want to, although it lights up the tires if I do. On my Sbc 427, the turbo's start to build boost around 2700rpm, with a 3200 rpm stall converter, I can build boost at a standstill by simply flashing the converter and power braking. It only takes a second or two, not any longer than arming and purging a N2O system. Since at least a 3000rpm or so engine speed is required to safely engage a N2O system, it's pretty comparable.

With regards to how often the engine sees manifold pressure, boost, I'd estimate it to be less than 25% of the time. During regular, everyday city/suburban driving, it rarely if ever makes boost. However, if I'm out having fun and traffic is light, boost is on demand simply by agressive throttle application.

 

Jer82Z28, You have a lot to learn about turbo's. You will probably look back on this thread and turn bright red.

It all depends on what goals you want to accomplish!

 

Is this for racers using a single plate nitrous system? Single stage? Don't most racers use 10 pound bottles?

 

first of all id like to clearify myself .monty i do believe your motor is making 1200 hp but not on pump gas period.u could swear up and down, i still dont belive u,maybe if u said u had 600 cube motor just maybe iwould.a 427 making 1200hp =bmep pressure is way too high.
guido first of all u got nitrous all wrong.im getting the impression that u think nitrous automatically causes the fuel to uncontrollably explode violently.
now can u tell me the difference between nitrous,superchargers,turbos, even ram air?????????there is none period they all do the same thing..............they all allow more oxygen ingested in one time.
u might say its harder on parts.but this is only because if used to much.nitrous is fixed flow it adds the same amount of power thru out the rpm range.thats why u have stages so u dont add to much on the bottom end of the rpm range and/or also for traction limited cars.
oh u think your motor is going to last longer cause its using a turbo setup.when ever u add 100-400+ hp extra to a motor your motor wears extra period, theres no free lunch.i dont care how strong your rods,piston,or crank is.........just remember the rings,and bearings are still the same material they use in every vehicle period.every motor is going to need to be teared down and all these key componets need replacing espically and any power adder motor with huge amounts off power increasing.
hey if u people like turbos thats fine more power to u.Me personnally i would pass a turbo setup up,and used the money instead to buy a bigger motor.remember there is no replacement the cubic inches.

turbo setup is never a hundred percent efficent(exhaust back pressure to name one).they might cool the air down a 100 percent on same intercooler systems(aka one shot intercooler sysem).now u said turbo performance cannot be matched.now lets take monty engine and use it as an example
if installed in a 3600 pound vehicle it should run high eights.now i came across a mustang with a small block on nitrous run the same numbers (high 8`s).and this was a plate system too.it didnt even use a fogger system.

dave

 

A bit of a bold statement from someone who has yet to contribute to the discussion.

Good posts daverr, monty.

 

That's fine, but your closed mindedness is making you ignorant. Whether or not you believe it, it is a substantiated fact. Not only do I have unbiased witnesses, including some who post on these forums, but you are free to call Fast Times and inquire about the engine. They have nothing to gain from lying. Tell them you're interested in a similar combination as mine and you want some of the specifics.

My project has been documented thoroughly from the beginning. I have held nothing back in terms of specific parts used, part numbers, prices, modifications, step by step contrustion of the headers and intercooler, etc. There's no reason for me to say I made 1200hp on 93 octane if I really didn't as I have nothing to gain and no reason to lie.

I don't race, whether legit or street, so I'm not trying to psyche anyone out or sandbag.

You're in the Chicago area, let me know and you're welcome to check it yourself, stop by this weekend in fact. I'd be happy to show you the actual printouts from the dyno. I've had numerous people from the various forums stop by and take a look or a ride first hand.

 

Yeah, Monty is a straight up guy, no Go to his site and read. Before you make any more stupid comments do your homework. Read up on turbocharging if you can. You'll find that Turbo's & Fuel injection are the last big power secret out there.

