kytc

I really think the debates of turbo vs supercharger are funny on here. The same people that claim "Don't compare a supercharged tc vs a civic si by price, compare mods for mods" are saying "Don't compare supercharger vs turbo mods for mods, compare by price" I'm going to be honest with you I do think turbos will produce more power on this car however a turbo with an INTAKE, INTERCOOLER, AND FUEL MANAGEMENT should NOT be compared to a supercharger sucking air through a plastic box with no unichip or emanage and definetly no intercooler. I'm going to go out on a limb here because the setup has not been done yet but I think a s/c with the above mods will be close in hp numbers to the turbonetics turbo. Now I know the s/c won't match with torque but the turbonetics is putting 244 at the wheels with 3 major upgrades over the s/c so I think those numbers are attainable. Sorry about the rant I just had to bring that up.

dsilverstreak

don't know where some of you guys get your info from. (ESPECIALLY "MIAPLAYA" . You're telling me that toyota requested turbonetics to build a turbo for the tc???? that's like google asking yahoo! to design their next search engine. I HIGHLY doubt there is any proof to that. What would be the point? Killing business? taking away sales from the SC? those are not very good business moves. this arguement will never end because the two methods of F/I are so different.....they can't be fairly compared....just pick your poison.

dsilverstreak

don't know where some of you guys get your info from. (ESPECIALLY "MIAPLAYA" . You're telling me that toyota requested turbonetics to build a turbo for the tc???? that's like google asking yahoo! to design their next search engine. I HIGHLY doubt there is any proof to that. What would be the point? Killing business? taking away sales from the SC? those are not very good business moves. this arguement will never end because the two methods of F/I are so different.....they can't be fairly compared....just pick your poison.

trdsparks

I can't say I totally agree with you since TRD doesn't actually make any of their part. I think what happened was they had T'netics design a turbo kit for the car but it wouldn't pass C.A.R.B. or Smog. Look at how much trouble they we through just getting the S/C to pass. If I had to take a guess T'netics had to wait for some kind of contract between them and TRD to run out before they could put their kit out. They are usually the first people to have a turbo kit for a new car. I was actually wondering what took them so long to have one available.

MIAPLAYA

Where did I get my info? From Turbonetics. Scion GAVE them these two Tc's to design this kit. Scion North America that is. They also did one other Tc thats in NY. In total Scion/Toyota North America gave Turbonetics three Tcs to design a turbo kit for them. When TRD decided what they were going to use they went with the SC as it fell in line with all the other F/I kits they currently make (think S/C for T100, etc). But the project was originally requested by Toyota. When they decided to go S/C for a myriad of reasons Turbonetics decided to mass produce the kit as it offered great performance and daily driver like reliability. Toyota never even tried to CARB cert the turbo kit. Turbonetics is doing that themselves now.

trdsparks

That's why I said it was a guess. But I was close. lol So I was right when I said that's the reason it took you guys so long. If you were making the kits for Toyota then you may not have come out with your own kit (so to speak). So that all makes sense to me.

MIAPLAYA

Exactly. If TRD had decided to go with the turbo kit it would have been under liscence to them.

boostedscion

the TRD s/c kit is CARB legal in california?

Garage1217

iTrader: (5)

yeah I do not buy any of that either. The fact is a friend of mine that runs a local shop knows the lead designer of the trd project for the scion tc. He has NO idea what you are talking about *LOL*. The vortech was chosen specifically because of it's boost charicteristics. They wanted as little boost as possible in the midrange and lower rpm so that there would never be a chance of detonation and also to make the engine overall more reliable. They went this route over a roots / ogura style blower because of this. Please post up all your facts and were the info is coming from because no one else seems to know what your talking about at TRD. I even called the southwestern rep on it and he laughed and said he never has heard anything even close to what you are talking about. I do not work for trd so mabey it is true so some extent, but as of now it sounds like drunk rantings from a dream you had.

MIAPLAYA

That would make sense since TRD had nothing to do without. The cars were GIVEN to Turbonetics by Toyota North America. Perhaps having Tyler from Turbonetics come on here and tell you himself would make you understand. Either way if you don't believe what I'm telling you I'm not going to lose sleep over it. I know where the cars came from and why the project was started. There are all kinds of projects that happen that not everyone in an organization is going to know about. my guess is if you call your local GM dealer they aren't going to tell you that Turbonetics also developed a turbo kit for the Cobalt at GMs request or that they created a kit for the new Civic, or the H3 turbo kit GM had them do (which was in their booth at SEMA). In the end whether you want to believe ONE person from TRD that had nothing to do with Toyota having Turbonetics develop a kit and GIVING them cars to do so or me posting info I got direct from the GM at Turbonetics it doesn't really matter to me. I share the info. If you don't want to believe me so be it.

trdsparks

Umm.... Yeah......Where have you been? That's why it took so long to come out.

