A buddy of mine and myself have been argueing over the superioty and ultimately the "ethics" if you will, of a twin turbo vs. weiand roots setup. I personally feel that turbo is a step in the direction of what i believe to be a common enemy, ricers, and that turbos just don't have the low end grunt. Water injection and timing retardation just further rices a car i believe. His argument is that weiands will not make the same amount of power and do not have boost controllers. anyhow, tell us what you think in the poll or leave a reply.

 

I'll assume you are taking carbs and price into account otherwise, I'd say there is no comparison in a regular Roots blower vs. turbo and fuel injection type arguement.

Many 4 cylinder "ricers" probably make more power than your SBC with a weiand on it.

I definately know of one ~2.0L 4 cylinder on street tires and ~3000 lbs that traps well into the 120's on a hot orlando day. I bet the Z06 with a whipple blower and other Z06's with nitrous that couldn't trap that high on that day were on your side of the arguement.

 

I'm not going to argue, gentlemen, that a hardcore turbo setup on a weed eater is going to put out some power. What I was actually asking was if you felt a turbo would degrade a IROC. But seeing how I was mistakening in thinking that all the people shared the same "car morals" as me, considering this is infact a domestic car forum. I don't really care if a weed eater could beat me, yes it would **** me off, but i just would never stoop to there level in order to win. Please if anyone shares this opinion, leave a reply.
What I was really asking is are turbo's morally and ethically right for a IROC?

 

I will go ahead and say I am not a fan of turbochargers. The reason is moral more than anything else. Dont worry there are a few of us out here that think like you do.

You know johhny rocket is going to get all heated reading this but hey I dont care what Johnny rocket likes.

You want to do an Iroc justice in my opinion , throw an 6-71 or 8-71 with a small block(no big blocks) and bracket race it. Thats just my 2 cents my 1 style.

 

heh... I know someone who keeps trying to convince me that a 2.0L DSM turbo engine under the hood of an f-body would be cool.

WHO CARES?

You want me to rank a car…
Is it fast?
Does it handle well?
How does it look?

As far as spooling/low end torque, you could make much more with a turbo then you ever could with a roots, assuming that it's sized to do it. The even bigger advantage is that once it's spooled your boost/torque doesn't drop at shifts…

As far as I'm concerned, build something that you like and make it fast and optimize it for the way that you wanted to get there. NA, roots, turbo, N2O… they're all good.

 

Ditto!!!!!!

I'm a turbo guy but, like Crossfire says, make it fast the way you want to. An 8-71 blower sticking through the hood of a car going by, sure looks and sounds great!

 

I dont understand why turbo's are considered an import thing. Buick was using turbo's in production cars back in 1978 and experimented with them as early as 1976 on their V6's. Buick was also combined electronic fuel injection with turbo's in 1984 and intercooled them in 1986 - resulting in one of the fastest American cars of the 1980's(topped only by the 1989 Turbo Trans Am powered by that same 3.8L SFI intercooled turbo).

You want to do an IROC justice, make it run 10's, ride well and handle good, get 20 mpg, able to drive every day, and emmisions legal(it can be done). A roots blower isnt doing that.

Steve

 

I see it being perfectly normal to put a turbo on a Maro. I don't want to start a rant here, but slap a properly sized turbo on a stock 350 TPI, and one on a Neon, your going to spank the little glow stick all the way home! Hell, beat them at there own game. I have always veiwed power adders as an equal playground. Turbos are easy power, maybe not cheap, but pretty easy. I would take a turbo over a roots anyday. Start talkin bout stickers that add 20hp, thats another story!

 

To each their own. Build what you want. To hell with anybody else.. lol It's your beastie, have fun, build it as you like, and ride.

Need to add twin roots to your poll...

Roots are cool, turbos in the end have more potential. BW

 

They're totally two different schools of thought that lead to the same goal. I mean you can look at a 70's pro street Camaro with an 8-71 sticking through the hood, whining with two big four barrels just flushing through it, that's freaking awesome! Then again, look at Guido's car or Monte's car or even some of the crazy grand nationals that run at any track across the country, and it's awesome as well, just in a different way. Blowers seem to be a more old school, rediculous amount of "streetable" power to me, while turbos seem to be a crazy, manageable new technology that's still growing. It's completely personal preference, but turbos are more efficient than blowers, no question about it.

