Turbo Reliability VS Supercharger reliability
 

H guys. So I want put a turbo or a supercharger in my 2014 BRZ. I just picked it up and want to get more power from it. Any advise as to which will be more reliable considering that warrenty will be void. And should I wait to mod it or is it safe to go ahead and throw a supercharger or turbo at 1000km?

any advice would be much appriciated

Personally, I'd wait untill the warranty was up. But I'd go turbo.

I'd personally wait as well. This will give you the time/money to do all the supporting mods first and also give more time to the turbo/supercharger companies to develop more reliable systems.

If you can't wait and want to do everything at once, it is really up to you and what your goals are with the car.

If it is just more power with reliability, I would go supercharger.

I'd personally wait as well. This will give you the time/money to do all the supporting mods first and also give more time to the turbo/supercharger companies to develop more reliable systems.

If you can't wait and want to do everything at once, it is really up to you and what your goals are with the car.

If it is just more power with reliability, I would go supercharger.

Check out the "Forced Induction" section of the home page on this forum. I would recommend doing a lot of research about each one before you make a decision.

i recommend doing whatever the fuck you want. its your car.

with that said both are reliable as long as you stay within each respected limits. finding a reliable tuner......thats a totally different story and should be #1 priority.

Disclaimer: I don't have too much auto experience and can be considered an auto noob and this is just my opinion.

Ok, disclaimer done...

To each their own but from the research I've done for my own needs I've chosen to get the Vortech kit. I'm not looking for a monster car since this is my DD. There are numerous folks in the member journals with supercharger kits that are perfectly happy with them and say they are low maintainance. You will easily find people with 250Hp and up to 300Hp with supporting mods. The Vortech kit is priced similarly to most of the turbo kits and offers similar gains.

The down side, from what I've found, with a supercharger kit, are once you have gotten all the power of from the supercharger that's it. With a turbo you have the option of installing a bigger turbo or something, but not with a SC.

That's my take on it and happy hunting!

Reliability comes from designing, building, installing, and tuning. Any four of those areas can go wrong with a turbo or SC, leading to all kinds of problems. Tuning seems the area where most people go wrong. Vancouver is a large city so it must have some decent Subaru tuners. I would talk to them. What do they feel most comfortable with? Big power is possible with either kit, but big power means big money and bigger chance for problems.

a supercharged car is always under parasitic strain even at low rpm and builds boost based on RPM. So everytime you drive at a high rpm the car makes boost. Even if just merging on to the highway under light load. Turbos only build boost based off of load (for the sake of this response and not getting complicated) so I can shift at 5,000 rpm with 5-10% throttle under minimal load if I want and not be making much if any boost. As far as my car is concerned it still thinks its stock until the load is increased and boost builds. Supercharged cars know no difference. HP per RPM or HP per load? Someone could drive a turbo car indefinetly and never get into boost. The car would never know its turbo'd and would last just as long as stock.

thanks for all the quick responses, you guys are awesome! Im not looking for stupid power but with that being said im am coming from a 2012 shelby and I know there is no comparison but I want at least around 260-300hp. My budget is around $6000 maybe a bit higher with the install. I really dont want to wait 5 years for the warrenty to expire because by that time im probably going to be buying an SUV anyways for the family. I want somethimg that does not require a lot of supporting mods. Just exhaust and intake but thats about it.

Thanks again for the input.

ps. the exhaust and intake is a separate budget.

speedbydesign is about all you can afford on that if you include tune, clutch, fuel system, oil cooler, gauges etc. You might need to keep it around 280WHP at that budget. once you break 300whp you need injectors, fuel pump, clutch and possibly an oil cooler.
I just had a conversation with a guy who didn't realize ecutek with racerom, a tune and a clutch would end up costing him over 2,000$

do I need a clutch if under 300hp?

sorry didnt read properly. Under 300hp, can I get away with just a turbo or SC without any supporting mods?

If you go with the vortech kit, you are fine with the stock clutch etc.
It does not put loads of torque out, so you don't have to worry about breaking things. If you decide you want to go a bit faster, fuelpump/injectors and E85 can put you into ~300whp if not more, and a quick pulley swap would just add more power.

The only thing you need to worry about is the drive belt. Run a quality drive belt, and check for wear every oil change along with checking the supercharger fluid levels.

Turbo will give you more power for less, but the engine with a supercharger just feels like you stock engine but.... more. Not overwhelming or kick in your pants torque, but just that extra bit to make it really fun at high rpm

he probably doesn't have e85 in Canada. that budget really only works for a mild supercharger.

Im looking at the vortech website and its about $6000 US plus tax, plus install. The turbo kits are a bit cheaper right?.

no. except speedbydesign. theirs is REALLY cheap. but don't forget, gauges(600), tune, oil cooler(600), someone to weld the BOV flange on(75$?), new crash bar(150$) unless you want to cut it.

great thanks. I will take a look after work today.

I checked out the speed by design turbo kit. looks pretty sweet. how reliable or reputable is their turbo compared with lets say AVO or other competitors?

it comes with intercooler. is that an oil cooler. sorry im not good with cars :/

I don't think forced induction is the route you want to take if you don't know much about how your car works imo.

why is that? is there a lot a maintenance after the install? im not putting it in myself. Hence the research.

Buys car: want to drop 10K on mods before break in finished.

Not sure if taking the piss.

Meta. Im asking for advice. Not criticism. Not everyone is mechanically inclined. From what I have read, and this could be wrong. Most new cars have to be broken around 1000k. If you have advice as to how long I should wait please say so...

