The top mount intercooler on my STI is a joke. I'd hardly call it a lot of intercooling

As far as which is "harder" on the motor, anything I say will be an uniformed opinion, so I will let someone else debate it.

All I know is if someone said to me, "You've just won a free FI kit! What will it be?!" Turbo is going to be tops on my list, way ahead of a centri blower - and I had one, remember? A KB set up would be next.

 

Fair enough. Do you see many Turbo cars like a turbo S197 as a DD? Most guys that have TS's or Roots, don't drive those cars daily. Centri's are very effiency, hence they don't make a lot of power. It's cool man, we agree on some things, not all.

 

I don't, but in my opinion it is a function of cost. A turbo set up on an S197 is way more expensive than a Vortech kit.

For a DD or a street car, I'd love to have a twin screw set up. I liked the power my Vortech 2000 GT made (which is much less than the 3V's), but I had to romp the crap out of it to experience it. The 4.10 gears helped, but it it was really lacking down low. I would have much preferred a twin screw set up, but at the time the KB's just came out for the 2V Mustangs and they were insanely expensive.

There is nothing wrong with a centri blower. But if you factor cost out of the equation, I'd much rather have a KB or a turbo. I prefer their power curve to centri. For me, it would be more fun on the street. I like that low rpm torque and the set up on my GT had very little. That's all.

 

Just something I caught in one of Grabber's posts- NO supercharger is more efficient than a turbo. Of all forced induction methods, turbos are the most flexible and efficient. They don't take power from the engine to make power like blowers do. And superchargers also make a lot of heat. Compression creates heat no matter how what's doing the compression....

 

Turbo's technically don't require any intercooling either. On low boost you can run a turbo without a intercooler too (obviously you'd make more power with one as you would with a supercharger). There is a hot side and a cold side to a turbo, the cold side is definitely still hot, but is much cooler then the hot side. Most turbo's are driven by fluid bearings, with the more expensive ones using a ball-bearing. This allows them to spin at 150,000+ rpms without burning up. Just because the Centri spins a lot slower does not mean the air coming out of it is a lot cooler. The Centri is gear driven and gets much hotter per rpm spun when compared to a turbo. If you spun it even close to 100,000rpms it would probably either blow apart or melt.

If anything, the centri would be harder on the motor then a turbo as it is producing more strain on the motor to spin the centri blower. The turbo is using a force that has already been spent by the engine and is unused. A turbo is probably the most efficient way of making big power and torque over any other option.

 

Of course the heat from the exhaust gas heats up the turbo, it is passing through it! If you run a turbo car hard at night and pop the hood, a lot of times you can see it glowing red just like the exhaust manifold.

Centri makes more HP and less torque because of how the powerband is made. You are not producing your maximum boost on a centri blower until you are at the top of your engines RPM range. A turbo on the other hand when matched up properly will see it's full boost at 2-3k rpms. Such a instant surge of cylinder pressure creates lots of torque. Same thing goes for a Roots/Twinscrew style blower, they will reach their full boost right off idle making bunches of torque.

 

Wow! Lots of misinformation in this thread! A Centri may look like a turbo, but they function totally different. A turbo is not dependent on a engines RPM to build boost. A Turbo will hit it's maximum boost way earlier then a centri if it is sized properly.

If you have two of the same cars that weigh exactly the same, putting down the same power to the wheels, one being a roots/twinscrew and the other being a centri powered car, the roots/twinscrew would destroy the centri car without a doubt! The centri car would never even have a chance to catch up. If the roots/twinscrew car puts more to the ground then the centri, it would obviously be even uglier.

 

as far as daily driven s197 turbo cars. you are looking at one.

54k miles on the clock, driven 50 miles each day to and from work.

and a centri and a turbo really dont even look alike either.... ya they are both round i guess lol.

 

Look alot alike to me.....

 

ya thats 1 angle. from almost any other angle they look nothing alike since there is no exhaust side to a centri.


if a centri and a turbo were sitting on a table next to each other, you could tell them apart from quite a distance. to me that means they do not look alike.