So does any one know if the guys at npg are busy or what cause I emailed them some questions about the their non intercooled kit and I haven't heard anything back from them in about a week now and was wondering if I should just keep waiting or try another channel?
We're around!
We are busy though. So let me try to answer your questions.
Non-intercooled kit is a great way to start adding a little power to the car. By little I mean you can look at probably 240wHP and an estimated 200-220 ft-lbs of torqe with a light tune on around 4psi or so. If you add a water injection kit then you can start running 8-10pounds but it would take some tuning and you've have to be careful. The most important consideration with a kit like this, a supercharger, or any kit without an intercooling system will be prevention of detonation.
Primarily intake air temperature is the culprit. In the dead of winter an intercooler wouldn't matter, but in summer it becomes a huge deal. The air coming out of the turbo at just 8psi approaches 190*F when ambient temps are in the high 80s to low 90s. If you run the car under hard boost and the intake air temps going into the engine start creeping above the 140-150*F range then you will likely detonate and break the piston ringlands.
On the non-intercooled kit the key to success is moderation and self-discipline! You get it tuned for a certain boost level and you LEAVE it there. If you don't then you may run those intake temps too high and hurt something. Don't get me wrong, this is still an issue with intercooled kits, but the intercooled kits are just tested at higher boost levels and if you crank the boost up on them you can run into the same problem.
The only way to prevent this is limit the boost, run high octane fuel, and pull some timing. Of course getting an intake temp gauge is very helpful in learning your car. Since any engine performance is directly affected by the intake temps, I find that next to a wideband, the Intake temp gauge is the most informative and potentially helpful choice if you mount the probe just prior to the air entering the throttlebody.
Okay with all that said, you will still pull buttloads more torque with the engine just running 3-4psi and some minor tuning and it will do this reliably for years.
The Vortech supercharger is a highly complex package and it suffers from the "too many moving parts" issues. More to break, and break it does....not to mention it has all the same issues with tuning I just listed above.
No centrifugal supercharger kit will make the torque that a turbo does, and definitely not in the lower rpm ranges. They are nice if you want to run through the gears and keep the rev's high though. Paired with the 3L it's less apparent due to the 3L's low end torque advantage but on a 2.5L it's all top end and you probably wouldn't even break 200ft-lbs torque until close to 6K rpm.
In the long run I think you should spring for the non-intercooled and leave it alone till you want more power, or just get it with the base intercooler up front and get max power out of it now.
I recommend the non-intercooled kit to anyone who wants to try their own hand at building an intercooler, air-air or water to air, water/meth injection, nitrous, etc.
