Basstrack17

even with the "disagreements" here, I personally find it all informative. We went with the sc not for building a race car, but as our TC is my wife's daily driver and with the miles we put on our vehicles, factory warranty meant something. That's for us, and may not be for everyone else out there. Years ago i wuz caught up in all the hp wars, or what motor was better, etc; now i just try and enjoy the technology that is allowing these little 4's to run like the muscle cars i grew up with. Would I like ours to go even faster? Sure. But will i get upset if someone else's set up is better then mine? Nah.
Hey, have fun with these toys, realize someone out there is always faster, and life will go on.

tcholic

wow great post tyler for clearing everything up.....people made it seem like it was a bash on the trd supercharger which it was not. bottomline i think both kits cannot be compared, its up to the buyer to make the choice

Guest

Absolutely. I have worked for Turbonetics for almost 9 years now, and one of the best things about this company is its integrity. It has always been our company policy and my personal challenge to never speak badly about any competitors products. No matter if they are turbo, supercharger or nitrous. It is very difficult sometimes to sit back and hear people in the industry saying negative things about your product instead of them trying to sell their products on their own merit. Turbonetics has been a prime target for trash talking but as long as I work here I will do my best to let our products speak for themselves.

Yes, I am a great believer in turbochargers being the best way to make power, but that does not mean that other choices that are out there are bad. Liek you said, the warranty or price or any other reason that someone chooses a certain product is ultimately personal preference.

I am glad that my post was taken positively and thank you to anyone who takes the time to read all the info and gather all of the details first hand so that they can make their own decisions regardless of all the chit-chat and rumors.

ryno379

Nah. The post is informative, which I think is the greatest thing about scionlife.com.

tikbhoy

Great Read!

Great Reply's from Turbonetics!

turbo or sc, as long as your boosted scion. then your my friend.

ryno379

Werd! Now let's hit the tracks and start whoopin on some other cars. Spring is coming!

Basstrack17

yep -- time to stick together, and show those SI owners the best view of the TC is it's ****.....

tikbhoy

the dreaded tc vs si

Basstrack17

I couldn't resist it....

zer0

Thanks for the new wallpaper! Turbo'd BSP FTMFW!

Garage1217

iTrader: (5)

All in good fun, but sorry the comparison was a waste of time. Your testing a product with aftermarket management, aftermarket intake, does not look like turbonetics is running a cat in the downpipe, also running an intercooler big enough to cool a cummins and the trd is making less boost. OMG does anyone see through this crap *LOL* I am a turbo fan and a sc fan running both styles of engines in different cars and I have had some crazy hp setups. But sorry, no one is giving the vortech on here a chance because no one on here it seems knows what they are capable of. I think the whole article by the turbonetics guy and now I know that other guy is in with turbonetics is an awesome sales pitch. No doubt it is a good kit and performs great out of the box, but you are paying for every HP of it... what, $2K more than the trd..? I definitely did NOT see the magazine talk about price. Why not compare a sti to a wrx..?? About the same price % difference... Or how about a n/a supra to a tt 2jz! Same % price difference! I was in $2950 out the door and installed it myself AND kept my factory warranty. And YES toyota / TRD WILL warranty your car if you install it correctly! How do I know? They took total professional care of me when my engine failed because of a factory flaw / fluke + The vortech/trd has the safest tune on the planet which looses on the dyno. Stock trd vs turbonetics is a big DUH. Guess it is time for us sc guys to put up or shut up and yes, we are working on it. Great sales pitch though!


How about this, since most scion tc owners are budget minded, glad to have a nice car... have some extra money say $5,000 to spend. The story goes

Trd or Turbonetics...

Yes the turbonetics gives you mad bragging rights, and it should. Heck of a fine kit they put together, in fact I think it is sweet! Mad props to those owners. Your now king of the hill! Oops I mean straight line... Sorry your car still handles like CRAP. Now you have to try to put away some more cash for tires or rim tire combo and some suspension. Hey now you think your king of the hill again! After spending all that $$$ Then something happens to your engine from all those nights you were showing off that wheel spin from he**. Now you, with one bald tire... find out YOUR SOL!! Toyota is going to laugh all the way to the bank selling you all the crap you need to get running again.

Ok I buy the trd kit. Yeah the car feels good, not a rocket but it definitely has some grunt and spins tires with ease! Hey for the same price as that turbonetics kit, you have the doh to buy yourself some real wheels and tires! And wait! There is enough left over to buy some decent suspension! Now the guy who just spent his last dime is ____ed because you can tear him up were it matters most, real world driving. Were does real world driving take place you ask?? Were it is the most fun. In the twisties!! The sc has MORE than enough power to have massive fun with. Then the unthinkable happens like what happened to me with an engine that was flawed from the factory! "Engine committed mechanical suicide" Or for whatever reason, your engine has a problem. WOOHOO! SAVED! You have a full warranty on your car and your engine is replaced! Now you have even more cash that would have gone down the toilet to buy more sweet gear for your ride! And yes, so you know, TRD / toyota FULLY replaced my engine and even gave me a new supercharger just to make sure everything would be good for many many more miles. Think they would have done that with the turbonetics setup?? Hahaha um... NO even if it was a factory flaw you would be sol.

