| CSG Mike |
01-14-2014 11:52 AM |
Supercharger Comparison: Innovate, Jackson, Kraftwerks, Vortech *Updated March 9 2014
I take no credit for these; all data compiled by @ tendogy
http://imgur.com/a/F4D7w
Quote:
HP&TQ Curves of all Superchargers
Anytime someone asks "which supercharger is right for me?" in the forums, they are told "lol use search noob." If you search and find the power output of the different options, you get this jumbled mess.
http://i.imgur.com/N6tHzLZ.png
HP Curves of all Superchargers
Here you can see just the HP curves. I tried to find the most comparable dynos I could. These are all dynojet dynos on 91 or 92 octane. The biggest variable is how many catalytic converters are left in the system.
http://i.imgur.com/nhoiu9o.png
TQ Curves of all Superchargers
Here you can see just the TQ curves. Peak numbers are great, but what about the area under the curve? You don't want a system that makes peak power for 1 second right before you downshift, you want a system that makes power throughout the rev range!
http://i.imgur.com/uxezUSi.png
Area-Under-Curve of Stock FR-S
Here is a plot of the stock FR-S. You can see that I split the rev range into 500rpm segments and calculated the HP & TQ area for each segment. The scaling factor is irrelevant because the numbers are used for comparison only.
http://i.imgur.com/LC0YuDL.png
Area-Under-Curve for Jackson
$3995 for this kit. All dynos here are custom-tuned. The Jackson kit uses a Rotrex supercharger which claims to make more low-end power than Vortech. We'll see if that's true!
http://i.imgur.com/YXgtRcM.png
Area-Under-Curve for Kraftwerks
$4295 for this kit. This uses the same blower as the Jackson kit. These 2 cars were actually tuned by the same guy with the same gas with the same blower on the same dyno, so the difference in power between the two is probably because the Jackson car had zero catalytic converters and the Kraftwerks car had two.
http://i.imgur.com/k2SvcUF.png
Area-Under-Curve for Vortech
$4298 for this kit. Incredibly linear power delivery, peaking at the very top of the rev range.
http://i.imgur.com/CgpJdb5.png
Area-Under-Curve for Innovate Intercooled
$4195 for this kit. That torque curve is more like a torque table, it's so flat! Power delivery is very linear again, but peaks pretty low.
http://i.imgur.com/ccFmjSX.png
Area-Under-Curve for Innovate
$3195 for this kit. This kit has this price point all to itself, so I almost didn't include it, but a lot of people buy this to upgrade it. Upgrading makes the full kit cost $4395, making it the most expensive option.
http://i.imgur.com/2bv5t3D.png
Innovate/Innovate Intercooled Dyno
Here is a plot comparing the base Innovate kit to the intercooled kit. It definitely makes more power, but not much more until it gets over 7000 RPM. Worth $1200+retune? That's up to you.
http://i.imgur.com/GKntLfX.png
Jackson/Innovate Dyno
I was surprised to see the Rotrex hang with the Innovate at low-end TQ, since that is the strength of the Innovate blower. It's game-over after 4000 RPM though, with a huge 50-65HP gain at the top.
http://i.imgur.com/UEnGfZg.png
Jackson/Innovate Intercooled Dyno
The intercooled Innovate kit finally makes an appearance! It makes better power than the Jackson Rotrex until 4250 RPM then the Jackson takes off. The intercooler keeps the Innovate from losing power at the very top, but it still gives up nearly 50 hp to the Jackson.
http://i.imgur.com/VCvCPcc.png
Kraftwerks/Innovate Dyno
Once again the Rotrex hangs just fine with the innovate at the low-end TQ. You can see the Kraftwerks car has vestiges of the stock torque dip since it retains the stock header. Same story though, as it makes huge gains at the top over the Innovate kit.
http://i.imgur.com/fXifnBz.png
Vortech/Innovate Dyno
The curves are nearly identical until 5000 RPM where the Vortech finally breaks away for big gains up top.
http://i.imgur.com/iRCDwzn.png
Jackson/Kraftwerks Dyno
Here are the two Rotrex kits together. Ultimately you gain 15-25HP for after 6750 RPM if you replace the header/exhaust on a Rotrex kit. That is a lot of money for not a lot of increase, if you ask me.
http://i.imgur.com/g1735ZV.png
Jackson/Innovate Intercooled Dyno
The intercooled Innovate kit finally makes an appearance! It makes better power than the Jackson Rotrex until 4250 RPM then the Jackson takes off. The intercooler keeps the Innovate from losing power at the very top, but it still gives up nearly 50 hp to the Jackson.