 

I think that this debate parrallels the efi vs carb debate. Yeah, the carb/roots were the founding fathers of domestic power, but does that mean its wrong to go with newer thechnology? I say he!! no; just as long as it is all done for the purpose of creating what we are all after, MORE POWER. Anyways, I am sure more than a few people were bent when their beloved f-body started coming from the factory with efi.

Do some reaserch if you haven't already and you will find that roots make power but, as others have hinted around, with a much lower adiabatic effiecency. According to the mighty John Lingenfelter, roots type bolowers only have around 50% efficiency. Most any turbo is over 70% and some come close to 80%. That is a HUGE difference. Add to this the ease at which a turbo system can be intercooled, when compared to a roots, and the advantage couldn't be any more clear.

Does this mean that it is wrong or not possible to use a roots style blower to make power? No, absolutely not, it just isn't the most efficient route to the end goal, just like a carb.

 

I think carbs still do a hell of a job for technology that is over 100 years old. Look at any dyno test and you arent giving any peak numbers up running a carb, just part throttle stuff.

 

You're exactly right, for most apps. Lets see the carb keep up with a turbo or two, or say a 50 degree incline in a 4x4. Also, you can't downplay the part throttle AFR. Having this dead on can make a huge difference for a street car. How many fuel flow circuits does your carb have? Any EFI will have hundreds.

Regardless, I say you shouldn't pay any attention to stereotypes when building to go fast. Is that what you want this IROC to do? If you just want its looks to scare mustangs off the line, then go with the roots (and open headers!).

Putting a turbo in an IROC is not sacralige. IMHO, having one in a ford focus would be a greater crime to soceity.

 

I'm sorry, but that's just a scary argument. Most of the devices that we use to add power to engines were around well before cars existed, most in the 1800's. Roots blowers were invented to pump air in mine shafts. Gas turbines (the driving side of a turbo) were used for all sorts of things, including converting steam energy to generate electricity…

You're lucky if a traditional roots blower reaches adiabatic efficiencies in the 50's, typically it's in the 40's. OTOH, newer designs (eaton, and the assorted screw compressors) can have a very good adiabatic efficiency and have very good VE (something that I'm not even sure could be measured in a turbo, since you can blow through it backwards and there is no real set volume that it's moving), which will allow them to work under conditions where turbos cannot work.

Depends on what the goal is

Carbs, just like FI are only as good as the person tuning it. Then thing about carbs are that you really have to be much more of a tuning wizard to get them right all the way across the power band then a good FI system.

That's not really as hard as most people believe it is. It's really a bigger issue to build the whole system so it doesn't do something weird to the metering circuits in the carb then it is to get the carb tuned right once everything else is right.

There are carbs designed to work in all positions, but if you're talking a common holley…

huh… a turbo inlet big enough to suck up a basketball cut through the front bumper wouldn't do that? I'd argue that with most "kids" out there now they'll understand that better then the bug catcher through the hood.

Why am I still posting here when I just want this thread to die.

Have we actually discussed any tech?

 

I think '83 crossfire really likes to show off, in my opinion. And crossfire, i've read 800 page books just on supercharging and the physics and efficientcy of making power. Let alone pure experiance. So don't even start with me.

 

if you are such an expert on supercharging then why are you asking the opinion of people on the internet that you don't even know?

why is using a turbo "stooping to their level"? its not all that different than a centrifugal supercharger. only major difference being exhaust gases are spinning the compressor on one, and a belt is spinning the compressor on the other. I don't see that much of a difference.

last time i checked turbos have been around for a much longer time than japenese automobiles have, so i don't see how a turbo "degrades" an iroc; it's not "r1cer" technology.

and 83crossfire is one of the more knowledgable members of this board, esspecially when it comes to anything tubro related. he was only clearing up a lot of mis-information in this thread, as well as answering questions.

tone down the "cyber-ego" a bit, people are more inclined to answer your questions when you aren't trying to pick a fight with them.

 

I might be knowledgable in "facts and figures" on supercharging, yes. The reason I started this thread, is explained in the first post, and that was to resolve the dispute between and friend and myself. Just for fun I guess. We just wanted to hear other people's views on the subject.

 

I gave you my opinion.

I made an attempt to educate a few people that stated opinions based on incorrect facts.

I bitched about this being on a tech board since there is little/no real tech here and I'm not sure that the question is intended to elicit any tech discussion (it probably fits better in Theoretical and Street Racing)

I don't see a problem

 

This is dumb, really dumb actually, for all of us to get worked up over this thread. I'm sorry in anyway if I offended anyone, or said anything inappropriate.