I picked the ATI for a couple of reasons.
1- I needed to tow, and turbos dont lend themselves to that too well. Lots of underhood heat and turbo heat in general, etc. The ATI may not tow as well as the Radix on the low end, but while cruising or accelerating it was deffinetly a step up from stock. I would have about 2 psi with my 2600 stall off the line. The ATI bypass doesnt close until you are at close to zero vacuum so even normal uphill towing doesnt put you into boost unless you are really in it, which is kind of your choice.
2- I wanted something with room to grow later on. When I do plan on doing a 408 or 427 I wanted something that would be able to make big power with that also. At the time there was nobody making real big power(over 500rwhp) that I knew of with the Radix. The turbo would have that room to grow, but most do not reccomend towing with a turbo.
3- I wanted something easy to install and remove seeing as how my truck is still under warranty. I am able to have my truck completely back to stock in a matter of a few hours- usually under 3. Aside from a couple of holes drilled in the frame for the intercooler there is no evidence of any modifications. The radix is not as easy to remove. Was my truck not under warranty I may have gone that way.
For me the ATI was the best choice at the time. Looking back I should have just sold my S10, bought a RCSB, put in a 6.0 or bigger, done the Livernois turbo kit, then just kept my Z71 as a bolt-on truck.
They all have drawbacks, I think the turbo has the least compromises as far as power goes. For a daily driver the Radix is probably best. For a street/strip truck that also gets utility use and wants big power I think the ATI is the best compromise. You can do it with a turbo also as long as you dont have to do any heavy towing. My boat is pretty heavy so that ruled it out for me. I probably should have goen turbo, who knows it may have worked out.
Anyway, that is my experience/opinion

 

I have seen dynos posted ( had a link in the original thread, could you toss it back grippy??) of a 5.7 LS1 with AFR heads and a babby cam make over 750 rwhp without even overworking a T trim Vortech!! I love my Vortech system once I figured out how to set it up. I'll be running a T trim, 60lb inj, good size cam, 3200 stall, and meth on a built 370 or 408 (may go with "all bore" as Ive read that is the best way for blown vehicles. Im hopefully going to be ready to go for the top Tahoe spot in the next couple of months..... and he has a 402 and a Radix!!! May the best setup win!!

 

#1
Well, here's the deal, I was cleaning up the old thread and accidentally deleted the whole thing. Brains is trying to resurrect it, but it may be long gone, 100% accident and 100% my fault, sorry guys

#2
I will be mostly talking Radix, Big Surprise right?, but don't hesitate to ask me questions about any FI, I will answer them to the best of my ability. Please feel free to question anything I say, I encourage you, however, my response may not always be hard facts, I may reference a conversation, experiences, or personal preference, just so you know this up front. That said, I will not post anything I do not believe to be the truth, so, I may be either misguided or on to something. I will extend the same courtesy to all of you. Also feel free to disagree and debate, lets just keep it respectful and non personal.

THanks

 

So Grippy, you always talk so highly of the Radix, which you should. In your opinion, what is the biggest down fall of the system?

 

good question, my first response is heat, so for now I'll say that, let me think about it some more and I will either stick with that or revise. Also note, heat will be one of or the universal FI down fall.

Regarding heat, it's important to understand what causes it. The easy answer is to say is, "its a roots"!, done deal right?, well, yes and no. It's actually a modified roots(for our purposes, Eaton rotors) and they pack many features to increase VE(more later)
tangent:
as a direct comparision, the twin screw produces heat as well, and it's my opinion, that the public has been falsely lead to believe they are vastly superior to the Eaton, this is not true(more later)

 

i understand where your coming from with the warranty issue. but pretty much all you have to do with the radix to do more internal motor work is take off a few hoses, disco the plug wires, 8 bolts, fuel rail connectors and a few other obvious things. then just lift the puppy out. its not really to difficult.

 

Ill be going with a S-trim and aftercooler. Like greentahoe stated, the T-trim can lay down some good power also, and I may look into that once this one runs outta breath.

 

If you go with the S trim you may want to go with the V1. It seems to make more power than the V2.... well it can accept a smaller pulley without being overspun.
If you are running 13.1 now I cant imagine what you'll run with a 3.12 pulley on that S trim
Im going to start out with a 2.87 on the T trim. Im not sure what it will do with the 2.62, but I want to get a good tune before I go crazy with it
IMO the biggest benefits of the Vortech is
1. You can drop a T trim in the S trim bracket in 10 min.
2. There isnt the belt slip issue as you have with the Procharger... well I havent run into in yet.
3. It can still make big boost on larger displacement motors

 

If,I were starting over with my truck with the goal of making the most possible horsepower,there is no way I would go with a Radix setup.The Radix setup is great for a stock or near stock truck and is probably the most reliable bolt-on kit on the market.I'm probably not getting more than a 70 to 85hp boost with my setup.I'm not big on comparing dyno numbers but the truck was making 427rwhp at 4000 "spiked" at 619rwhp at 5900 and remained at near 600rwhp to my 6600rpm shift point.I do think that with a larger supercharger like a whipple 3300AX another 100 rwhp is doable in streetable trim.I've been bugging the guys at Magnuson for more than a year about getting a Radixed M122,because it would probably give an additional 50 to 60rwhp with my setup and be a vertual bolt-on.I don't think the M112 Radix supercharger is capable of making any more horsepower than I have already made,the truck spent a full week on a Dynojet with 2 professional tuners working on it.Don't even ask what that cost me.

 

nice numers whitt. do you happen to have a chart for that? i would love to see it.


a member sent me a pm asking for the links i put up in the lost thread so i will post them up again. this is a list of some of my favorite boost related links, there is some good reading on many of these.

first thing, you cant have an "be all end all" discussion about FI without mentioning corkys bells maximum boost book. this is a must read for anyone that wants to know more about boost. i think he has a newer book focused on blowers but i haven't read that one.

http://www.gnttype.org/techarea/fuel.../fuelpage.html has some great info on fuel systems and lots of other good info under the tech tab.

http://www.smokemup.com/auto_math/turbo_size3.php is a really neat calculator for helping you figure out what turbo size you need. that calculator costs money to use but if you are ready to crunch some numbers it is worth the $5 or whatever it costs. there are all kinds of cool calculators on smokemup.com. it will also over lay your numbers onto a compresor map.

this link at smokemup.com is free and will get you in the ball park for airflow http://www.smokemup.com/auto_math/airflow2.php, it doesn't take the intercooler into effect and doesn't put our a chart with diferent rpms like the other one.

after knowing how much are you might be flowing from the site above then you can start looking at compresor maps. they have lots of maps on smokemup but if they dont have the one you need you can try here >> http://www.forcedinductions.com/compressormaps.htm

http://www.onlineconversion.com/ is a nice site if you are trying to look at that crazy whipple map and comparing it to standard units.


a few other sites i have bookmarked

http://www.tsrsoftware.com/nhra%20el...%20factors.htm
http://home.att.net/~alkycontrol/
http://www.racetep.com/turbopl2004.html