 

JER82Z28, I am not saying by any means that NOS cars can't be streetable.I have seen plenty, What I am saying is that; with the turbo setup your car will run just like any normal car on the street, no huge cam, smooth idle, great gas mileage,AC, etc. I drove 156 miles to the track and back with AC on averaged 70-75 mph and only used up less than 7 gallons of gas and drove home with a 10sec time slip in my Buick, through the exhaust. when you get into the 10's or 9's ET range, the NOS cars will have a harder time driving on the street hundred plus miles to the track or to a show, what would be you your compression ratio to run 10's or 9's? what kind of gas mileage would you get? how big of a NOS shot?cam? How many times can you run that time before you run out of juice?How much louder the car be if you need to run open headers to achive the 10 or 9sec time slip? All I am saying is with the turbo setup after the initial cost, there is nothing , no refills for the bottles or worry about juce running out in the midde of the run or when you play around on the street making back to back runs.

"but they do run with some psi most of the time"

this is not true if you drive your car like the way it should be "normal" you will not even see 1psi of boost , you will always be between -20to -5 vacuum. When I cruise on the highway at 70-75 mph, I am at -14 vacuum. If I go crazy with the gas pedal to reach 70mph real quick then I will see boost. other than that you will be driving in vacuum.Some cars are different than the others, my Typhoon goes into boost quicker than my GN while I am driving because it is full time all wheel drive and more load on the motor, therefore it creates more exhaust which will spool up the turbo quicker. My point is; faster you go, you will get more efficiency, sreetabilty with the turbo and there are no sacrifices of drivability.


Prasad

 

My car idles as smoothly as a stock TPI car does. It has a 232/226 duration cam which is pretty small in 406 cubic inches.

Im not going to try to plead the turbo case anymore because we are obviously not going to see eye to eye on this and not worth pissing people off.

Have a nice day.

 

I dont have time to explain everything so here is a couple of sites for ya.


www.turbobuick.com

www.gnttype.org


You can learn alot from these sites as I have for years.

Sorry if I came off as a jerk....

 

doesn't a centrifigal sc have "lag" to it as well

I know if you get a roots or screw type blower it will work almost right away but the turbo style sc need to be spun up fairly high to work I though which would mean higher rpms before you get boost
almostl ike lag

 

just out of curiousity even if the motor is setup for high VE and being high rpm


if you drive it on the street you are not going to be cracking the throttle open a lot so wouldn't that limit VE?

also most N/A motors setup to run a with lots of power don't they usually use a cam with a little bit of overlap in them as well as a later intake valve closing point? if so wouldn't that bleed off pressure inside the cyl?

might be wrong but just figured I would ask

 

what exactly is BMEP?


and turbos do have a place in drag racing.... lots of ppl use them.. and they have been proven to be effective

 

Personally... I think if you're gonna go doubting what people say, you really need to learn how to spell. And learn when to use capital letters. Example...

clearify should be CARIFY.
u should be YOU.
first... use a CAPITAL F!
belive should be BELIEVE

I could go on and on, but its too damned funny.

arrushooryoounderstandwutimsayingordooyoonedemetoecsplaneferther?

BTW... Clarify myself? IMPROPER ENGLISH... ding ding ding ding!!!

Oh... do you belive that ATI made over 1300 HP with a 427 on 91 OCTANE PUMP GAS? Do you believe that they made 1200 HP with 502 on 91 OCTANE PUMP GAS? Do you? Huh? Answer me!



Oh. Dont get mad. I'm just taking a quick and EASY shot at you. It's all in fun cuz...

 

they can, just like turbos sizing is everything

 

I thought if you made one setup to give you boost down low on the centrifugal sc then you would start to overboost at the higher rpms

least that seems to be the case with high winding motors....
damn rotary

 

I spose, just like a few of you have said, it depends on your goals and the type of 'driving' you participate in.

Next year I will learn enough about turbo's I imagine, I will be surrounded by turbo guys at the track. A couple of my friends are spending thousands of dollars on their turbo motors and I just KNOW I could keep up with a simple, cheap $500 nitrous setup.

unfortunatly i don't even have $500 to spend.
damn college!

 

What are the benefits of a supercharger over a turbocharger?

Aren't turbo's a pain in the *** to install on 3rd gens?