re: Still mo' Superchargers, EFI, Twin Sparks

[Johnson David-QA2282 <David.R.Johnson@domain.elided>]

In response to Eric Storhok's post in digest #1042:

Hmmm, I hadn't thought about Vortech not having a small enough blower for an
Alfa 2 litre.  Surely they are missing out on a big market for blown MR2s
and Miatas, not to mention the Honda crowd.  I know they're all into turbos,
but blowers do have a few advantages (not least simplicity).  Not being
familiar with the Eaton blower, I can't comment on it's suitability.  But
the main point of my post was that the Vortech kit achieved more or less
what Biba wanted, not that the same (or better) couldn't be done with the
Eaton.

As for compression ratio, with 6 psi boost you may not need to lower it at
all.  Now I realise this depends a lot on combustion chamber design too, so
perhaps the classic Alfa hemi is less tolerant of boost than the modern
emissions-friendly wedge type head on the Chevy.  I am not an expert in this
area, so I can't say either way.  But the kit has been on my stock
compression Z28 for some time without problems, although a lot of guys do
blow the motor eventually (either they get greedy, or I happened to get a
motor at the low end of the compression tolerance range).

I forgot to mention that my kit came without charge cooling, although I have
fitted the water-to-air intercooler kit also sold by Vortech, which may have
contributed to my reliability.  One of the competing kits (ATI) came with a
cooler, possibly because their blower design was less efficient than
Vortech's.

I run a stock clutch, which I have not had to replace yet.  For street
driving it has been fine, but an upgrade is recommended for drag racing,
especially with slicks.  I suspect that on the street the clutch is not
subjected to a great deal of extra stress because the power doesn't
generally kick in between gears.  For a standing start or burnout this is
obviously no longer the case.  The Camaro's weakest link is actually it's
differential, which is pretty much guaranteed to explode if you use slicks.
One guy's diff got locked up with the stripped teeth, resulting in his
gearbox input shaft snapping (more than 1 inch diameter high strength
steel!).  From what I hear Alfa's diffs are generally over-engineered, so
this may not be an issue, and not many Alfisti are heavily into the drag
racing scene.  I'd be curious to know what rearend was used by the
Bonneville car though.

Personally I think Eric is going to be hard pressed to do this on 1K,
although if one is putting together used parts I suppose almost anything is
possible if you search hard and are creative.  The emissions question,
however, is not going to be solved so easily, due, as Eric says, to the
small size of the market.  In the Camaro world, supercharging is so popular
there is a mailing list dedicated to that alone.  But then, Alfisti are not
often the type to follow a trend!

Dave J.
1994 Chevy Camaro Z28 (blown, in a good way!)
1987 Milano Verde (blown, as in done blowed up)
1964 2600 Sprint
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