I'm thinking I want a supercharger. Should I buy a Camden, or fab my own eaton setup?
Warranty and support is a big part of my decision. Also reliability.
oppinions????

 

If was you.. Thank god im not...I would go with a turbo

 

I would go with a turbo...wait I already am

And damn you...I will probably have to pay money again this year. 500 last year let's see what damage they are going to do now. God Damn I better get a ride in that thing when it is done becasue I am indirectly paying for it!!!

 

well, all i can say is to do a search and check out all your decisions...... remember camden=atkins. not a bad company, but do a search to find out more about them.

 

Just noticed that you said the Warranty was important to you. Not to sure of the camden warranty but I picked up a Af61 with a 2 year warranty.

I am not sure if it will create enough hp for you. Well that is if 400 is not enough

 

As far as the supercharger route goes I would look into a Nelson/Paxton centrifugal type supercharger. They can be intercooled, mounted easily, and look similar to a turbo (they basically work the same way a turbo does.... except use a belt to spool it up). Turbos have been done so getting a good map is as easy as making your setup similar to the map of the vehicle it was tuned for. I will be saving for a new and better 7 while I am selling mine. Think I will be staying NA for some time though!

 

I really dont like the centrifugal types too much, i fail to see the advantage they pose over a turbo. They are laggy, which really defeats the purpose of a supercharger.

A screw type supercharger is really the way to go.

But a turbo will allmost allways make more power (on a rotary anyway)

 

screw types are nice but I believe they suffer from the same things that camden users hate... Heat! Economically a turbo is the way to go (LOL economical?!)

 

Yes but a screw type supercharger can be intercooled. ( for that matter im sure you could design a roots type to be intercooled as well) Take a look at 88integra's setup, hes got a screw supercharged intercooled setup going.

 

And it's for sale! I guarantee it's cheaper than any Camden, Paxton, or any other commercially available kit. Includes fmic, pipes, everything except the charger rebuild (comes with charger that needs new oil seals), fuel pump, injectors, and ecu. 8 psi starting at 1500 rpm baby, low intake temps, less than a second of lag between stomping the gas and feeling full boost, at 1500 rpm.

I hate to sell it but I need to pass emissions in my near future.

 

So I guess since I have one of the following I should say what I think of ea. I don't know anything about an eaton setup, but have a Camden supercharger on my blue car.

Its been a long frustrating road with blue. Ive blown 3 motors and a few trannys. Now I have a rebuilt motor with only about 3,000 miles on it, and also a custom built tranny built by Atkins. So far so good on this 4th motor.

First off no matter what any one says about my Blue car....it's an awsome car, awsome setup for what it is. It's a tourqey little thing, and I wouldnt trade my little 7in blower for nothing. Blue will remain supercharged as long as possible. As for power it hasnt done well for the HP numbers I was looking for. When I first read up on the superchargers at the camden site, it said the blower would reach 271hp, and would get about 27miles to the gallon. The highest Ive had it was 212hp dynoed by ralph at ground zero. Maybe reasons why so low is because of the motors that were built for the car. This motor hopefully will pull some better numbers at Apple Blossom this year. Were thinking maybe 220-250 or so.

Reliablity: has not been the greatest because of a lot of heat issues that I believe were due to the blower. I finally think all those heat issues are resolved and my supercharged car stays cooler than the turbo'd car. (It even has an inner cooler). A lot of the heat issues were resolved from better tuning, e-fan, clutched fan changed, heat shield, and wrapped header. Gas mileage is better on my supercharged car than my turbo'd car that has the weber on it. Webers suck gas big time. But fun. My turb'd car did 220hp without an inner cooler at Apple Blossom two years ago.

Warranties: When I first had my blower installed, it was a recalled blower, so camden changed it promptly after checking it out. They installed a new 5 in blower for free. I then decided to go fuel injection instead of carbed and also upgrade my blower to a 7in. The new setup cost me almost $4,000 with the trade in of my 5in blower. Shortly after the install I got a call from Camden saying they upgraded the blowers and to bring my car up to have it changed. They did this change for free. So I have had no warranty issues with them so far.

Support: At this time I have no comment except for Andy at Camden is awsome and would help you out if you needed him. There are a few of us on the forum that do have these setups that would also be willing to help with advice.

To finish off:
Im very glad I purchased my Camden blower, and am very happy with the product for what it is. If your looking for higher HP numbers go turbo.

I have more fun in my supercharged car than in my turbo'd car by far, but love both of them.

Sorry for the long post

 

YOU GET MONEY BACK??!?!?!
FAWK YOU!!! I have to Pay them even more money at the end of the year! I guess that's what I get for all the dollas and cents! Mo money mo problems!!!

 

I'd boost it. Seriously. Especially with a good tuner. And Ralph at Ground Zero is a smart guy.

 

I'm expecting close to $2k back.

I kind of didn't 'update' my tax info at the beginning of my construction season on purpose, so that I'd have a little 'kitty' saved up early this year (because there's no way I could've saved it). I was getting BIG chunks taken out every pay-check, which I'll be getting back... yeahhhh.

