Hello all,
I read the sticky about the cost of F/I, and it has really scared me away from it. It seems that everybody wheather they bought a turbo kit or pieced one together ended up putting more money into it than they planned. Have any of you guys seen this same thing happen when you put on a supercharger kit such as procharger's or vortech's? What I mean is, Can you buy a kti kit for 6k, bolt on, be completely drivable, and make sufficent power. Now what I mean by sufficient power, because everyone has a different idea of this, is if all I wll make for 6k is 450hp, is it not a better idea to do heads and cam for around 1-2k ,and make about the same?

 

You will have way more potential with a supercharger than 450rwhp. A complete kit from EPP will get you everything you need really for 500rwhp with room to grow once you decide to up the notch with a pulley change. Thing about getting all the power is not the supercharger system itself, its all the parts that werent made to take that power. IE: driveshaft, rear end, stock ringlands, etc. etc. You probably will have to buy a few little odds and ends or miscellaneous stuff, but the EPP kit is as complete as they come.

 

I do understand what you mean by the rear end, but can you elaborate on what stock ringland can handle?
and I thought that the 02' drive shafts were "better"? Better being a very relative term to what you might think is better. It's aluminum...correct? But does that mean that it won't hold up to power numbers of......say anything over 400hp or am I missing something?

 

the driveshaft should hold up to the 400hop mark.

the well being of your ringlands depends on the tuning, but generally it goes after the 500whp mark.

 

The basics behind the sticky says, don't think you can go out and buy a used Supercharger kit for $3000 and expect everything to be fine and dandy. In all reality, they are expensive. If you do plenty of research (first step is that sticky), you can prevent unexpected costs down the road. A little planning ahead and asking questions will take you a long way.

Yes, there are plenty of added costs with having forced inductions such as rear ends, clutches, etc. But you can get by with everything stock as long as you are nice to it. My stock clutch help up for a period of time as well as the stock rear end is still holding up, knock on wood.

I highly suggest the FI way instead of the heads and cam. I love the fuel mileage I get and the car drives like it is perfectly stock. Yet, whenever I want, I willl grab a gear and be gone.

Many of the same pitfalls can come about from a head/cam car as well. Just because you choose that route, does not mean you will not run into other troubles.

You will receive plenty of advice from the thread, just continue the research.

 

If all you are looking for is 450hp then I would definitely go H/C and use some extra to beef up the drivetrain. I would not recommend going F.I. for anyone not prepared to rebuild their engine should it grenade from boost. This, in my opinon, is the "true" cost of forced induction. Nitrous, heads/cam guys can get away with stock shortblocks. And although you could argue FI guys can to a degree, sooner or later it's going to give. If you're going to make the same HP. Why not save the money?

 

OK OK I like where you're going with this. That's the way I was leaning. This might end up being an N/A project with the hopes of some day going to F/I. (with a bigger budget)
I think where you got me was "prepared to rebuild". If I'm going to do it then I want it done right the first time, and that would mean building from the ground up a F/I motor. At this time I can't afford the time or money to build from the ground up and do things solid, so i will probably go with a N/A motor.
Thanks guys for your help. I will someday have a beautiful fully polished TT setup and when I do it I will have completely thought it all out and have the expense taken care of. So as to not be piecing together a "get me by" turbo set up.

 

The thing is most people that boost their engines are looking for more than 450-500rwhp and most components in the car are not designed to handle that kind of power. Even at 450-500rwhp the auto trans probably isn't going to last long, if you have a manual trans you will need a stronger clutch. You will need sticky tires if you want to get traction but if you add sticky tires you will probably break the rear end ect... If you are able to limit yourself to 450-500rwhp and street tires then it probably won't cost that much more than the price of the kit but it would be cheaper to get some nice heads, cam, exhaust, and bolt ons and be in the same 450-500hp range. People have hit 500rwhp NA with the right setups.

In my opinion there just isn't any good reason for boost if you are not looking for more than 500rwhp and if you are looking for more than 500rwhp get ready to dish out some cash building up the car to handle the power. Unless you are one of the lucky few I wouldn't expect the engine to last long above 500rwhp, the stock automatic trans cannot handle the power, the rear end can't handle the power. If you want to do anything besides spin the tires you will need some suspension mods.

It seems that one thing always leads to another when you start modding. Especially if your goals are over 500rwhp. The last time I added it up I came up with 30-32k that I've spent on mods "just mods, car not included" and my car still isn't finished. That also isn't including any labor since I did pretty much everything by myself. I would still like to swap the T56 for a 4L80E and get all the safety stuff to make it legal at the track. If I had it to do over again I'm sure I could do it a lot cheaper but most will tell you it is a learning experience if you are doing it yourself.

All in all its like the other guys have said. The sticky is just trying to warn people that there is more to it than just buying the kit and bolting it on. Most kits are not all that complete and even if they are complete engine wise you will still need mods to be able to handle the new horsepower.

 

Thank you very much for your time in writing to me.

 

Thanks, we appreciate it!

To the op, check out this link that I put together several years ago, as it may help you out. http://www.exoticperformanceplus.com....html?item=540 Bob