Spoolin

hows the turbonectics kit doing on the carb cert?! I really want this kit, but I hate cops!

MIAPLAYA

Replied in other thread...

Jamia

Dude you realy need to get a clue. For one Turbonetics has said MIA is the the person on these boards that speaks for them. The simple fact that a friend of yours dosen't know something means exactly squat.

Guest

Okay, this is Tyler from Turbonetics. I wanted to write here as unbiased as I can possibly be. There are so many different arguments going on in here I really don't know where to begin.

Let's start with the boost issue from the first page. Everyone, please understand that boost is just a number. It is how much positive pressure above the atmospheric base that is being forced into the intake manifold. The 7psi of the TRD S/C and the 8.5 psi from the Turbonetics kit are like comparing apples and oranges. The thing that you all have to understand is that the quality of the airflow that is being produced by those two wheels is completely different. Not to mention that the boost pressure of the S/C kit is rpm dependant. The S/C kit could be running 10psi and it still would not see the same HP gains throughout the RPM band because it is only making boost relative to the rpm of the engine. A turbo car does not work that way. The loading on the engine will generate exhaust gas energy exponentially as boost pressure increases on a turbo car and allows the vehicle to have full boost across a very broad rpm band. Even if the S/C kit was running the same boost pressure as the turbo it would not be able to equal the HP and torque gains as the turbo would be able to. It is a matter of aerodynamics and efficiency. The other issue here that was overlooked was that any S/C application is going to have a loss associated with it because of parasitic drag. The belt driving a S/C takes energy to turn as well as the gearing and internal moving components inside the S/C's casing. Another thing to remember is that boost is not HP. You can have two turbos running the same boost and be worlds apart in HP. There are many different factors that need to be taken into account, including wheel diameter, design, blade count, splitter design, compressor housing etc. One turbo running 8 psi may be capable of making 200hp while another may make 1000hp. The same thing is tru for S/C's.

The next one I saw was a comment about S/C being able to outperform at the track. Again I am trying to post as unbiased as possible but please understand that there is NO S/C vehicle that can equal the power that a turbo vehicle can if all things are equal. The fact that the S/C takes power to turn it and that boost is rpm dependant, will always limit the S/C in total performance. If a s/c & turbo vehicle that have the same displacement, engine components, weight etc. go the line at the dragstrip, the turbo vehicle will have a huge advantage because of those above factors. This is why weight breaks are granted for vehicles running s/c’s and nitrous are in the rules. A turbo car must weigh more to even the playing field.

Alright moving right along. Why did TRD choose a S/C in the first place? Well it’s a matter of the pencil pushers to be honest. We have had a great relationship with TRD over the past few years. In fact we almost came out with a Celica GT/GTS kit in partnership with TRD at one point. TRD was the engine/parts supplier on the Drag Barrier Celica that we campaigned to be become the first Sport Compact car to go 200mph and then TRD headed the V6 engine program for us on the Turbonetics drag car the next year until we both decided to switch to the 2JZ until the next generation of V6 could be developed. With all of that said, the reason why you find a s/c on the tC is because of the lawyers. Toyota Motor Corp. has very strict regulations as you can imagine. They are only willing to go so far in performance while taking profit and liability in to account. That is why you can not finance the s/c kit directly through Toyota. The lawyers would not allow it. There would be NO POINT to build a turbo kit for a car to make 200 HP, whether it was smog legal or not. The other issue is about control. With a s/c kit you have no control over the power delivery of the kit. You are locked by the rpm and pulley size of the s/c. Trust me, if you change the pulley of the kit and run higher boost you will have warranty issues for sure. The fact that a centrifugal style blower was chosen over a roots/vane type is purely performance based. If a roots/vane type blower was chosen the kit would have made less power than the current offering does. A centrifugal style supercharger is more efficient than the roots type. Plus packaging is a major factor in today’s vehicles.

To put an end to all this bickering, the tC’s that Turbonetics worked on to develop the kit came directly from Scion North America. As I stated above Turbonetics and TRD/Toyota/Scion have a great working relationship together. Just because the s/c kit was chosen to be the product pushed through the dealerships for legal/warranty issues, does not mean that Toyota/Scion are not thrilled to see other alternatives on the market. This message board, along with all of the other accessories and performance upgrades for the cars helps to strengthen the entire brand. As a side note, Turbonetics was also given an xB from Scion to turbo, but the engines internal components were not up to the performance level that we had hoped for. We may revisit the xB later this year.

