Supercharger Comparison: Innovate, Jackson, Kraftwerks, Vortech *Updated March 9 2014

[Shiv@Openflash]

Originally Posted by SirBrass

That's understating the price of a good quality header by quite a bit, actually.

I'd say his pricing estimate are spot on

[SirBrass]

Originally Posted by OICU812

Ya by like half??

For top quality, yeah. For mid quality, about $100 low. For mediocre quality, about $50 high.

I'm on my phone so if I make mistakes, blame Sportsguy83

[Calum]

Originally Posted by shiv@vishnu

I'd say his pricing estimate are spot on

Two words, dump collector.

Sent from my samstone

[tendogy]

Originally Posted by tendogy

Kraftwerks

When is this kit getting CARB certified anyways? "next friday"?

mit_pied reported that Kraftwerks expects CARB approval in 2 to 6 months. Their kit has already been on the market for nearly four months.

For comparison: Vortech had CARB EO 7 months after applying, and Jackson had CARB EO one month after release.

This suggests the following Rotrex timeline:

April 2013: Jackson finalizes kit, applies for CARB
Oct. 23: Jackson releases kit
November 1: Kraftwerks finalizes kit, applies for CARB
Nobember 21: Kraftwerks releases kit
November 26: Jackson receives CARB EO

The more I follow this, the more I think the Kraftwerks kit was rushed to market. At the very least, they were still prototyping their pulley/belt system at the end of September. [source]

Also, what is up with all these empty promises? Keep in mind that Kraftwerks is a sub-brand of Skunk2.

Originally Posted by gmsii

skunk2 will be launching a complete oil cooler kit around the same time the kit is released

Originally Posted by gmsii

a skunk2 ultra series (with cooler) and alpha series radiator (without cooler) will be coming out for this car in the near future

Originally Posted by gmsii

we'll give you a great deal on a Skunk2 header when it comes out

We're 4 months into the Kraftwerks kit release and none of these products have materialized. To be fair, Jackson has promised us an oil cooler that has yet to hit the market, but at least we have seen pictures (and a false-start release) of that product, and they have not passed their "end of February" deadline.

[ATL BRZ]

[OmarGC]

@tendogy

Actually I'm getting my engine oil cooler kit from them next week after speaking with them yesterday. If you look at the construction of the Jackson racing kit vs the kraftwerks kit, I'd say the JR kit was rushed. In my opinion it looks like shit/like someone did a DIY kit using a rotrex unit and slapped some stickers on it lol.

[tendogy]

Originally Posted by OmarGC

Actually I'm getting my engine oil cooler kit from them next week after speaking with them yesterday.

Can you post a link to the kit? The more options we have the better. Still no word on the exhaust, header, and radiators though.

Originally Posted by OmarGC

If you look at the construction of the Jackson racing kit vs the kraftwerks kit, I'd say the JR kit was rushed. In my opinion it looks like shit/like someone did a DIY kit using a rotrex unit and slapped some stickers on it lol.

No one has ever accused the JR kit of looking good; your opinion that it has poor aesthetics is not breaking news.

Unfortunately, "rushed" refers to timelines, not how pretty something is. "Rushed to market" means that there was very little time between prototyping and consumer availability. We know for a fact that Kraftwerks was prototyping Sept 29 and that it was being sold to consumers 30 days later (another 23 days before they had even received all their parts shipments).

JR received CARB 1 month after release, so we know they were sitting on it for months and months. Maybe this was simply due to the non-compete between the two companies, but ultimately that is irrelevant to this issue. The kit was being driven hard for months on their car and received no revisions.

Being rushed to market doesn't inherently mean that a product is inferior, it just means that it is more likely to suffer growing pains. Isn't Kraftwerks still redistibuting different pulleys as we speak?

[deange]

Originally Posted by CSG Mike

Here's my offer.

If we can get the appropriate volunteers, I will arrange for heavily discounted dyno time. Maybe we'll turn it into a meet too.

All cars need to show up on the same day, and will go on the same dyno, with everyone present to verify there's no monkey business.

"off the shelf" cars with 2 cats
- CARB Innovate intercooled
- CARB Innovate non-intercooled
- CARB Jackson Racing
- CARB Vortech V2

"Maxed out" cars (91 octane, any non-catted header, any non-catted front pipe)
- Innovate Intercooled, any pulley
- Jackson Racing, any pulley
- Kraftwerks, any pulley
- Vortech, any pulley

"Maxed out" cars (100+ octane or E85)
- Innovate Intercooled, any pulley
- Jackson Racing, any pulley
- Kraftwerks, any pulley
- Vortech, any pulley


Lets make it happen guys.

