Cant decide between supercharging or going turbo. I've came to a conclusion of either the Inline pro turbo kit of the Comptech Supercharger. Through everyones experience with superchargers and/or turbos, which one would be the ideal setup if I were looking for something reliable with lots of power. If i decide which one I will still be driving my S almost daily as I do now. I am really looking for something that I can count on without letting me down. I have a local tuner that would be doing all the tuning for me with no problems. I want the car to be fast, maybe 400HP something I can drive a lot with no worries but still be able to have some fun with other imports without getting smoked. Please give your imput on which would be the better setup to run. All help would be appreciated.
thanks guys

 

Turbo is as relaible as the tuner. Supercharger is more bolt on and go. The more power you make the more that you need to keep watch over your car. Overheating, Oil Consumption, differential and launching.

Oh by the way... Do it right the first time. Plan this out with some help man. I didnt do it with any help. I peiced stuff together with diffrent tuners and setups till i got what i have now. Its been a long road for me though. I had my car out of commision for 1 year because of mess ups.

First tuner engine threw a rod bearing at dyno. (on a practicly brand new engine)

Rebuilt it by some people I didnt even know. ( They did a horrible job building it, but it worked; for how long who knows)

When and got it tuned and got it back a few days later found out the turbo i bought was starting to go. Soon after that the oil filter relocation that I got with it busted and destroyed my engine. It was a horrible expirence. I had to tow my car to tampa from orlando on a 15 foot rope from a VW Jetta. The rope snaped when I got there; thank fully.

Had to rebuild the engine!!! AGAIN!

This time I did it right. My specs are down below. With a new turbocharger at that.

MONEY MONEY MONEY! Do it right! Im telling you.

 

Well if you go turbo, Inlinepro is One of the best especially for reliability. Make sure you get a good tuner too, otherwise you could be wasting a lot of money on a blown motor.

 

when it comes to forced induction on these cars i've found that just setting power and reliability goals is NOT enough. you also need to address other things.

having a power goal in mind is of course a great way to start, but you need to seriously consider WHERE you want your power. are you looking for high horsepower, or are you going to concentrate on a specific torque curve?

my first piece of advice is drive all three versions... supercharged, turbocharged, and then of course, STOCK. do NOT forget about how the car handles itself in stock format - sometimes you end up missing it! try to get a feel for how s2ks feel under all these setups - dont go drive an srt4, an sc mustang cobra and a stock s2k lol. personally i would go out of my way to really find a way to drive all 3 setups before really deciding on what to do.

as for reliability, as stated before your turbo is going to be as reliable as your tune. that is for sure. however, regardless of which way you decide to go i firmly suggest you go absolutely over the top with metering options just in case your day goes bad. in terms of reliability the debate can be beaten to death as to which one is better or worse. its better to just accept the fact that both setups can blow you up if you're not careful.

to me, it really comes down to the amount of work you want to put into the modification. will you be doing the labor yourself? if not, i almost immediately suggest the CTSC over turbocharging. when you install your own parts you develop a keen sense of how it all works much quicker than if you had the work done for you, and only received the finished product. for turbocharged vehicles, you really should be able to find where everything is quickly, what has moved to accomodate the setup, what size tools you need for each piece (go ahead, quiz any turbo guy on his setup about what size wrench he needs for his oil send!), and so on and so forth. turbocharging can't be disabled. superchargers can be. yank thet belt off the comptech (or clip it if you're in a serious jam!) and drive home safely.

the CTSC is great for the beginning lunatic. the charger itself sits front and center in the bay, and almost all parts of it are easily accessable. there is no oil relocation, which means less places for leaks, and if you stay in stock form you wont have to play with your fuel system either. hey, get a non aftercooled one and you wont be playing with any fluids except for oil for the install.

if you DO decide to go CTSC, though - be prepared to spend some more cash to reach your 400hp mark. it is definitely attainable but it is most certainly not an average setup.

i have been through all three setups - na with mild mods, CTSC with a FMIC, and now this little greddy turbo kit (which is also great for aspiring psychopaths that dont want to hurt anything!). while i realize that i am not making the power that you want to make i think you can agree a careful, well researched plan of attack will not fail you in the end, so long as you put a good amount of work into everything before, during, and after the install.

best of luck!

 

I agree with Telehodge, set out a plan on what kind of power you want. I just went inline last week and didn't have the knowledge or time to install it myself however I did find a good installer and tuner. As of right now the car drives amazing and it seems like it will last for a very long time as long as I keep an eye on everything. I agree for turbo it seems like you have to figure a few things out if things go south however if everything is checked it should be reliable.

 

Turbo FTW Simply stated!

 

If you want to just bolt on a kit and go, I would do the CTSC. But if you want to make 400hp then I would go with a Turbo but you will need to upgrade a bunch of other stuff as well so consider your budget.

 

I will be doing the labor myself along with my tuner, he works at a speed performance shops for imports and is currenty owns his own shop. I'm not really worried about the install or anything, its really just the power. I know I will need to upgrade more things then just the engine, trans, diff, etc. I was mainly worried about the reliability and an ideal setup for a daily driven vehicle. I really wanted something that I can gain close to 400HP easily and then further down the road take it to even higher horsepower levels when I stop driving it daily. My main thing with the Comptech SC was that I havn't really seen anyone with one running over 400HP, I love the sound, looks and everything else but dont really want to run out of performance mods to gain that little extra horsepower, I like the idea of a turbo setup because you can constantly change things and tune things to get more power. When I look at the different horsepower gains, the turbo stands out the most in HP wise. I dont want to be the guy who gets a Comptech SC, does every mod possible and eventually begin to say, "man that car just spanked me". 400HP is a lot but eventually I will want to go faster. My preference is in the SC but i just dont want to run out of all possible mods to get every little bit of horsepower out of it, which is why i'm confused. Go with the SC which I like the best, but eventually run out of options to gain more power. Or go with the turbo, which will give me HP gains with more mods over time until I reach the 600HP mark. I dunno if its just me but it's a very hard decision.

 

dont be afraid of getting 'spanked' in a race - no matter what you drive it will eventually happen.

set your power goals based on what you feel you can handle as well as what the motor can handle - have you ever driven a 400hp s2k? the number may look nice,but the actual performance may be far from what you're looking for. it could be too fast, it could be too slow.

after reading through most of this i suggest a supercharger. its a piece that can grow with you to an extent and will get you the numbers you are looking for for now. if you decide later on down the road you want more power than a CTSC can give you sell it all and go turbo.

 

If you have the money to get yourself to 400hp with a turbo...diff..tranny..clutch...headgasket.....10k process w/o turbo to just get it there and the money just keeps stacking up after that. especially that 600hp mark that you want to get is gonna cost you another brand new s2k just to get it there if not then MORE then that. SOO if u have the money to spend on the car then go for it. Also..... you PROBABLY know this but our cars arn't made for drag/straight way. TRACK FTW!!!


i love my comptech s/c :-D and with what i have i can already tell you its very fast for a 2800lb car and flooring 1st gear and crashing it into a wall is no where near worth racing some other KID who just wants to prove there car is faster going straight. Our cars... Own on the track... O YEA and another thing...s/c are better if you ever want to track your car. the overall better power band is safer then getting that sudden large burst of power within 1k rpms of where ever it spools. but most people like that :-D I just love my S and i dont wanna see another one in the newspaper with the front half of it ripped off because someone can't control the power they hold