Single turbo or Vortech

calgarybandit

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I'm torn between a blower or turbo myself

Me to in my neck of the woods spring time is only a few months away. I am looking at doing one of the new blocks Ford is releasing and unsure between turbo or Paxton kit. My goal is to be 750HP on pump gas and 1000HP ish with race gas. It's also hard to decide to stick with the stock heads\cams or upgrade those also. And this setup I would like it to be reliable so I can go on a 3,5 or 8 hour trip without issues like I am driving a stock car.
 
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tt335ci03cobra

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Calgarybandit, I went turbo and never looked back. Vvt-ti heads didn't exist when I did my build. Now if I were to do it again, the only difference I'd make is to start with a built coyote vvt-ti motor and go turbo with all the other mods I already have.

I did monumental research before going turbo, my advice is read up on the different dynamics of each power adder, ride in different setups if/when possible and judge for your self.

Problem is if you ask a centri guy they'll say centri, a pd guy will say pd and a turbo guy will say turbo. It's your call at the end of the day so do what calls out to you the most. All setups will run 9's on slicks with proper suspension or enough power in these chassis so no play call will be slow.

That all said, I'd go turbo, good luck.
 

calgarybandit

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ride in different setups if/when possible and judge for your self.

Only setups in my area I have seen is a whipple not many people are crazy with there Mustangs like you guys down south. Regardless if I did a centri or turbo setup my #1 is a reliable build I do not want this to be a trailer queen track car. I want the capability to take it on long cruises without issue, I could care less about MPG just something that is able to hit the street, track, highway.
 

slamdcoop0428

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Only setups in my area I have seen is a whipple not many people are crazy with there Mustangs like you guys down south. Regardless if I did a centri or turbo setup my #1 is a reliable build I do not want this to be a trailer queen track car. I want the capability to take it on long cruises without issue, I could care less about MPG just something that is able to hit the street, track, highway.

Turbo!
 

tt335ci03cobra

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Done right, nothing beats turbo IMO. That said, any of the power adders will do everything you're looking for, the new modulars are stout and drivability is excellent even on high hp modulars.

Mine drives like a lamb. A really fast, athletic lamb, but docile nonetheless.

Vvt-ti is even better/safer, so much control over the timing. I wish I had those heads.

Maintenance/durability:

You might get belt slip or wear out a belt quicker with sc's so just have an extra belt with some tools to change it out in the trunk. On forced induction cars you might use a little more oil between oil changed as the turbos/blowers spin with the slippery stuff as well so keep a quart in the trunk in the net storage spot.

I keep a quart of oil and some coolant in the car at all times. I've driven thousands of miles, many pretty hard at wot and still am on the same two bottles. I've used half a quart of oil over 5k miles (just going to buy a new quart this summer because of age of the quart I have now) and maybe a 16th of the coolant jug. Maybe.

It's wise to check oil and coolant before and at the end of any hard drive. Easy driving shouldn't matter but I check anyways just to catch anything early, cheap insurance. Nothing yet either way. If something seems low at the end of a hard ride, let everything cool back and check it before driving the next time, hot fluids stay at different levels/are still in use vs cold fluids.

With turbos, it's wise to get either turbo timers or just let the car get a good 3-4 minutes of steady calm driving at say 40mph before shutting the car off if you've been really hard on it during the drive. This lets cold fresh air pass through all the hot side and through the turbos which dramatically cools and softens the duration of stress. Turbos love heat to make power but too much heat for too long wears them out.

Inter cooling/cooling/oil/fuel and spark are the tricks to making big power safely, going a little over kill in those departments is the safe way to protect a $10k bullet block. $1300 in simple additional/upgraded cooling/fuel/etc mods like radiators, fans, catch can/drain backs will pay off with stone reliability in the long run on any turbo or sc car. The supporting cast always let the star shine but are critical nonetheless.

Far too often forced induction cars get billed as fragile glass because people get seduced into doing budget boost builds and don't upgrade those important aspects to slightly more than they need. As with any machinery, if you run it at or near 100% capacity, it's easy for something to go wrong.