Guess it really is up to you to decide. If I made allot more money and did not have to bat an eye at warranty heck yeah I would go for the turbonetics kit! But if I had that kinda money I would be driving a lancer or sti also hahaha.

In short the TRD kit is great, the turbonetics kit awesome but I know which one I chose and most of you do also. I chose it because of warranty, I chose it because of price and my budget, and my review on it? Am I happy with the purchase? I LOVE THE CAR and I love the performance of it. I have some budget minded mods besides the sc, and the car is a blast. It gets tons of looks, tons of respect and it is fun.

Just a lesson for the noobs and teenagers... or even young men or women that just bought there first car, first new car or even just bought a second car and are shelling out cash to make the ride unique, there is a line the size of the grand canyon between a race car and a fun street car. Never think you can cross the two and do not waste your money trying. Make a wise decision on what you buy performance wise especially if you do not have funds flowing out the rear but do have some money to spend. Think about the future and what shape you will be in if your car has a major issue. "Last bit of advice" For the guys and gals that cannot afford the sc or turbokit for that matter, remember this, true tuners and racers respect a street car that can handle much better than stock, stop much better than stock and is kept clean. They respect that much much more than a car that can run a good time in the quarter mile. Focus your money / upgrades performance wise on those items and you will be respected. No one is impressed with fart can exhausts and super loud cars that sound like a can of marbles being shaken and 24" super blinger 007 reverse iridium spinner wheels with that kung foo fighter body kit that makes your car look like somthing from the fast and furious "funny how that movie is laughed at so much and talked about as a lessen for what NOT to do to your car, but we all own a copy"

Also one point I felt annoyed with that turbonetics guy stated, he talked as if the sc was causing massive engine wear issues ALL THE TIME and always robbing HP from the engine, yes it does create some drag, but not the soap opera version of it. When the bypass valve is open and you’re cruising off boost, the parasitic loss is VERY minimal, will call vortech to get the numbers but from experience I bet it is under 5hp with bypass open cruising at 60-70mph. The charger is already being underdriven a large amount from what it is capable of. It is not the huge wear item they make it out to be.


In the article, it states that the trd feels like stock, sorry guys I have had several tc owners run my car vs there car stock, they all are in the market for the sc, there is one heck of a difference. Don't let the internet politics fool you. They also compare the trd tc to a 200hp all motor car that is turning some serious rpm and allot less weight and a 2zzge supercharged celica also turning some decent rpm through a 6 speed and allot less weight. They say the other cars feel miles ahead in driving feel. I about died laughing. Do they even understand the difference between a performance engine and an economy engine made to perform?? Do they understand what the chassis is based off of compared to a celica or integra? I want what these guys are smoking. Are they not able to understand the tc's crappy low redline?? Do they even get what a long powerband turning mucho rpm / good gearing and lower weight does for a car? You would think they would understand the difference, yet they act like they should all be equal cars because the dyno numbers say almost the same digits. Yet again more sales drive and hype, make that article sell to the kiddies!!! Crap like that is why I stopped allot of my subscriptions to magazines. So much bs in articles and most do not read through it.

Also they keep talking over and over about torque! Do they realize that the trd map cuts timing down so much to such a crazy safe number that it kills off most of the torque! Does anyone freaking understand what vvti is doing with the trd map "or what it is not doing compared to the turbonetics tune"?? Did anyone see the article that even zpi put out about them hitting 219whp and like 205 tq? somthing like that or was it 205hp and 219 tq... without the flash on a stock ex manifold, stock trd boost level and freeflowing intake? That all means with some real tuning, the vortech will be right on the turbo companies **** with less tq but not by a huge amount. But no one wants you to think that, they have turbo kits to sell. Who knows what the zippy boys would have hit with an exhaust system, eliminate #1 cat, cat back exhaust and a mild tune with aftermarket management. I think those little items would add up to 30+whp and 25 ft lbs?++ don't you? Then say heck with warranty if you want to be a boy racer, slap on the old pulley or pulley system from a certain manufacturer and an chargercooler / intercooler system. Wow, the pulley netted you another 20whp / 15ftlbs?? intercooler helped even more! Man blashphemy.... turbo guys do not want to hear that, they will claim it is bs, another reason us sc guys need to start playing more.

OMG I wrote a novel most will not read! Ok guys, end RANT. Guess I drank to much on my birthday eve and got annoyed with the sales push haha. Talk to you all soon, I have some work to do / clutch to install on the wifes car when I wake up and I am supposed to be on vacation.