http://i.imgur.com/VCvCPcc.png
Jackson/Vortech Dyno
At last we can see if a Rotrex blower really does make better low-end power than the Vortech, and the answer is NO. The two kits make identical power until 4250 RPM. Jackson wins from 4250-7000 RPM when the Vortech finally overtakes it.
http://i.imgur.com/p1MKbYk.png
Kraftwerks/Innovate Intercooled Dyno
Once again the intercooled Innovate makes better low-end power than the Kraftwerks car, but can't keep up at the top.
http://i.imgur.com/NuuT6HN.png
Kraftwerks/Vortech Dyno
Again the Rotrex and Vortech go back and forth all the way up the powerband. Which is "better"? It's really hard to tell from this plot. Further analytics were necessary.
http://i.imgur.com/LJPLtJw.png
Vortech/Innovate Intercooled Dyno
The Intercooled Innovate makes more power down low, then less power up high. If there is a stereotypical twin-screw vs centrifugal plot, this is it.
http://i.imgur.com/LgUSccG.png
Area-Under-Curve Percentage HP Increase over Stock
Remember the area-under-curve horsepower calculations? They are compared here.
How do you read it? "The HP area-under-curve for the Intercooled Innovate is 25% greater than stock from 2500-3000 RPM." and "The area-under-curve for Vortech is ~60% greater than stock from 6000-6500 RPM.
http://i.imgur.com/Aw2PIJy.png
Area-Under-Curve Percentage TQ Increase over Stock
This is the same thing, but for Torque numbers. It's virtually identical! What do these tell us?
The Innovate Intercooled enjoys a 10-20% domination, but only until 4000 RPM. The regular Innovate can keep pace until 4000 RPM, but then falls off doing 50% worse than centrifugal kits.
These charts also make it clear that the Vortech's powerband is 5-15% inferior to the Rotrex powerbands from 4000-7000 RPM.
http://i.imgur.com/DyNF22C.png
Area-Under-Curve HP Over Rev Range
What if you add up all the area-under-curve HP numbers for each segment? You get this chart. This demonstrates that 10% better at the low end and 10% worse at the high end means that you will win a top-to-bottom race every time. The Intercooled Innovate kit is neck-and-neck with the Kraftwerks kit until 6000 RPM, but it just can't keep up afterwards.
http://i.imgur.com/XW5u6su.png
Area-Under-Curve TQ Over Rev Range
Here is the same chart, but for TQ numbers.
Everybody has different goals and different budgets, but hopefully now we can have a little more knowledge of the powerband characteristics of each supercharger system.
The Vortech kit makes very linear power, but peaks at the very end. When you downshift you go all the way back down to 200 hp and have to climb the power mountain again. I'm not a big fan of that.
The Kraftwerks and Jackson kits use the same blower, so I tend to lump their powerbands together. I like that when you downshift at redline, you're still making 225hp. I also like that you don't have to push the engine all the way to 7400 RPM to make peak power.
The Innovate kit is an odd duck. On the one hand, the base kit can keep up with the big boys at the low end, and still makes fun power up top. Still, it's only a 33% power increase up top, so you will probably start eyeing that intercooler. What then?
If you buy an intercooler upgrade, you now have the most expensive supercharger there is while making the least amount of total power. It makes great power down low, but to take real advantage of this you have to seriously upgrade your tires which is even more expensive.
Buying the intercooler kit from the get-go makes a lot more sense. I can see some people valuing the ease-of-installation enough to take this route, but for my money the Vortech and Rotrex powerbands are too attractive at this price point to pass up.
This examination obviously did not compare ease-of-installation, customer service, maintenance, longevity, or any other number of factors at play. This looked specifically at powerband characteristics to help people see through the marketing and the hype when choosing where to spend their thousands of dollars.
http://i.imgur.com/0DLJYjr.png
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*edit*
Source dynos:
Innovate Intercooled
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showp...65&postcount=1
https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.n...97660190_o.jpg
Innovate 70mm pulley, non-intercooled
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showp...postcount=1914
http://imageshack.us/a/img801/5376/nrh4.png
Kraftwerks
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showp...89&postcount=1
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/attac...7&d=1387071025
Jackson Racing
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showp...3&postcount=53
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/attac...5&d=1386975647
Vortech
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showp...5&postcount=15
http://www.moto-east.com/dynos/ft86/vortech_brz.jpeg
***UPDATE***
Quote:
Originally Posted by tendogy
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