This is another reason I like turbos. You can run less boost, there's at most a 1-3% parasitic drag via vacuum and externalities, but nothing compared to an sc plus they don't suffer heat soak when properly intercooled. The boost is also balanced as it pushes and pulls on the rotating assembly harmonically. Sc's can only push which is a much harsher boost. Turbos and centris roll into boost while pd cars slam in boost.

In short, a turbo car can make the same power as an sc car with at most, half the stress on the engine itself. Maybe 60% if its plumbed less than ideally. Typically a well sized turbo only needs 50-70% of the boost of an sc car to make the same power. It's also not requiring the motor to eat up frictions via parasitic drag. A 700hp sc motor at 20psi is really making about 850-900hp but the parasitic drag is eating up the 150~hp to spin the blower to 20psi. A turbo mill making 700hp is maybe making 714hp while the vacuum and externalities eat up that 14 hp. It's also maybe needing 10-12psi if its the same motor that needed 20psi for 700hp sc'd.

Also if your at altitude like I am, 4500ft, than all of the above applies but with thinner, hotter, less potent air charges as denser, oxygen rich air remains colder, sparser air is more prone to heat via physics and is less potent.

A turbo setup reads o2 count so if its set for 14psi, and spinning at say 55,000rpms at sea level, when you go up in altitude and the air thins of o2 by 3%/1000 ft, a turbo will simply spin 3% faster per 1000ft to maintain o2 readings via the banks/maf. It doesn't harm the turbos to spin slightly faster because its resisting the same physical volume density. It's the same effective work to move say 55,000rpms against air that is 3% denser than air moved at 56,650rpms that is 3% thinner.

This pays off at altitude as it maintains the same oxygen levels as sea level, roughly. This means a turbo car will need a much lower correction factor at altitude. In essence, the car will keep more of its power vs be starved for oxygen.

If you run 20psi of 4500ft air through a whipple or centri, it's really 13.5% thinner air so it's like your really running 17.3psi of boost at sea level, plus what the na motor is already losing. Now couple the fact that its still pullied for 20psi, and the additional drag of 20psi vs 17psi comes into play to rob an additional 15-25hp depending on pd or centri in parasitic losses vs that same car at sea level pullied for 17.3psi. The stresses are still the same on the engine as they are at sea level and then some because the same mechanical forces are at play but they are decoupled with thinner air. This means the engine is making less power but just as taxed. This is important because its not simply a case of just putting more boost into an sc car to get back to sea level numbers, pulleying the car to maybe 23psi won't get you the sea level numbers you had at 20psi because each additional psi of boost is taxed just the same. There's now more drag, but even worse, hotter air charges as the thin air can't keep the lobes/impeller cool enough, and so forth accordingly, heat soak becomes an almost exponential problem with additional boost as the blower internals get hotter. This is somewhat true of turbos as well but the air is much more efficiently cooled via the intercooler in a turbo car than in a pd or centri car.

In short, many turbo cars run amazing at altitude because of their inherent design and beltless nature. It stands to reason that turbine tech allowed airplanes to break altitude barriers that sc planes simply could not.

Now I've rambled on and on so I'll stop, good luck.
 
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Bud

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^^^ Cliffs: Turbos are awesome and altitude is a cruel bitch

Still gotta make the heat pre-boost threshold to light them off though which is harder up here, that makes PD blowers a lot of fun up here for the instant power instead of relying on thin air to build up to boost/power (on the street at least)
 

SignalZero

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I've always favored twins as far as wear, drag on the motor, longevity, power potential as well as turning up the wick and driving extended distances however love the instant power of a PD blower. I think I may have to go twins on this one.
 

tt335ci03cobra

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Pd blowers are great fun, keep it cold with the right mods and they run great for a good long while.

Go smallish twins, no need to go overkill. A lot of people tell me to go 67's this winter when I trade out my 57/48's but I'm just going with 62/60's, spool won't be that bad and I will never need twin 67's unless I want to hit1500+whp which I don't.

On a built coyote modular, I'd be surprised if you need much more than twin 60/58's, they would spool pretty much instantly. 4.6 terminator guys are making 1000whp on twin 60's with 9.x compression. You might even be fine with twin 57's honestly but do some research and look at the efficiency turbo airflow graphs for your motor and make a good play call. Bigger isn't necessary/better, smaller twins is more fun for the street and you can expect 800whp+ on pump gas with twins, easy.