There have been comments about “reliable” power. Reliability is one of those areas that has so many variables it is not right to say that a turbo setup is not as reliable as a s/c kit. In fact, in almost every form of motorsports on this planet, a turbocharged application is much more reliable than any other form of power adder. This is for a couple of reasons. 1- Turbocharging provides boost pressure in a linear fashion. What does this mean? Well think about it this way, as boost pressure increases the engine internals have positive pressure applied to them in a “gentle” way. Over a “time frame”. Think about a roots type blower in contrast. When the throttle blades are opened, full boost is delivered to the manifold. This is very hard on the internal components. 2- Supercharging of any kind requires the blower to be turned by the engine itself. There are very great strains placed on the engine to turn the blower because of the belt being attached to the crankshaft. That loading causes wear on individual components unnecessarily. 3- The gear casing of a s/c takes a lot of abuse through rotational friction. I am not even going to get into the topic of nitrous, which is one of the most destructive forms of power adders out there. That is a whole other topic.

The Turbonetics kit was designed to run 8.5 psi and it makes the power that it does at that boost pressure. If we thought the engine could withstand running 15psi every day we would have done so. Turbonetics wants to provide the best performing kit that we possibly can and reliability is one of those factors. HP and torque isn’t everything. Driveability and durability are just as important to Turbonetics as laying down dyno numbers.

Someone wrote about the s/c being hard on the engine when you want the power. You could say the same thing about nitrous and I don’t see anyone writing about the safety aspects of putting nitrous on your tC. A supercharger is hard on the engine all of the time. There is no magic disengaging clutch to stop the strain on the crankshaft. The wear is on the engine all the time.

Another comment was made about the response of the s/c vs. a turbo car. Please keep in mind that the example given was not very good. An SRT4 with Stage III upgrades compared to a TRD S/C tC is like saying who’s gonna win a fight between Godzilla and mighty mouse. The mouse will get in the first punch but then he’s gonna get his you-know-what handed to him. A properly designed street turbo kit’s response is fantastic. I have driven both cars personally (side by side in fact) and there is no way on the roll that the s/c is gonna hang with the turbo kit. It is just a plain matter of torque and hp through a wider rpm band. Today’s fuel injection throws all of this “Hot Rod” stuff of yesteryear out the window really. Today’s turbocharged applications are incredibly responsive and provide great power throughout the entire rpm range. Has anyone driven a turbo Porsche, EVO, WRX, Supra, Skyline etc. etc. It all just comes down to math. And the numbers never lie.

Lastly, I take offense to the comment made about Turbonetics throwing money at magazines to get ink. Turbo Magazine called me, not the other way around. I have been advertising with Turbo Mag long before we made a Scion kit. In fact long before Primedia even owned them. Granted there is a fine line that needs to be walked when advertisers have articles written about their products but it is insulting to the editor that wrote the article to say that he was not fair and providing good journalism. The article was not a TRD S/C bash nor was it a Turbonetics party. It was a factual look at both products, that gave the numbers in plain black and white.

I hope that everyone that owns a TRD kit is happy with their purchase. It is a good product and fills a place in the performance market. Each of us needs to decide what is going to make them happy. The rivalry between products is healthy and good for the industry. Please just don’t get hearsay and rumors mixed up with the truth.

I hope that people find at least part of this post informative. Please do not hesitate to reply or ask me any questions directly.

MIAPLAYA

Great post Tyler. Thanks for clearing everything up for everyone..I know you are a busy man and I appreciate you taking the time to post up...

Guest

For those that have not seen the article, you can click on the links below to view them in .pdf. Good reading!

There is also the D Sport article and dyno test that was performed on another Scion tC.

http://www.turboneticsinc.com/downlo...MagSciontC.pdf

http://www.turboneticsinc.com/downlo...ortSciontC.pdf

MIAPLAYA

Heres an article about Turbonetics Drag Barrier Celica
http://www.turbomagazine.com/features/0210tur_covercar/

...hmm anyone else notice all the mentions of TRD assisting with the project? Who still thinks Turbonetics and Toyota/TRD didn't work in this project together?

Simplyscion

wow...I really didnt want this whole thing to turn out into a big debate...Maybe I shoudlnt have posted it at all

Guest

No big deal. I don't want this to be unfriendly either. I just want to make sure that anyone that uses this site to gain information gets the facts.