It's a car and bears a striking resemblance in general shape anyway to yours;). I hear you about the tuner. He was pretty patient but my current could use more tweaking for sure.

As much as I like turbos, if my goal was autocrossing I would not be using turbos. Boost isn't always there and I think it would go from a soft pedal response to frying the tires pretty quick. I'm sure turbo sizing could help with that, but it'll never match a roots or n/a setup for predictable throttle response, which is key with an autocross car.

My next track car will probably be a roots type blower.

Jody,
Which roots blower would you buy if you had to buy one right now?

X2?? More specifically for my personal desires, which roots on the market makes the most reliable boost right now? I love my kb suv. Its uber responsive and BEASTLY. Are the cooling issues to deal with based on like say a gigantic Kenne bell really any less of a problem than turbos?

I really haven't done all the research yet, as I'm no where near that point. The factory GM ZR1 blower, Harrop, Magnacharger, Whipple, KB are all good blowers and have their own advantages and disadvantages. I'll probably just call Stielow and let him decide for me. :lol:

Heat management with turbos is a completely different thing. Turbos are very efficient, they'll make more power per boost level than any of the blowers with the right turbo(s). Air temps look good too comparatively, but managing the exhaust heat of the headers/manifolds and turbo housings requires a lot of work and thought. My Chevelle would get hot at idle with the stock hood and inner fenderwells. The air under the hood could not get out and would just get hotter and hotter, actually raising the engine temp. Removing the inner fenderwells or cracking the hood open and the engine wouldn't break 190 even in 100+ temps and a/c on at idle for 30 minutes. So it was not a radiator/fan issue, it was directly because of the turbos. And I had the headers coated, the downpipes wrapped, and bags on the turbo exhaust housings.

Under power things get even worse. These things can be addressed, but mainly because you mentioned autocross specifically it made me lean towards a regular blower. Instant torque will be better and easier to modulate on a tight course in my opinion.

As the old saying goes, you can't bake your cake and eat it too. If you want to road race and autocross your protouring car with over 1000 hp, you are in for a real wake up call. It's hard enough to keep them cool with 650hp from my experience. Stielow has mentioned the complexity of cooling his 750 plus hp supercharged set up recently. Unless you want a car that's going to be a 3 pump chump and overheat at every event, I'd pull back the reigns. IMO, it just won't work in a protouring car that gets used off the street. Now, in a street car, drag racer, and very light autocrosser, you could get by with it. It all comes down to your ideals. Personally, I like a car that's capable of doing anything I want with it. Engineered to take any curve ball you can throw at it.

From my experience, you build them and then your ideals change. I started out building a street car that was going to be shown once and a while and ended up with a show car that I raced all the time.

Noted. Thx Jody your turbo experience is definitely helpful

You bring some great points. Let me be a little more specific. First off my intentions were never to autocross the car at the 1000 hp level. The mere notion of that is simply ridiculous. In fact Rarely will it ever be driven at that level, however we WILL make something very close to 1000 on pump gas just to say we did, period. I also have friends with 700-800hp cars and we all haggle each other about whos faster stoplight to stoplight, plus im planning on a few standing mile events, so occasionally it will see max boost. I confess im still on the fence about the power adder, but I dd an a&a'd Vette in the summer with just a cam'd ls2 and an upgraded radiator that makes 600whp at 9.5psi and NEVER GETS A SMIDGE HOT OR HAS ANY TROUBLE, period, so I already know that the 600-700hp range über reliably is easily doable with a centrifugal, although obviously not creating the even power throughout the range that a roots will make.

For the record, the breakdown goes something like this: 30% autocross, 40% cruiser (including some longer trips: power tour-ish type things), 20% speciality events like the Texas mile and possibly some higher speed road course and race track type stuff later on. And last, 10% show car; i don't really care about that right now. I'll probably just attend the local shows that are close and convenient. Personally when I think of people talking about regret in "driving their showcar" it mainly refers to the 20k paint job. And I'm completely avoiding that for now. I'm going to save the details for a possible build thread later, but I digress.

I definitely agree with most of what you're saying, but then again I would never build a 150k car with a carb'd motor either:P. So truly, to each his own. Honestly my end goal is pretty much what you said, verbatim; to build something that can handle whatever I throw at it. I guess im really trying to just bake my cake eat as much of it as i can. I'd be an idiot if I didn't agree that there will be bumps in the road along the way, but I feel like I've got a pretty good handle on it. Im just digging the ability to pick some great brains here as I go. Do you miss your car yet? I wish I'd have had enough to just dump it on yours all at once, it was way more than worth what you got for it. Then again I know i would've cringed every time I looked close at that mirror black paint after an event

Have you seen the Kenne bell liquid cooling systems? Ive talked to Jeff at Tpe there in Vegas a few times since kb started drilling cooling holes in those and he spoke highly of them

Absolutely nothing wrong with a carbureted motor. People drove them for decades. There has been test after test to see which system, fuel injection vs. carburetor, performed better. The results have nearly always been the carburetor gets the slight edge. Drag racers nearly exclusively run carburetor. I had the choice and chose carburetor over FI. Sure the FI will be more reliable, consistent and get slightly better mileage, but I'm not building a daily driver. I expect and want to be able to tinker around with my toy, even if that means I have to perform routine tweaks to keep the carb running consistently.

Vegas69 built a phenomenal car and then took it out every chance he had to bash on it. His car performed better than most hope to even close to. All with a carburetor. I would take heed to what he says. His experience has been documented all over this site

Wheres jody dammit! The title of this thread wasn't supposed to be "FI VS CARBS":willy: :willy: seriously, Mad respect to Todd, the guys got kills squared and anything he has to say, I'm more than listening. I applaud him most for beating the snot out of his car. Like I said right after I ribbed him a tad about the carb; TO EACH HIS OWN. And I truly meant that. I have as much if not more respect for the guys that go old school rather than going the easy route. I'm not even 1/10th the mechanic Todd is, and that's some fraction of the reason I would never go carb, although most of it has to do with the admissions that YOU ALREADY CONCEDED.

"Sure the fi will be more reliable, consistent, and get better gas mileage"....

but who the hell wants that, right?!? :lol: honestly im not even sure i completely agree with all of that. I've had several carbed cars that ran fine. Hell, next For my mopar ill build a big old obnoxious legit hemi that gets 1/2 Mile to the gallon for you, k? LIKE I SAID, THIS car is going to motivate under the power of an ls3 thats already half done;). Plans AS OF NOW are about 40/60 autocross/cruiser. if you want to say something conctructive, READ WHAT I WROTE and do so. Otherwise, Thanks for the hot tip, and im sure todd appreciates the strokin, but lets get BACK ON TOPIC...