My street tune makes 8xx on 91 octane (shit gas up here at the pump) on a safe tune with timing pulled out up top.
 

tt335ci03cobra

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^^^ Cliffs: Turbos are awesome and altitude is a cruel bitch

Still gotta make the heat pre-boost threshold to light them off though which is harder up here, that makes PD blowers a lot of fun up here for the instant power instead of relying on thin air to build up to boost/power (on the street at least)

This is a big reason I went smaller twins, mine spools really quick though, but I bet at sea level it's 15% quicker still.

Now though I can get 10+ psi at 2200rpms with maybe a 1.5-2 seconds of spool up. I have 400wtq at 1900rpm na so it's never slow, but 10psi from 2500 is very enjoyable, the car makes 590wtq on 6psi off the wastegates so thy big block feel is something I love as well, I ended up putting viper overdrives and a 3.08 rear in my car because power for the streets is enough that when I used to punch it in 3rd at 3k with 3.55's, I'd spin by 4k rpms on high boost haha, it still does if I'm in 2nd or way low in third but so long as I'm above 60, in 2nd or 3rd, I can roll the boost in with throttle control enough to almost put down wot in 2nd and almost always wot in 3rd.

When I go 62/60's I'll lose a little of my torque/spool below 3k rpms but honestly I can't get it all to the ground now so it will just make the car more usable on higher boost.

Still though, even on 6psi, the tires spin all of first an most of second if I wot shift so its likely I need to get wider meats/maybe go sra in the future.
 

SignalZero

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That's exactly what I would like. Maybe a set of smaller, faster spooling twins. Id like to shoot for 1,000 reliable ponies that I could drive a couple hundred miles or so to a car show or two. I figure keep them a little smaller for driveability, spool reasons and to keep them happy in they're efficiency range. I appreciate all the info even though it's not directed towards me specifically.

Obviously a stout bottom end would be supplied to make those horses reliable lol
 

slamdcoop0428

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Yeah my hellion twin kit comes with the precision 62mm with billet wheels so it's a very light weight wheels and very efficient!
 

SignalZero

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I wish you were closer to central Florida. I'd really like to take a look at that kit. Seems to make great power.
 

slamdcoop0428

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Yes sir. At least if you wouldn't mind. Getting to see it first hand from someone who installed it just as I would (at home) would help me make it easier at spending 8K+ lol

I don't mind at all. What part of Florida are you in? Yeah I know every aspect of the install and what parts are easy and the parts that aren't. Yeah it's a big purchase but the power potential of the kit is basically endless for anyone and awesome power at such low boost.
 

D.T.R

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Pd blowers are great fun, keep it cold with the right mods and they run great for a good long while.

Go smallish twins, no need to go overkill. A lot of people tell me to go 67's this winter when I trade out my 57/48's but I'm just going with 62/60's, spool won't be that bad and I will never need twin 67's unless I want to hit1500+whp which I don't.

On a built coyote modular, I'd be surprised if you need much more than twin 60/58's, they would spool pretty much instantly. 4.6 terminator guys are making 1000whp on twin 60's with 9.x compression. You might even be fine with twin 57's honestly but do some research and look at the efficiency turbo airflow graphs for your motor and make a good play call. Bigger isn't necessary/better, smaller twins is more fun for the street and you can expect 800whp+ on pump gas with twins, easy.

My street tune makes 8xx on 91 octane (shit gas up here at the pump) on a safe tune with timing pulled out up top.

That's what I want. 750-800 whp on pump 93 with the twin 6266s :)
 

tt335ci03cobra

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That's what I want. 750-800 whp on pump 93 with the twin 6266s :)

Hell ya, that'll book!

Is it the tech in vvt-ti heads that lets you run such a big hot side easily? I'm guessing its easy to counter spool time by manipulating timing and phasing right? I'm a relative noob to the raw knowledge of these heads but the fundamentals are pretty clear to me.

Comparatively, on non vvt-ti heads, a 66 hot side would be too big for my 5.4 combo for the street unless the motor had cams and head flow to match as well as a 7,500 redline as the power would spool in around 4500rpms.

It's crazy how efficient/game changer the vvt-to heads are. Rockon!
 

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