camden superchargers is all most done [ please read]
10-05-04, 10:45 AM
#178
10-05-04, 04:04 PM
#180
Is that thing Turbo?
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I love the idea of a bolt on supercharger kit for this car as much as anyone but honestly i could never see myself investing soo muych money in it. The kit cost more than almost any other brand kit for other cars, i don't see how the parts can cost that much more to make than say when vortec or jackson racing makes a kit. To make enough power to make it worthwhile you'll also need injectors and a safc or something similar, and then in order to be able to drive it hard you'd need a tii tranny and rear, i don't want to argue about the fact that the stock NA tranny will work i know it will but whats the point of spending all that money and not being able to race it? Seems to me with the total price of everything you'd need you could haveb bought a tii longblock and everything you would need to build a fast car for the same or less money. Sorry to go on so much but if the kit drops about 1500 off the price i'd probably buy one but until then looks like i'll still be planning a turbo.
10-05-04, 05:13 PM
#181
i am legendary
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Originally Posted by totallimmortal
To make enough power to make it worthwhile you'll also need injectors and a safc or something similar
You wont just make more power by adding fuel... You'll want proper cooling, porting, and a smaller pulley for more boost. Honestly I don't see why atkins says to add bigger injectors and such to make more power without even mentioning upping the boost, because otherwise it's pointless to ADD fuel. You could just get the fuel controller and tune the stock system that way.
10-05-04, 11:14 PM
#184
Rotary Freak
Originally Posted by dDuB
You wont just make more power by adding fuel... You'll want proper cooling, porting, and a smaller pulley for more boost. Honestly I don't see why atkins says to add bigger injectors and such to make more power without even mentioning upping the boost, because otherwise it's pointless to ADD fuel. You could just get the fuel controller and tune the stock system that way.
10-06-04, 01:02 AM
#185
Yes, that is my car
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People have been saying it costs several thousand dollars to add real power to your car. Then ******* everyone who says that the price of the Camden kit is to high. The truth is, I would actually prefer a SC, but turbo is easier and cheaper. As for money, I bought rims and tires, a Corksport body kit, made my own sleek headlights, added a TII replica scoop, custom fender vents, replaced the seats, radio surround, AC vents, and several other things that break on all FC's. My total cost for all of this WHICH INCLUDES A TURBO ENGINE/TRANSMISSION was about $4000.
Here is my real life example of my 88 vert:
$895 Jspec TII engine and transmission with shipping
$1050 Corksport kit/hood scoop/fender vents
$1390 New chrome rims/tires
$250 APC seats
$0 Sleek headlights (home made)
$250 New convertible top
$150 Radio surround, and various other little parts
So a supercharger kit for about the same cost as everything I did sounds a bit high. Lets just look at the powertrain..... our main subject. I got a pretty good deal but $900 is not uncommon for Jspecs. Some of them have problems but most people seem to get good ones. If it took you two engines to get a good one you would be done with a turbo motor in your car for under $2000, and have an extra TII motor to sell off for hundreds of your money back, or just keep it and rebuild a spare motor to store for a rainy day. Even with buying a rebuild kit for one of the motors (if you needed to buy a second one at all). Your total cost would STILL be under the price of the SC kit. The turbo motor would also give you more power and be easier to upgrade from there. That is a fact, not conjecture. If anyone wants to say I am whining about the money fine, I guess I am. All I know is that my car is much faster and I had enough money to restore everything else for around $4000. Add that to $1000 I paid for the car and it is worth it. With that said, I do understand that Camden did a lot of R&D, and tooled custom parts by hand, that has a high cost and takes time. For me it is just more sensible to swap in a factory built, dependably designed turbo motor, for a fraction of the cost.
Here is my real life example of my 88 vert:
$895 Jspec TII engine and transmission with shipping
$1050 Corksport kit/hood scoop/fender vents
$1390 New chrome rims/tires
$250 APC seats
$0 Sleek headlights (home made)
$250 New convertible top
$150 Radio surround, and various other little parts
So a supercharger kit for about the same cost as everything I did sounds a bit high. Lets just look at the powertrain..... our main subject. I got a pretty good deal but $900 is not uncommon for Jspecs. Some of them have problems but most people seem to get good ones. If it took you two engines to get a good one you would be done with a turbo motor in your car for under $2000, and have an extra TII motor to sell off for hundreds of your money back, or just keep it and rebuild a spare motor to store for a rainy day. Even with buying a rebuild kit for one of the motors (if you needed to buy a second one at all). Your total cost would STILL be under the price of the SC kit. The turbo motor would also give you more power and be easier to upgrade from there. That is a fact, not conjecture. If anyone wants to say I am whining about the money fine, I guess I am. All I know is that my car is much faster and I had enough money to restore everything else for around $4000. Add that to $1000 I paid for the car and it is worth it. With that said, I do understand that Camden did a lot of R&D, and tooled custom parts by hand, that has a high cost and takes time. For me it is just more sensible to swap in a factory built, dependably designed turbo motor, for a fraction of the cost.
10-06-04, 07:54 AM
#186
Missin' my FD
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Since the Camden kit runs without an intercooler, how feasible would it be to add water injection? Obviously the system would be experiencing boost more often than a turbo kit. If you had a 1 gallon container of water, and the water injection were setup to keep intake temps as cool as possible, how quickly would one go through the gallon container? I've done some reading about water injection, and it seems like a reasonable alternative to combat intake temps especially in this non-intercooled situation. However, I've never heard how long a container of water usually lasts.
10-13-04, 10:48 PM
#190
Rotary Freak
Originally Posted by pianoprodigy
Since the Camden kit runs without an intercooler, how feasible would it be to add water injection? Obviously the system would be experiencing boost more often than a turbo kit. If you had a 1 gallon container of water, and the water injection were setup to keep intake temps as cool as possible, how quickly would one go through the gallon container? I've done some reading about water injection, and it seems like a reasonable alternative to combat intake temps especially in this non-intercooled situation. However, I've never heard how long a container of water usually lasts.
Water injection gives corrosion problems and high emissions of unburned hydrocarbons. Waterinjection also decreases combustion speed, which reduce the risk for knock but it also decrease engine efficiency, so you have to wonder if the increase in boost will make up for that.
It's difficult to get an even mixture of water in the combustion chamber, because of this reason more water than should be needed must be used.
On top of all that, you also have to keep a proper mixture of water and alcohol, and you'll either need a really large tank or you'll be topping off quite often.
As for dyno numbers, I only have about 30 minutes to work on the car every day except on weekends and considering how many things that were left out of the instructions, I would have been amazed to have been done by now. Stay tuned, because I'll probably be done and dynoed (w/ A/F ratios and all) by the end of next week. Maybe.
10-14-04, 10:04 AM
#194
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And also Dan Atkins promised the dyno graph of their test car weeks ago in this same thread and has never posted it, let alone put any hard facts on the Camden website. I want one for my conv but I am not about to put down $4000 dollars without any documented numbers and all the facts as to how those numbers were arrived at.
10-14-04, 11:08 AM
#195
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