I’m in the turbo camp but I can’t help but wonder why top fuel dragsters and funny cars have superchargers instead of turbos.

 

You're not wrong about anything except the D1x not being capable of running 9's on an ls3. I literally have an ls3 block and a D1x in a heavier less capable chassis and have ran those times.

 

Turbo's aren't allowed in those classes.

Turbo's make more power and make a lot of sense for a street car. He's wrong about turbo's winning every time in racing though because prochargers are doing very well in drag racing these days. Again street cars are different and turbos make a lot of sense. Not sure why the hate for prochargers though they literally install in a day with less under hood heat so they do have their pluses. Nothing about my procharger has made me want to switch. Even with the little D1x it's 9 second capable and with that being the goal of most people with daily drivers it certainly is capable of that even being a smaller quieter blower.

 

I agree, I don’t see why he couldn’t run 9’s with a ProCharger. I ran 5.94 on just my third pass with the set up and soft 1.40 60ft. I’m on the baby D1SC and only 12lbs. I think the car has 5.70s in it with a low 1.30 or high 1.20 60ft. So, they’re very capable in a well set up vehicle.

 

The popular blower kits I see are the baby 6-rib units for the typical soccer dad sports car owners. Guys running 6-8psi with bolt-on complete packages. I don’t think that’s what the OP was wanting to do. I ran one of those style kits for years and it was fun. But nowhere near 9 seconds worth of fun. Def easier than building a turbo kit, but not cheaper. Esp. for a drag car.

Maybe we just got a dud of a kit, because packaging something like an F1 is much harder than a turbo IMO. Currently helping with an F1 install and it’s been a total nightmare. The SBF kit won’t fit a SBF without a lot of work and additional cost. Gotta add the cost of a nice set of long tube headers in the mix with a blower too.

When I looked briefly, the F1 basic “kit” for an LS is like $6800ish with tax. That’s no IC, fuel system, etc. And the F1’s are rated to like 1050? Assuming that’s crank hp? So that’s about the cheapest he would get away with id guess? I sure wouldn’t run a smaller blower.

What does a 1050 crank HP turbo cost by comparison? Or even 2 small units capable of that power if you wanted a road race car. How much money in heat treatments and additional cooling, ducting, etc could you do with the left over $? For road racing, a small set of nice T3’s could be packaged well with special attention/$ spent on heat evacuation and treatments for less than the cost of the blower I’d think. But again, he is talking a 9 sec drag car.

Still think the only reason to choose a centri-blower is personal preference, but that is a hell of a factor. If you are having a ”VS” debate not based on personal preference. There isn’t much to argue. Of course he could make the goal either way. One way is just less efficient and more money. The owner of the F1 kit we are doing now knows this… he just wanted a big *** blower! So that’s what he’s doing! Not a thing wrong with that. Nice to be different in some ways too.


I never said it couldn’t run a specific ET. I said it wouldn’t do what he wanted. As in… that’s a lot of engine and top end to be looking at a D1x. Or any small belt blower. If you had his engine combo, would you limit yourself with a D1sc knowing what you do now? Or would you jump right into a larger unit? Per Pro Charger the D1sc is for engines with 350-500NA crank HP. A nice 10.5:1 LS3 with great heads will far exceed that in my experience.

Positive displacement blowers and a centri blowers are very different animals. Not even on the same playing field. As mentioned, the reason you don’t see turbos in top fuel or the other classes you are mentioning are because the NHRA doesn’t allow it. They don’t want the cars any faster. Banks built a turbo top fuel years back and it made so much more power it destroyed the typical nitro car drivetrain, though the engine held up. They would have needed to redesign the entire driveline and clutches to handle the power. Also kinda interesting it not only made more power, it made power sooner.

 

Thats weird you had belt issues. We have ran the same belt on our F1X C6Z06 at 40 psi for 4 years but its also not a daily. Our other C6Z06 with V7 blower has had same belt for 5 plus years now at 1300rwhp. The best setup on C6 is big single turbo in the rear IMO. I wish we could swap to that but we only couple mph from reaching our goals with the f1x so we aint giving up yet. My friends C6 went from YSI to big single turbo in rear and in first rip out out did all of his previous best in years with the YSI and its easier to drive.

 

I don’t think Prochargers are better than turbos for street cars in many circumstances, but your info is a bit dated. The D1x makes more power in most cases than the old f1a. The f1a-94 is what most people use on the street now and they can make near 1200 at the tires. I literally run a D1x on a built 10.6 to 1 ls3 with a 232/248 custom cam and run the times he wants to run in one of the worst drag racing chassis gm ever built. I’m doing exactly what you say can’t be done and I’m just Joe blow do it yourself hobbyists on a budget. Guys have gone 8’s with the D1x and coyote mustangs. No one is running the little 6 ribs and 6 psi anymore that’s so 20 years ago. Lol.

 

Tiny P1x smaller than a D1x running 7’s



F1a-94 street car trapping over 180 mph



D1x making over 1000 rwhp




Yes everyone knows turbos make more power, but Prochargers aren’t as incapable as what is being portrayed in this thread.

 

The only thing I didn't like about the D1X was after seeing back to back dynos it had less low end than the D1SC. It was @Detoxx03 if I remember right.

 

Yeah you might be thinking of like 10+ years ago, and I didn't mention anything about cheaper. But when you can bolt on a 1000 rwhp capable system to a C7 or Gen6 Camaro in 5 hours and have none of the downsides that I mentioned before it's a different ball game. Hell the F1X kit bolted right onto my C6Z and it ran low 8s so running a 9 second pass with a procharger is easily accomplished. One of our guys at the shop bolted on a little P1X to his Gen3 Mustang and with some cams and good fuel is going 9.0s with the stock trans not being happy and it would run mid 8s with a TH400 in it.