If this starts getting put together I'll bring mine. Just let me know when and where. I've got the Vortech V2 otherwise it's stock (besides a Koyo Radiator, and FBM oil cooler).

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by mit_peid

The Rotrex oil cooler supplier by KW has a higher rated cooling capacity than the Setrab unit supplied in the JR kit. Large Air-to-Air IC has higher capacity and larger piping (2.5" compared to 2.0") compared to JR IC. IC may impact airflow to radiator and A/C condenser impacting cooling for other parts of the car (but the silver front mounted intercooler looks so good!).
.

The core is larger in height, but not in surface area. It's only 1/2" thick, compared to the setrab which is about 1.5" thick.

What's the BTU rating on the KW kit's rotrex cooler?

[mit_peid]

Originally Posted by CSG Mike

The core is larger in height, but not in surface area. It's only 1/2" thick, compared to the setrab which is about 1.5" thick.

What's the BTU rating on the KW kit's rotrex cooler?

Not sure. Measured it and it was definitely thinner than 1.5"... closer to 0.75" external (perhaps 0.5 internal). Tried to look for a part no or spec on the unit but couldn't find anything. I think I'll just remove that from my comparison summary if the differences aren't significant.

[tendogy]

Thanks to mit_peid for pointing out elsewhere that Kraftwerks MSRP has been falling. Prices are currently as follows:

TIY: $3895
Ecutek+tune: $4695

That gives them the lowest MSRP of the centrifugal blowers. Remember that dealers and distributers will often offer any kit with a discount off MSRP, but this is still an interesting development.

[tendogy]

Compilation of Owner-Reported Issues: Reading 271 Pages So You Don't Have To

I recently read through the Innovate and Kraftwerks owners threads, as well as the Vortech and Jackson Racing discussion threads. I aimed to compile all the owner-reported issues to try to gain some understanding into a few questions.

Which companies provide the best customer support when things go wrong?

Which companies demonstrate the best QC?

Which kits tend to have the most issues?

Now, this data is DEEPLY flawed for a number of reasons. I don't know how many owners of each kit are/were active in the forums. I don't know how many issues went unreported. Even so, I think I came away with a much better understanding of how the different kits & companies stack up in regards to my questions.

Here are links to each compilation:

Vortech Discussion Thread

Innovate Owner's Thread

Kraftwerks Owner's Thread

Jackson Racing Discussion Thread

I encourage anyone considering any of these supercharger kits to look at their compilation and then read the indexed posts to see the owner's issues in their own words.

We can't leave without charts though, so here are two. First of all we have a chart for total-issues-reported by kit.



Vortech has a few issues, Innovate quite a few more, and the Kraftwerks most of all while Jackson Racing has not yet received a reported issue. This isn't entirely fair to Vortech and Innovate though, because they have been on the market much longer.

The next chart is number of issues divided by months-on-the-market.



Vortech has a very respectable 1.17 issues per month, Innovate has them doubled at 2.64 issues per month, and Kraftwerks is out of control at 9.25 issues-per-month on the market.

Like I said, the data is deeply flawed but if you are cross-shopping the Rotrex kits and prioritize things like QC, time-in-development, and ownership hurdles then I think you have to consider the vast difference here between Kraftwerks and Jackson Racing.

Kraftwerks would have to go ten months on the market without one single reported issue to get down to Innovate's IPM number.

[Freeman]

Originally Posted by tendogy

Now, this data is DEEPLY flawed



Like I said, the data is deeply flawed

I hope people are smart enough to focus on these two comments but I doubt they will.

[Ralph Spoilsport]

@tendogy

Thanks for the indices, those are very useful.

I'd suggest your analysis would be improved by adding a factor for the significance and aggravation associated with any given fault.

Interesting to note that the JR kit is so "issue free". Well done JR.

FWIW, here's my wag at weighting:

100 -- problems that result in a dangerous condition or failure while driving, e.g. broken belts, seized idlers.

25 -- problems that result in an inoperable vehicle while parked, e.g. easily busted vacuum fittings, bolts, seals.

variable, but on the order of 10 -- issues associated with the engineering of the kit. Things that might be fixed with updates to hardware or software, but might aggravate you in the meantime, or might never get fixed depending on the manufacturers commitment to customer support. E.g. Vortech's rubbing IC plumbing, KW's reported poor tune.

5 -- QC problems that can and are fixed with an email or phone call, e.g. missing parts.

1 -- Known "issues" such as noise.

The KW kit does seem a special case, perhaps because so many of these issues could be so easily fixed (better directions, e.g. for reservoir and filter mounting, putting all the fucking parts in the box! and so forth).