ForceFedRacing

Supercharger or Turbo just really boils down to personal needs. I have been professionally building import race cars for over a decade now and I can tell you that it mainly depends on what your looking to do with the car. We currently have the highest hp Supercharged Tc @ 9psi w/ no nitrous , no intercooler and no header running 237.6whp on pump gas and another 16hp on our 98 octane map. Thats about the same whp at about the same boost level as the Turbonetics kit without the intercooler! Were installing this week our 11psi kit and well see what we get with that. We also have a GT28RS Turbo Tc that were finishing up that will also be amazing but again each kit is for different purposes and different driving/racing designs. We do a thorough interview with a customer before we recomend either one. I found that the article seemed to be written from a power standpoint only so really its misleading and disapointing from my standpoint.

DTRUONG_112

so i checked out the website but what have you all done to get it to that much horsepower? I mean no header, all ican think of would be the pulley and some type of tuning? Any more info would be nice.

zer0

Stage 1 =Completely tuned Unichip for the Supercharger. 9lb pulley. SAE 237whp

ForceFedRacing

Actually its the simplicity that makes it so great. I have been tuning high HP cars for years and I constantly try and help our customers appreciate that tuning is THE most important aspect of building a car. You can have all the best parts but if they are not designed to work together well and if theyre not designed to work within the parameters that your driving the car in , than it will always be lacking. We have had Supercharged V8's come in that have gained nearly 100whp just from tuning! Todays cars with their next generation ECU's are so advanced that many times you can even tune them with some cheap systems like S-AFC's and they will relearn and basically detune themselves so tuning is ESSENTIAL. But Im getting off topic right now. lol....... Anyhow we started with just the parts zer0 listed for our base tune but if you have any other parts you can expect an even greater gain. We already have tunes for Tc's with headers , full exhausts , axle-backs , and so on that net some nice gains. That is unless your header is too free flowing. If it is your torque will fall off sooner and therefore your hp also. Superchargers are meant to have a certain amount of back-pressure , without it they cant reach max power. Hope this helps!

zer0

Im just curious really on your turbo kit, its well priced. But the GT28rs concerns me.. seems a little small. Keeping the internal gate?

ForceFedRacing

I understand the concern as I have owned many performance cars and personally installed hundreds of turbos and have seen how a small turbo can really leave you wanting after a while. The question actually comes down to what is your END goal for the car and when do you want to be there? I own a 1000+hp Supra and I have had both a turbo that spooled very early and made very usable power and one that spooled later and made unbelievable power. The problem with the later was that as soon as it made power it made so much that I went from say 50 mph to 150mph within a few seconds , literally. It also requires using the gears alot more to help the turbo spool and of course shortened life of motors which leads , unavoidably , to less time driving the car and more time building it. In not only building my own cars but thousands of other cars I have learned that what people really want in a daily driver is the most power they can have and still use it easily , reliably , and inexpensively.

The GT28RS is the perfect turbo for a 2.4 liter motor with the Tc's stroke and internals for daily driven power. It makes as much power as the Turbonetics kit @ 9psi and yet spools 800-1000rpm sooner. The GT28RS we use is capable of supporting 460hp. It also is dual ball bearing and water cooled so it will last a great deal longer than the competition. We have DBB Garrets that have been on our cars and our customers cars for over 6 years and are still running strong. We have replaced the motor on our MR2 3 times in the life of its GT35R. Thats just a few examples of why we go with Garret turbos over anyone else. Mainly though its the performance. For a daily driven Tc a GT28RS is alot of fun. It spools fast so with just a quarter throttle you will be able to pull away from most cars on the freeway or just from light to light. Larger turbos cant do that. I will have some vids of our kit on the dyno and playing with some other cars like Stage 2 and 3 SRT-4's , turbo Civics , WRX's and so on. If you have any questions or thoughts give us a call as were always wanting to hear of our customers wants and goals for their cars so that we can make our products better! Hope this helps!

06SuperWhite_SoCal_tC

LoL...I think thats the other way around. TurboChargers are not on the same playing field as SuperChargers.



It depends on what your application is really.

MIAPLAYA

The only reason there is a Supercharger on that car is that turbochargers were outlawed in the domestic racing circuit becuase the supercharged cars couldn't keep up.

06SuperWhite_SoCal_tC

They never ran a TurboCharged Top Fuel Dragster, so how could they have not kept up. You are mistaken and talking about other classes of Dragsters. also for refference the SuperCharger on Top Fuel Dragsters boost over 50psi, i think it may actually be 60psi. And i know Turbo Chargers are more efficient, but Top Fuel Dragters are The Fastest Cars in the World in the 1/4 Mile and Supercharged not Turbo. :D