Phantom ESC vs. Sprintex/Innovate
 

Hi all,
I thought I was set on waiting for a Phantom ESC (w/procede) - but recently the Sprintex/Innovate was put on my radar. They are different in approach (belt vs. battery) but seem deliver almost the same performance results.

These are the comparison points guiding my decision (in no particular order):
- under $2.5k
- can bolt it on myself in half a day (i.e. no intercooler hassle)
- can tune it with OFT
- goal of 200 whp and smooth torque throughout
- low/no maintenance
- holds resale value, as I'll sell when my lease is done in 2 years

As per my 'quick compare' analysis they both seem to line up well against the above criteria. So how to decide? Any suggestions on how to tip the scales in favor of one or the other...?

cheers.

The ESC is ok, I have one (no procede, used kit). Its basically NA plus some more pull. Mostly alot more midrange torque. If you look at HP calculators (mathematically) they range from 215-230whp if you input my 1/4 mile of 13.8 @ 101 weight of 2900lb.

One big advantage its alot cheaper and simpler than the basic sprintex kit. It installs in less than 2 hours going very slow. Disadvantage would be it has no upgrade path. My tuner did compare it to the sprintex actually in "street feel" as we did pulls and tuned on the street. He has tuned many sprintex kits and only my ESC.

You can hit 200whp NA you know. Less torque though of course.

Where did you find the sprintex for 2500?

A big advantage of the Sprintex is you can get one tomorrow. You're looking at a two year wait for the Phantom if you order it today. Your lease will be up before you ever see the ESC.

In the classifieds
Two recently were up

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Or @illmatic_frs could buy @Lord09 's Phantom ESC right now in the classified section for $1850 OBO (w/ PROcede controller - $2250 OBO).

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=100623

:thumbsup:

@illmatic_frs

@stevo585 basically has it nailed here. The Phantom ESC is cheaper, probably more reliable, has a better torque curve, and is easier to tune with a pretty well dialed in off-the-shelf Open Flash Tablet tune. I'd highly recommend getting the PROcede as it upgrades the pedal switch and refines the whole package making it into full time F.I.

As far as power output goes, here's my Phantom ESC car dyno'd and compared to 10 other cars on the same dyno and on the same day (some F.I., and many N.A.). There were no Innovate kitted cars that day. Anecdotally, 2 people that I discussed F.I. with that day seriously panned the Innovate kit on reliability. It was a hot and very humid day so all cars were slightly down on power (about 5-8% from what others reported). The 2 Phantom ESC equipped cars absolutely killed it that day on torque and price/performance ratio.

http://1drv.ms/1ExGyBX - Full spreadsheet (the detail tab (second tab) has nearly everyone's mods).

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showt...t=93180&page=5 - Dyno sheets to compare torque curves, plenty of pics and vidz.

http://i.imgur.com/ZYP1p4V.png

Im a perfect candidate to weigh in on this, I've had the ESC and I currently have the sprintex kit.

OP, the ESC will be exactly what you need. It is PERFECT for daily/canyon stuff. Every one of your "requirements" are checked off by the esc. I had v1 of the phantom kit for about 6ish months?(maybe longer lol, can't remember) and it worked flawlessly. Once installed, there is no maintenance, its easy to install, provides very smooth power-and will hands down be faster than any n/a frs/brz.

The sprintex kit will give you more power, and pull much harder up top, but is much more expensive. Also, you need to keep an eye on the belt+oil for the supercharger-so maintenance is required(albeit not terribly often). Plus, even if you find a sprintex kit for 2500, you still need an ecutek tune.

Go with the ESC, if you change your mind after buying it, sell it. But, it will definitely put a smile on your face, and pretty much solves the this car is so slow problem!

Only reason I got rid of my esc was because I thought I might sell the car. I ended up not haha.

With that said, supercharger whine sure is nice...
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PrOSM0ZpcA"]FRS Innovate Sprintex Supercharger Whine Drive By - YouTube[/ame]

How much more power would a esc with full bolt ons make? I make 35whp over stock, would I see a really nice gain with the esc? Thanks

lets try not to thread derail, but this thread has cars, mods and how much power they make in a pretty table.

But put bluntly, a fully stock car with OFT+ESC would blow your car away. Even if redline numbers were close(between the esc car and your bolt on car), the 2.5k-5.5k powerband of the ESC car makes quickly leave you in the dust.

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66862

For sure, sorry! Thanks for the info

Where do you even get the sprintex now? Everywhere says discontinued or out of stock

Doesn't the ESC run out of juice in less than 20 sec at WOT?

What? No. like 120ish seconds. With the regular charger/controller, you probably won't ever run out of power, and with the aux charger added on, you'll never* run out of power for the ESC. Driving on the street/canyon/autox, you won't run out of power with the ESC (unless you're doing some a-hole thing and doing top speed runs on the freeway repetitively).

Plus, 20 seconds on WOT in the frs/brz would be hitting like 55 maybe even 60mph. JK.

@Shutter
Yep, exactly. I still have yet to find the boost "limit" on my car, but can say with confidence that it's clearly not 20 seconds.

@juliog

Even if it is/was just 20 seconds, think about it this way. The couple of Phantom ESC owners that have posted drag slips averaged 13.85 seconds @ 102.5 MPH in 1/4 mi. Keeping foot to floor for 20 seconds would probably put someone in the range of 145-150 MPH at somewhere in the 3/4mi - 1mi mark. The only place where this could be accomplished or tested safely in the real world (on a non-public road) is likely a banked speedway like Autoclub in Fontana.

