Power Adders....the Great Debate!!!!!
 

Well, I am bored and want to start up a little discussion about power adders and the benefits and disadvantages to the different forms. Please everyone feel free to chime in and tell your experience with one of the following power adders:

Nitrous

Positive Displacement Superchargers

Centrifugal Superchargers

Turbochargers

Also, if you have any questions about these forms of power adders, please feel free to ask it here. Hopefully this topic will have a lot of good tech talk and be a good tool should anyone need info before they go and spend money on one of these upgrades.

Since this will be a future reference, why not ask the question that I've searched for in the past, and am still trying to figure out the answer to.

I'm contemplating spraying my 88. I'm new to nitrous so from what I understand, a dry shot would probably be my smartest buy. I don't have any interest in spraying over 125 at any time, and I'll start out at 75 or so. My engine specs are in the user's ride's section (link in my sig).

Basically my question is....What kits should a newbie to nitrous, such as myself look into? I was looking at the ZEX kit, but can't seem to search for posts on it due to the four character search limit. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

What would you like to know about ZEX? Thier website explains a lot. I have researched a lot on thier kits and they seem to be the easiest way to get into nitrous. I was accually going to order thier kit sunday night, but then my clutch blew up. It will have to wait till next month.

I've been doing my N2O homework too, in preparatio of next years mods. I've heard that the Zex kits lose about 17-20% to the wheels on a dyno. Is this true? And, do the NX, TNT and NOS kits fair the same way?

To get back to the topic at hand........no debate for me - my dream set up would be to increase displacement (351), have a twin turbo set up, and a 100+ shot of N2O for some extra kick. I'd love to have the best of all worlds.......but for now it's just a dream! :D

The only kits that give Rear wheel horsepower are the NX and TNT kits. TNT kits have a good reputation to being within 2% of the claimed rear wheel horsepower. All the other manufacters give the flywheel horse power (the acual increase in power at the engine).

You will lose as much horse power as you would with any other mod. In the fox body 5 spds it is close to 15% drivetrain loss.

Power Adders
 

Power Adders I usually try to avoid this,because I am not a big fan of artificial hp but I have a small amount of knowledge.

Turd-bos er uh Turbos to me nothing matches the sheer power of a turbocharger,just look at NMRA SSO and FFW Pro 5.0 they are making incredible power with those cars. To me on the street next to nitrous a turbo is the way to go as far as stealth comes into play. I think you need to have a purpose built block for a turbocharger,good set of heads,a stock cam works pretty good with a turbo,but I am a fan of custom cams,good set of pistons,and most important a good fuel system.

Nitrous oxide another good power adder with stealth,I like multiple stages with nitrous oxide or a progressive timer reason being with the 2 stage kits you can hit it with a small shot out of the hole say about 50-75,and bring in a second stage along the lines of a 90-125 hit it will not blow the tires off coming out of the hole,and with the progressive timer you can bring the nitrous in after the car is hooked up and going down track.

Which leads me to superchargers,they are always there,and the power is always on,but unless you get the new Vortech SQ2 line get ready for one of the noisiest power adders out there,if you cannot and are not ready to deal with a constant high pitched whine,then stay away from a blower. Blowers need a good set of heads,cam,intake,the Holley Systemax seems to be the intake of choice for blower guys,I think you need a purpose built block and last not but not least a large amount of patience because a blower car along with a turbo car needs a lot of attention to tuning,and extra parts i.e fuel system,bigger injectors,some aftermarket electronics,and other misc items.

If it was me and I had the money,turbo all the way,I like the idea it does not give it away that it is there,and by the time the victim er uh opponent knows it's there it is too late.

whats up guys, I was in the same situation tyring to figer out what nitrous kit to go with as I am new to the juice too. I went with the zex kit and I am completly satisfied with it. I went to the track friday and ran a 13.2 with street tires and a 2.02 60ft time with the 100 shot.. I ran 14.4 NA. thats a 1.2 sec gain. I will be in the 12's with a good 60 foot time, I'm getting some slicks soon.

I don't know who moved the thread, but I was hoping that whoever did it could please move it back. I didn't start this thread to be a windsor specific or modular specific thread...just a discussion in power adders in general. A lot of people have broad based questions about power adders and I was just trying to address that need in a general topic. It would be great if there were a power adder forum so that way it would be a lot easier to get a response to the various questions I have scene spread out all through the site in regards to power adders.



Ok, now for a little imput from me in regards to DRAStiK's question, when you are newly looking into nitrous, the first thing you should think about is your ultimate performance goal for your car. As with most power mods, once you get a little taste of the added power, you will probably be wanting to go a little further. The other thing that you have to take into consideration is your budget....if you don't have a lot of money to spend, you want to make sure that you spend your money wisely. The thing about the ZEX nitrous kits is that they don't guarantee a specific horsepower rating for their kit, but they also have the added benefit of several safety features to help ensure that you don't destroy your motor. It isn't that they don't make what they claim because of driveline loss(wheel horsepower and flywheel horsepower should be pretty similar on any hp mod), it is that the system corrects for engine tempeture o2 sensor readings and such.

My personal opinion about nitrous is that with the exception of small shots to spool up turbos, wet is the way to go. The downside to most wet kits is that they are a bit more expensive than dry set-ups. The difference between a wet and dry set-up is that the wet set-up's have a dedicated fuel solenoid while most dry setup modifies the fuel pressure for the added nitrous or don't even address the fuel system. While most dry set-ups are relatively small and the modified fuel pressure is enough for the needs of the kit, my opinion is that it is safer to have a better way of fueling involved when it comes to nitrous....there is less chance of a lean run situation which could severely damage your engine.

I have to say Turbo's!!! But NOS is on the cheap side compared to the others.