Alright @KGB here is a super basic diagram of a turbo system to show you how it works/what an intercooler is.

http://www.mazdarotary.net/images/te...inedrawing.jpg

As you can see, the exhaust gases are used to spin a turbine. This turbine is connected to the compressor via a shaft and the entire assembly is commonly known as a "Turbo."

Since the turbo runs off of the exhaust gases, it tends to get extremely hot which leads to extremely hot intake air. Hot air = less power because the hotter it is the less dense it is.

You can see in the picture above the after the intake air goes through the turbo it goes through the intercooler. The intercooler is like a radiator but for the intake air. It sits in front of the radiator and is very noticeable (see the picture below). This cools down the intake air again and essentially gives you more power.

http://image.importtuner.com/f/power...ntercooler.jpg

After the intercoller, it flows into the engine.

This is a very basic explanation of a turbo system. Quite a few supercharged systems also come with an intercooler.

I strongly suggest researching both systems on the internet to understand them better. You may not be mechanically inclined now, but all it takes is a little reading. Not only will it help you with your decision but it will help you a lot down the line when it comes to install and tuning. I know you won't be doing either of them, but it certainly helps understanding what's going on.

Generally speaking, a supercharger should be more reliable and less fuss because it is internally lubricated and does not have to tap into the engine oil supply. Also, boost tends to be more consistent and thus safer because it doesn't rely on a wastegate to meter boost pressure (again, generally speaking). In the FR-S/BRZ, the primary catalytic converter is located in the exhaust manifold, so that has to be eliminated if you install a turbo. Therefore, your likelihood of passing emissions without doing any funny stuff to the ECU becomes a challenge as well.

You can upgrade to a smaller pulley to run more boost, and if you max out the Vortech or Rotrex blower, like you could max out a turbo, you can always upgrade to a larger unit.

It is cheap because it is a ripoff of the Greddy turbo kit, thus reducing the R&D costs significantly. It is made in Taiwan.

It's not a ripoff of the Greddy kit, it is the Greddy turbo kit. Greddy doesn't manufacture their turbo kit in-house.

So they're overproducing at the factory and spun it off into another venture?

I don't know what kind of contract SBD has with Zage, but I'm fairly certain it's not "SBD gets to sell all the excess turbo kits."

Wrong forum here I think

Sbd is a good company distributing for a not so moral company. OP doesn't know enough about cars to go FI and needs a bigger budget. I'm going to bed now.

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That's interesting. From what SBD has been saying (about visiting Zage in China, etc.), I assumed that Zage had simply copied the design of the Greddy kit and began manufacturing them with some of their little additions to claim it is their own kit. I hadn't heard that they cut out the whole process and just straight up stole from the Greddy-backed manufacturing line. Where'd you hear that from?


Find a good enough shop and have deep enough pockets and you don't have to know about anything about your car. :bonk:

This was the impression I got from SBD when they first introduced the kit. Now you have me second guessing.

Be born with enough money and you don't have to know anything about anything.

Ugh.

Anyway there has been two threads recently where greddy said zage does not make their kit. That zage copied it. Zage is in china and greddy says there's is made in Taiwan. Sbd smartly will not comment and now makes it very obvious they are a zage distributer and its not an SBD kit. Just something sbd sells. That's a smart way to avoid being sued. One member does claim his zage kit sold by sbd has a greddy elblem on it that was ground off.


I feel like I'm one of the last people to build my car on jackstandsnin my driveway.

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Oil pumps can fail on turbos, and they require tapping the oil pan, but a self-contained system requires its own fluid change and watching of fluid level. Cooling is also better through the engine oil. If a system has its own reservoir and cooler, it needs its own pump, lines, radiator, and so on. Lots more failure points. More importantly, there are superchargers that tie into the engine oiling system, and there are turbos that use their own lubrication. The whole point you made has little to do with the supercharger vs turbo question other than, maybe, what is the preferred method of cooling, and what is offered in mainstream kits.

In a basic theoretical sense, it comes down to heat management (Turbo) versus more mechanical parts (Supercharger). In practical terms, it really comes down to the quality of the design and installation and whether the needs and capabilities of the driver are met.

I would do more homework before deciding based purely on input on this thread.

Start with learning the basics of how an internal combustion engine works (air in, fuel in, mixture compressed, mixture ignited, piston rotates crank, exhaust out). Then learn how both FI solutions work so you can see what's being offered on the market so you can better process their designs and user feedback related to your needs.

You don't need to have years wrenching on your car, but I would recommend a basic mechanical understanding of how your engine works before going FI.

A few key things. Pay particular attention to how compression ratio and boost with valve timing and duration affect detonation and pre-ignition based on the fuel to be used in the car. Then look at the whether the stock rods and pistons (then transmission, axles, wheels and tires, etc.) will support your desired power output.

you can generally get a "tuner" kit for $4200. its about $5000 with a tune.

with that kit you're looking at 250rhp

i had an exhaust and we maxed out the fuel pump on the dyno at 260rhp.

throw in a fuel pump, and aftermarket injectors to get the most out of it.

if you want a little more, you'll need a smaller pulley.

for even more, E85

thats been my experience. i currently have everything but E85 and she's a blast to drive. its great for DD and having fun on the way to work or taking a spirited cruise.
why do you have to be an asshole. i had no clue how boost works when i first got my car. i started asking questions and reading up on the forums. i have a basic idea now and pushing 14psi. however im no where near an expert and im still learning every day.

we are here to help each other out, not bash.

Ecutek with racerom is 800 $ not including dyno time.

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