Why Are The Superchargers More $$$,

Why is it that the supercharger kits are more money than the turbo kits? Is it because it is new design to the
Snowmobile market and basically only one supplier? They look like a simpler design?

Turbos outsell superchargers at least 10 to 1, at least when talking 2-strokes. There is also no competition to drive the prices of superchargers down.

I'm curious what application you are looking at this for, if it's snowmobile related you are probably better off with a turbo.

Turbos are free energy pretty much and supercharging takes away from total output due to requiring belt drive that takes power to turn the supercharger.
Note what the supercharger takes just to drive it ? Lol


What 10,000 horsepower does to a top fuel tire at launch.

TOP FUEL ACCELERATION PUT INTO PERSPECTIVE

* One Top Fuel dragster 500 cubic-inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower (10,000 HP) than the first 5 rows at the Daytona 500.

* Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1.2-1.5 gallons of nitro methane per second; a fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at the same rate with 25% less energy being produced.

* A stock Dodge Hemi V8 engine cannot produce enough power to merely drive the dragster's supercharger.

* With 3000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger on overdrive, the fuel mixture is compressed into a near-solid form before ignition. Cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lock at full throttle.

* At the stoichiometric 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture for nitro methane the flame front temperature measures 7050 degrees F.

* Nitromethane burns yellow. The spectacular white flame seen above the stacks at night is raw burning hydrogen, dissociated from atmospheric water vapor by the searing exhaust gases.

* Dual magnetos supply 44 amps to each spark plug.
This is the output of an arc welder in each cylinder.

* Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass. After 1/2 way, the engine is dieseling from compression plus the glow of exhaust valves at 1400 degrees F. The engine can only be shut down by cutting the fuel flow.

* If spark momentarily fails early in the run, unburned nitro builds up in the affected cylinders and then explodes with sufficient force to blow cylinder heads off the block in pieces or split the block in half.

* Dragsters reach over 300 MPH before you have completed reading this sentence.

* In order to exceed 300 MPH in 4.5 seconds, dragsters must accelerate an average of over 4 G's. In order to reach 200 MPH well before half-track, the launch acce leration approaches 8 G's.

* Top Fuel engines turn approximately 540 revolutions from light to light!

* Including the burnout, the engine must only survive 900 revolutions under load.

* The redline is actually quite high at 9500 RPM.

* THE BOTTOM LINE: Assuming all the equipment is paid off, the crew worked for free, & for once, NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs an estimated $1,000 per second.

0 to 100 MPH in .8 seconds (the first 60 feet of the run)
0 to 200 MPH in 2.2 seconds (the first 350 feet of the run)
6 g-forces at the starting line (nothing accelerates faster on land)
6 negative g-forces upon deployment of twin ‘chutes at 300 MPH An NHRA Top Fuel Dragster accelerates quicker than any other land vehicle on earth . . quicker than a jet fighter plane . . . quicker than the space shuttle.

The current Top Fuel dragster elapsed time record is 4.420 seconds for the quarter-mile (2004, Doug Kalitta). The top speed record is 337.58 MPH as measured over the last 66' of the run (2005, Tony Schumacher).

Putting this all into perspective:

You are driving the average $140,000 Lingenfelter twin-turbo powered Corvette Z06. Over a mile up the road, a Top Fuel dragster is staged & ready to launch down a quarter-mile strip as you pass. You have the advantage of a flying start. You run the 'Vette hard up through the gears and blast across the starting line & pass the dragster at an honest 200 MPH. The 'tree' goes green for both of you at that moment.

The dragster launches & starts after you. You keep your foot down hard, but you hear an incredibly brutal whine that sears your eardrums & within 3 seconds the dragster catches & passes you.
He beats you to the finish line, a quarter-mile away from where you just passed him. Think about it - from a standing start, the dragster had spotted you 200 MPH & not only caught, but nearly blasted you off the road when he passed you within a mere 1320 foot long race!

That's acceleration!

https://youtu.be/xL--KgZY8ac

supercharged cat for the win. Get what you pay for I guess.

ABMax24 said:

Turbos outsell superchargers at least 10 to 1, at least when talking 2-strokes. There is also no competition to drive the prices of superchargers down.

I'm curious what application you are looking at this for, if it's snowmobile related you are probably better off with a turbo.

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Yes, was talking about two stroke snowmobile application.

Speedwerx advertise 225 hp on the 800 ctech 2 engine, but come with a $7500.00 USD price tag.

Thanks for all the stats pfi572. Pretty amazing stuff. To give a bit of an example, Todd Lysenko who owns the Fountain Tire in St Albert used to run funny cars. The attached video was from a little engine incident he had at a race. What is really interesting is the slow mo parts of the video which illustrated for me how much you rely on muscle memory to get you through an unexpected event. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gakKYv3Rkg

Buddy did a BDX 800 cat a few years ago . Speedwerx .
Spent a pile of coin getting it installed professionally and done right .
Nice sled but ended up selling it for a huge lose .
He’s switched to Polaris turbo BD sleds since so that all I will say .

06 Dragon said:

Yes, was talking about two stroke snowmobile application.