Reference what I said above, typical newer gen procharger kits on C7s and Camaros bolts on in 5-6 hours.

F1A-94 is pretty typical on 1000+ rwhp builds and we've made 1200 with it.

It's not all about the money spent on something, sometimes it's the amount of time and fab required and the goals. Otherwise everybody would just buy a couple of cheap chinese turbos and cut up an old piece of **** tin can and shove em in. In my case it's because you can't package a turbo setup in the engine bay of a Corvette and not have other issues to contend with, and the same goes for plenty of other cars.

I guess if you ignore everything that has already been said then sure.

 

Yeah I'm not sure, we tried everything and even upgraded to the newer stronger bracket for less flex. We were overspinning the damn thing quite a bit though and I was shifting around 8000 rpms too which may have had something to do with it. I did notice when I would shift early it would last a lot longer. One of the other shop customers had a belt on the same setup for years too and didn't have problems, but that's my luck with that kind of ****. LOL Best it ever went with the F1X was 8.20s @ 170 mph at 3600 lbs in my C6 Z06 and it would have certainly gone faster if I had a chance to really lean on it but I just got fed up and switched at that point.

 

I wish I had sprung for the aster bracket when I had my D1SC. It was an 8 rib but still a manual tensioner and a PITA to keep tight. It was certainly nice having no "hot side" and the simplicity of the install and packaging, but turbo torque is also pretty delicious as well as adjusting boost. In for a wastegated blower setup and all the mayhem of opinions on that one

 

The F1A-94 12 rib is what we are working with. Its larger than I thought it would be. Don’t claim to be up to date on centri-blowers. There are T4 76mm turbos trapping similar… but a lot of that is in the engine/chassis. If not limited to a smaller unit, why not run a larger one is my question? It would be more efficient, no? (def. is with turbos anyway) You didn’t answer the question. I’ve seen posts where you are planning on a larger charger… So knowing what you do now, would you stick to your blower, or go with a larger one with the OP’s engine and goals? I didn’t see his weight mentioned, that’s a big factor too. I just can’t see going with a relatively small blower for the cost difference if you aren’t class limited in some way. Just as I don’t see the point going with a small turbo if you aren’t class limited. Seems like that’s leaving more power per pound on the table.

 

Prob just hang around different circles of people with different amounts of disposable income.

The F1 kits made to bolt directly on to the 2017-2021 Camaros are over 12k. More for the corvettes. But the OP isn’t running that platform so I don’t see how the installation time for something like that is relevant to his VS post on an Fbody? There is plenty of room in an Fbody. I guess if you spend a mint on your car that’s not a crazy option. But to the masses, that’s not exactly economical. The base 6-7k kits require accessory changes, WP relocation, etc… That’s what I was bringing up as I’m going through it now. That’s not ignoring anything anyone said. Its relevant to what the guy is wanting to do. Road race cars, corvettes, and 12k kits aren't IMO.

 

Yeah that's probably the case, but for some reason you are the only one talking about money and seem to be hung up on it when the OP said he is fine with either. Regardless he has a 4th gen f-body that has plenty of options and a simple procharger kit can easily accomplish his goals with less hassle. The installation times were brought up because it shows how much simpler it can be vs a turbo and it's similar to the 4th gen f-body, much more relevant that bringing up your F1 install in a Fairmont that required changing accessories and relocating a water pump.

 

They have a new bracket for the fbody now that makes the aster bracket unnecessary and is actually better. Alot has changed in the last 5-10 years.

 

Sorry, I never meant to dodge your question. Fact is I'm avoiding going to a bigger head unit because I like the D1x so much for a street car. My goals have changed since I bought the procharger I think 4-5 years ago now. I was on sbe ls1 the first couple years then my goals changed and I decided to pull the healthy ls1 and sell it. I put that money towards my ls3 forged rods/pistons build. I was happy with that for 3 years and continue to be, but I like to race and have 4 other daily driver vehicles so I'm considering going more towards the race car weekend toy route with the GTO. Car was about 3700 lbs when I last ran it without me in it. Since then I have pulled the seats out and have 2 racing seats in it now as well as some other weight reduction and plan to put a cage in it so I can race again. I figure if I'm going to make it track legal I might as well make more power and switch from drag radials to stiff wall slicks since the IRS performs much better on no prep and bracket prep with bias plys then it does radials.

So if your goal is truly a street car that is 9 second capable then yes a D1x fits the bill very well and will probably make 15 psi peak without over spinning it on his combo. If he actually has long term goals of wanting more while keeping it a street car the F1a-94 is a very nice blower. Loss of a little low end isn't a bad thing when you have 377+ cubes high compression and make over 1000 rwhp on small tires with a street car. Most turbo guys use tuning to limit power down low anyway where with a procharger it's just a little timing adjustment as the power is linear anyway. Installs in a day if you buy a kit made for your car and racing is expensive I've seen plenty of turbo builds with way more money in them then I have in my car, but hey I'm all in favor of capitalism and respect all combos. I actually prefer big cubic inch high compression nitrous combos for the sound, but it's just hard to compete with those combo's now unless you are super light. They also still have more wear and tear to deal with.

 

The Fbody has plenty of room under the hood is a new 1 to me unless you hack the front radiator support and go with a turbo k member and lose AC.

 

If it hasn't been mentinoned, I'm pretty sure you are going to need another fuel pump. I don't think one 340lph pump is going to be enough for your goals on E.

 

Very interesting, did not know that.