 

dave stole the words outta my mouth bwahaha

 

Deena,

Great post. I was long but very informative. Personally I have ridden in Blue with Dave driving(one crazy ****) and I must say that thing was a torque monster. Blue is a great car however fell that it could be way better with an intercooler. Maybe Camden will see this and design a new updated charger.

The reason that I went with a turbo is because:
1. Price max of 3k out the door
2. lag comes later, I could baby it and not have to wory about always going into boost. This also means that I can stay out of boost and get a little better gas mileage.
3. Not all chargers are intercooled
4. changing of boost is more simple than a supercharger
5. higher hp numbers
6. higher boost

When it comes down to it you need to look at what you want. For me it was turbo. Good luck and hopefully we will have another charged 7 in Wa state.

 

Order a 3rotor cosmo front clip, have John do his magic, put on a Microtech or Magasquirt. Then Supercar will not be just a fantasy in your own mind.

 

People complain about the low HP numbers out of superchargers but you really can get good HP out of them. We are making 270-300whp out of 1.8 Miatas pretty easiy now, the big problem was the engine management, the RX7 at least has engine management solutions whereas the 99+ Miatas have had big problems because of the returnless fuel system etc. 300whp out of a 13B-RE with a twin screw supercharger should not be an impossible goal. If i was going to do a supercharger on a rotary I would do a cold side mounted 1.2L whipple, small a/a intercooler, water or alcohol injection, 550/1300cc injectors, Haltec E6K or Tec 3. Running 15 psi with the temps down wouldnt be a problem with just the a/a intercooler and the water or alcohol injection will be an added cooler so that should put the HP down around 300whp. Plenty for a light little first gen.

 

yeah I believe a screw can make a decent amount of power on a rotary, but I just dont believe a rotay responds that well to a roots type blower, for big HP numbers anyway.

My therory is that the roots type blower creates "pulses of air" because of the rotors in the blower, and that probably just creates airflow that a rotary doesnt respond wll too. A screw blower wouldnt do that.

 

whipples are sweet. But is anyone really ever happy with 300?

 

Huh what the heck? I supost I need to file for that now. It would be nice to get another 100 or so.

 

300 is good but I had to turn the boost down so I am only making about 230whp now otherwise I just burn the tires out on corner exit. Only so much 225/50/15 V710s can do on 15X8s and thats as wide as I can fit.

 

I'm going to use Code Blues template as an example of my Camden Setup...

Its been an experience to say the least, I haven’t blown any motors, I haven’t snapped drive shafts in half (, etc), and I'm pretty friggin hard on the car (the other night I launched at about 4500 rpm 5-6 times in a row racing a 350z, which I kept up with until about 105mph, which I had other issues past that, I know the Camden is what caused it to keep up).

There are a lot of myths and bad karma floating around previous experiences with the Camden Chargers, I talked to Dave the other night and he went on about all the updated pieces, etc and my mouth literally dropped because I was using an older type blower with an outdated internal design.

Would I sell my car? Only when I'm pissed at it, or have a hammer in my hand, for the most part I've been through hell with this car and have yet to sell it and I had an offer for 4,500 the other night at a gas station, from a guy who was dead serious, he was driving a M5? BMW so I'm sure he wasn't joking around.

The only down time I've had was when I locked up a charger going down the road, and that was for about a week, we had it installed over night.

My car can keep up with a 350z right now, which is usually a flat 14 second car, not bad coming from loosing to a FWD Toyota Matrix with neon’s on it right? I'm moving up in class, and don't even get me started on the fun around the twists’ with that INSTANT BOOST (you should see my boost gauge move, as soon as the pedal gets about 3/4th of the way down I'm at boost).

Reliability: Hasn't been too much of an issue with me, I usually am the one screwing it up (i.e. changing pulleys out two hours before work d'oh) lol. There is a lot of heat in the engine bay but I'm looking for ways to change all of that/

Warranties: Locked my charger up driving down the road, sent it to them, got a new one, nuff' said - their warranties ROCKS.

Support: Everyone from Dave to Dan to Andy rocks, they have all been helpful, I even got a friggin card in the mail from Camden/Atkins for Christmas thanking me for my purchase (mind you this was from Snub on here, I didn’t even buy it directly, they still honored the warranty).

To finish off:

+1 for truth

Would I do it all over again? Hells Yes (Quote from PSP Commercial)

 

fact is I no longer have a warranty because of personal reasons Im sure, so when blue goes out she will be a turbo'd car. hp numbers are not worth it for the price one pays for this blower. I would definetly worry about heat issues. Try everything you can to keep it cool. Wrap the header, efan, and good tuning are a must with this setup.

On the 3 motors I have had a specific companies apex seals break right down the middle 2 times. most likely due to heat issues that shoud have been addressed when purchacsing

 

There are two Code Blues, which one is the one that wrote about the Camden.

E-Fan & Bigger Radiator are on the way, I'm only running the 5lb pulley at the moment so I don't think it puts out enough heat to hurt anything, I can leave my hand for about five-six seconds before it hurts.