In my opinion Don, that's a waste of time. The best part of it is the air to air intercooling.

 

Air to air is the best way to go for the street. Mine will be air to air intercooled next year.

 

we'll be testing the stock intercooler for temps before i spend the money on a air to air.


easter: my lower pulley will be closer to the crank by about 1/2 "

 

The novi 2000 kit for the ford already has a 1/2 inch thick plate where the blower mounts and which is bolted to another 1/2 inch plate which bolts into the side of the left head. I think the only way for the think to flex on mine are maybe the 7/8ths inch spacers. But I'd think the grade 8 bolts would have to bend for that to happen. Maybe I'm wrong.

 

Agreed. ATI's tests confirmed that the stock Ford intercooler was plenty capable. Otherwise, they would not have offered the system. You may want to supplement it with air-to-air, but it makes no sense at all to do a substitution.

 

Sorry for being so harsh, Chris. I do respect you (and think that you have the nicest L engine I have ever seen -- or probably ever will see).

The operative complaint I made, though, was "Why the hell couldn't you honor my simple request and take this blah blah blah to another thread? Jesus H Christ"

Yeah, it's not my board. But it was my request. You were perfectly free to ignore it. I am perfectly free to express my disgust at your ignoring that request. I had hoped for more courtesy from my Lightning bretheren.

 

Air-to-air is more efficient and reliable. In an air-water system the water is acting as an insulator, because the heat transfer is:
charged air-aluminum-water-aluminum-ambient air

In an air-air system the heat transfer is:
charger air-aluminum-ambient air

Its more reliable because there's less parts to break, plus if you have a leak, you only have either some metered air at boost that doesn't make it to combustion or a little unmetered air at idle.
If you have a leak in an air-water system you get water in your intake or air in you water pump... either way this isn't good.

 

I would buy one.

 

Please do not misunderstand, I completely agree that air-to-air is superior in every objective criteria (Ford used air-to-water only because of roots-related packaging concerns). The one exception is the ability to use ice at a drag race.

But the air-to-water intercooler that we have stock is one of the best ever made -- excellent effectiveness, minimal boost loss. So, while there may be some marginal benefits to switching to an air-to-air, it does not make sense to do that in our case. ATI, the biggest proponent of air-to-air in the world, also implicitly agrees, as the base kit uses only the stock SVT intercooler. Even the hi-po kit keeps the SVT intercooler -- it just adds an air-to-air.

 

True... I was more commenting on the "there's no reason at all to replace it".
I like the idea of being able to suppliment it with an air-air. Setting up an A/C chilling system would be real cheap if you knew the air going to the air-water ic was pre cooled by an air-air system.
To save more money from the kit why not gut the eaton and replace the snout with a plate. Then the kit would consist of a head unit, a plate to replace the snout, and some tubes and rubber connectors. The kit would/should be sub $3000 then.

 

And you musn't forget an air-to-air intercooler in the winter covered with snow.

Talk about cooling the air down.

My GTI has never had so much power .... now if only I can find that picture.

 

Tim...ever try to herd cats?

Obviously this subject is still so controversial that coherent action is hopeless.

Anyway, when in Rome, do as the Romans:

1) water to air removes intake heat faster, but also dissipates it from the total system slower; this is partially because the heat exchanger is much smaller. This is fine for street systems that are not under boost very often.

2) A roots blower has better throttle response than a csc. It also makes a lousy compressor.

3) This kit is obviously aimed at serious racers with built blocks. 4K is a little steep just to putt around with increased efficiency.

4) To get the same torque output from the csc at low rpms, it would have to be overdriven. This would subject the engine to extremely high boost at higher rpms.

5) This is not a question of efficiency; the csc wins easily. However, the boost curve of the roots is pretty much dead on with respect to expectations of American drivers, it's cheaper, and it's already on the L.

 

No.

 

No


PS: is everyone going to Jerry's SCT School of Charm?

 

The last thing i would do is spend $4k on that style blower.The only way i would put that kind of blower on a truck is if it was actually less $$ not more.I have driven plenty enough cent. blowers to know they do not have the drivabilty of a roots style blower.MOST of the power is up high.This makes not much sense on a street truck only a overrevved drag truck.Where most of us on here love our trucks for the power AND throttle respose,i see why 65% have said NO . And out of those 35% who did say yes, Im sure from past experience MAYBE 10% of the people in favor of it would actually even buy one.Alot of people say yes until you ask for them to shell out the $$ ,ESPECIALLY $4k.......So i would not say its a good idea to invest alot of $$ to get this project going.Sounds like a big $$ loser.