At the kind of closed circuit tracks and autocross courses we have in SoCal, there are mostly periods of WOT, that last 0-8ish seconds (at the most) followed by heavy braking. WOT, Brake, WOT, Brake, repeat. The ESC recharges itself during braking, reaching 75-80% capacity ~27 volts range quickly (and even faster with an Aux charger accessory). Ready, as it should, to provide more boost when the driver gives more throttle.

What I'm getting at is that there is still some old or bad info out there regarding the current version of the Phantom ESC. Really there are very few disadvantages a 4.5-5 psi Phantom ESC kit w/PROcede controller has to a ~7 psi conventional SC or turbo kit on public roads and during some pretty aggressive driving.

The disadvantage of the ESC is there is NO upgrades and NO headroom. Unlike a conventional supercharger where you can change pulleys. To me the ESC feels alot like my Wrx I use to have. It's quick but nothing mind blowing.

Good to know it can hold boost for that long.

Indeed, a good testing ground would be the Auto Club Speedway roval... a NA twin will stay flat out for ~30 sec in the banking, and there's several long 4th-5th gear straights in the infield. The benchmark for an NA twin is 2 minutes.. with about half that time WOT.

TBH at the track you'd want a traditional centrifugal supercharger for the top end power. But I can see how the ESC could be a blast in the canyons or hillclimbs.

The esc is great for autocross or short tight tracks.

My concern with esc is running out battery and how much time take to recharge. But i like the "hidden power" of it, makes the perfect sleeper

You have at least 1 minute straight of boost. Which is an insane amount of time for the street or anything short of a road course.

The most I ever boosted was probably 15-20 seconds which at that point your at 120+ mph at the top of 5th gear in a manual.

I can tell you the recharge rate is claimed to be 8:1. Meaning a 5 second burst would take 40 seconds to recharge to max voltage.

I can also say that during my quarter mile runs the system was fully charged by the time I got my timeslip.

You have a theoretical best setup for the ESC, header, FP, E85 custom tune etc. Do you have any dyno numbers with that setup? I would be interested to see

Well almost. A good EL header and flex fuel would be an improvement.

Like I said earlier if you look at HP calculators (which are mathematical) they range from 215-230whp if you input my 1/4 mile of 13.8 @ 101 weight of 2900lb. Tq would be around 200wtq. There much more area under the curve than peak numbers suggest.

No dyno just the above math.

I've seen those numbers with similar builds. I'm still on the fence whether or not I should replace the OEM OP, FP. I don't really want the extra noise since I already am running the header and I'm sure the gains are fairly minimal

I just have a catless header and catless front pipe. Those are the two with most gains because of the cats. The OP doesn't do much neither does a catback until your making big power.

I got rid of my catback and put the stocker back on because of the noise. Its fine now wish is louder sometimes. May put a "quiet" catback on soon.

Thanks all for the inputs. Decision seems clear now. For the time being I'm very satisfied with trd intake+OFT+OFH+trd exhaust
@DAEMANO when I got my FR-S 6 months ago I promised my wife a Gucci purse. Little did I realize how expensive they are :$
So yea, I'm hoping once that's out of the way maybe another ESC will come up

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there's some pretty legit clones out there lol...

13.8........peeps, that’s really slow for the kit in my opinion. There are FBO NA twins running 13.8 or 14 flat, not a big difference. If the esc ran a 13.5 or shorter, boom, different story.

There is plenty you can do to upgrade an ESC.

1) Swap a stronger electric motor w/ longer peak performance duration
2) Get a 3rd battery/upgrade to a 36V system
3) Upgrade to a 24V or 36V LiFeMnCo4 (Lithium Ion battery pack)
3.1) Get a glycol cooled Lithium battery pack
4) Install a high output generator for faster recharging
5) Lighten the turbine wheel and shaft

If you want to get creative you can attach the electric motor to a gear that will increase the rpm of the turbo wheel shaft above the rpm range of the electric motor. Kind of the opposite of how tesla's car motors use a reducing gear to get their XX,000 rpm electric motors to spin the transmission/wheels at X,000 rpm. This would get an ESC motor that spins at XX,000 rpm to spin a turbo wheel up to XXX,000 rpm.

Yes but not at that trap speed. I was 97 NA on e85. Sure I can run drag radials and dump the clutch but I don't wanna lol.

The kit is more torque than anything top end is lackluster.

Sure but all that effort and likely still slower. I had the ESC for a year it was ok, pretty fun, made the car livable unlike stock where its so gutless.

Now I have a normal turbo and I wouldn't go back. My turbo spools maybe 1k rpm later than what the ESC's safe activation would be (2.5k rpm or up).

The only real way to improve the ESC is to use a step up gear or else it will never see the turbine speed that we want out of it. I found a few high rpm motors in the 150,000+rpm range but they accomplished this with tiny shafts and had low power/tq ratings. Mating 1:4 gear would open up a wider variety of electric motors that spin the 40,000 rpm range with similar power/tq output as the phantom esc motor.

Thanks to DAEMANO pointing me toward the huge ass phantom threat I learned quite a bit about these set ups. But in the end no matter the amount of lithium batteries or recharge ability the real bottle neck for this tech is the motor rpm to tq to power output limitations.

Either way it was a good learning adventure since I'm currently looking for a job at Tesla and now I won't sound like I don't know about their tech :bonk: lol