Speedwerx advertise 225 hp on the 800 ctech 2 engine, but come with a $7500.00 USD price tag.

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You can probably get away with a turbo then. The big advantage to a supercharger is the lack of lag, but if you always keep some load on the motor the turbo stays spooled and lag is essentially non existent. I've taught myself to always keep the throttle open a little in deeper snow to keep lag to a minimum when I opened it up again.

06 Dragon said:

Yes, was talking about two stroke snowmobile application.

Speedwerx advertise 225 hp on the 800 ctech 2 engine, but come with a $7500.00 USD price tag.

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It costs more because it comes with a full ceramic exhaust from y pipe to can built to work with the supercharger, that an easy $1500

tmo1620 said:

It costs more because it comes with a full ceramic exhaust from y pipe to can built to work with the supercharger, that an easy $1500

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Ceramic isn’t $1500. I did a pipe and y pipe a few years ago for $180. I’d say $500 would get all that done if prices haven’t changed much.

I realize I'm talking 4 stroke but still sled application. Brother had a supercharged apex at 260 hp I run a boondocker turbo apex at 290 ish hp. On a good day 2 ft of fresh powder he would burn 20liters more fuel than me. As for lag being a front mount I have very little. Turbos are more efficient and easier to increase hp if so desired. Both are amazing but continual maintenance. I have 2 turbos and they are a blast.

I have run a speedwerx procharger and 8 or 9 different turbos now. turbos just flat out work better. Speedwerx claims 225 hp I personally feel this is a big exaggeration if you compare the track speed for my turbo sleds I see 8-14 mph more with the turbo over the super charger. it was the best sounding sled I have ever had but performance lacked big time. supercharger takes so much power to spin the sled reved slower then a turbo. Also with good clutching turboi is into boost just as fast as the supercharger. the big advantage with the turbi is it has a much broder power band. with the turbo your making full boost @ 7000-7400 rpm depending on which turbo is used and setup so you have full boost say 10 psi for example from 7000 to 8500 rpm. when your in the trees on/off the throttle this is the rpm rang you operate in the most. supercharger is linear and will not see full boost unitl peek rpm. the supercharger also seemed to rev slower in the trees then the turbo. another major disadvantage of the supercharger is you pretty much loose reverse its almost useless with the supercharger.
Also when you ride in the mountains you ride at different elevation at different riding areas all the time. with a turbo this is no issue especially I you have EBC it will automatically compensate and increase or decrease boost or you can do it your self with a manual boos controller. supercharger with linear boost will only be optimal at a given elevation if you want peek performance you will always s be playing with clutching which gets old real fast. on paper they seem like a good idea but I learned quick that is not reality. One nice thing is the supercharger was really easy to tune jus got old doing way to often. personally id never run one again we compared a 153 SC with a X3 track to a 163 T3 nd both climbed almost the exact same height and the turbos fly passed easy.

^^^^
Bang on . Thanks

I looked at one speedwerx supercharger in 2016 was over $10000 Canadian and out of stock

LBZ said:

Ceramic isn’t $1500. I did a pipe and y pipe a few years ago for $180. I’d say $500 would get all that done if prices haven’t changed much.

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Not just the coating, I know how much the coating costs, had lots of cans and pipes done over the years, it’s fairly cheap to do.Supercharger comes with a full speedwerx exhaust system as part of the kit, a full speedwerx ceramic exhaust Y to can is about $1500

tmo1620 said:

Not just the coating, I know how much the coating costs, had lots of cans and pipes done over the years, it’s fairly cheap to do.Supercharger comes with a full speedwerx exhaust system as part of the kit, a full speedwerx ceramic exhaust Y to can is about $1500

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Gotcha.

Everyone looks at the price of the Speedwerx kit and freaks out. Like tmo1620 said, it comes with full exhaust as well as an intercooler. People want to compare it to a Boondocker Sidekick, which you can't. Compare it to the price of an intercooled turbo and it's a lot closer.

I ride with 2 guys that have supercharged Alphas. Both these guys have ran turbo sleds in the past and won't be going back to one. They're not point and shoot hillclimb guys and ride lots of trees and technical stuff and the s/c is the way to go for that. The power is instant and always there. The fueling on them is better than stock, imo. Run on pump gas, which is a huge plus. The only downfall is they are thirsty.

niner said:

https://youtu.be/xl--kgzy8ac

supercharged cat for the win. Get what you pay for i guess.

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canadian all the way

52weekbreak said:

thanks for all the stats pfi572. Pretty amazing stuff. To give a bit of an example, todd lysenko who owns the fountain tire in st albert used to run funny cars. The attached video was from a little engine incident he had at a race. What is really interesting is the slow mo parts of the video which illustrated for me how much you rely on muscle memory to get you through an unexpected event. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gakkyv3rkg

Click to expand...

thank god for those funnycar exhaust headers. Probably saved it from rolling etc

Yeah it sure looked like that was the case (headers prevented/limited further disaster). The chutes were likely helpful as well. What amazed me was the steering into the skid at least twice during that one second or so. I am sure there are other examples it is just the only one where I happen to know the driver.

Summitric said:

thank god for those funnycar exhaust headers. Probably saved it from rolling etc

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