Need info - confused over blowers
 

A freind and I drove a boat over the weekend. He was interested in a Sonic. While there, he nabbed us a ride on a Cigarette - The first ride on a Top Gun for both of us.
As mentioned above, yhe boat was a Cigarette Top Gun, and it had HP500 EFIs with Vortech blowers.

Here is the confusion:
I was expecting a tempermental engine. Most of what I have heard about blowers has not been good.
Those motors idled well (maybe a tad higher rpm than norm), they accelerated and cruised well. All in all, it felt like stock motors with LOTS of power.

Are blowers reliable? Oil temp never got above 165 and water temp stayed around 140- 145. I would think that the motor really isn't working real hard to run, and would actually last LONGER since it isn't being run WOT as much.

Why are blowers deemed unreliable??

Oh, and yes the boat was fast! The tattletail on the GPS said 98. I think the fastest we ran the boat was a little over 80 (or about 4200 rpm?). I didn't really pay attention to the speedo, I was in awe at my first Top Gun ride. It IS true about Cigarettes and their ride!!!
:D

Also, here is a pic of the boat. Anyone know it??

More mechanical items to break and sea water cooling never helps...

I saw that boat yesterday!! One day (when I grow up:D ) I'll have a Top Gun. Hugh said that the boat goes over freighter wakes pretty good.:D :D

Craig

"Why are blowers deemed unreliable?? "

1-They are not as forgiving when one is set up incorrectly. 2- When ever you get more HP out of motor it's life tends to be shorter. When set up right, only way to go.

BillR, I think your chances for getting your questions answered in here would be okay, but would probably be better in the Technical Q & A section as I think you might get better responses than in here. :)

Like Turbojack said, it's all in the set up. Any motor that's set up poorly is going to be trouble. A motor that's been well thought out is going to be easier to deal with.

Of course, the more power a motor makes, the more stress and strain it's under. Everything is relative, as the saying goes...

75 hours no problems. Built by Fowler, Dyno'd by Performance Research. Never put a Blower on unless you plan to dyno it.

My HP was limited due to I wanted extra hours and wanted Capitan's call.

Also I chose blowers because of the noise ordinances here. It's no too bad at idle and super quite when Captain's call is on.

Louder than @#$% when running hard.

It's the right combo for me.

I agree that every blower motor should be dyno'd. This will relieve alot of headaches in the future and ensure a good setup.

I've got blowers on the Cigarette we bought earlier this year, and though I'm not a blower-motor fan, that's only because a blower can mask engine problems that would be fairly easy to see or hear on a naturally aspirated engine. And by the way, mine idle and perform very well.

Being Blown is good...................
Being blown on a Cigarette is better !!!!!!!:D

Set-up.........Set-up........Set-up........All you need to know

As said , set up is everything . But in my opinion, smaller lower power setups (525-700) are much easier . When you get up over 1000 hp with multiple carbs , then it becomes harder .......

One of the main reasons I am interested in supercharged engines is because I know you can get real super smoooooooth idling charactoristics with them. I know of a 41' Apache around here that has Merc 800SC's w/Stelling headers and it idles like a family van and it HOWLS out on the water! I cannot believe how smooooooth it idles!!! Lopy, rough idles are more attractive of the marine patrols.

Back in the 70's when I was first looking at installing a turbo setup I had a 2 hr. conversation with Jack Rex who worked at Gale Banks at the time. I called to see what I was looking at getting into. The first words out of his mouth was Turbo's were known for tearing/blowing up motors. He explaned that setup was the important thing. After I had talked to him & started asking people that had bad mouth turbos/blowers I learned that the ones that badmouthed them did not have a clue what they were doing & did not have the motors setup correctly. Over the years I have torned up my share of motors but the reason I did was because I was running the motors on the edge. I think the most important thing to remember after setup is only run the right gas. Bad gas & problems are soon to follow.

agree with all in regards to set-up ...

I strongly suggest regardless of the type of blowers you choose to research, research and research the installer some more.

We have a 32 sunsation with hp500 efi's ... added whipples back in June. Ran great the first two times we had it out, then everything went down hill from there. Spent a month and a half working out the bugs, taking engines out, putting them back in etc, etc, etc. Very long story, but what it comes down to is a botch job on the initial installation.

Finally have everything in working order and knock on wood, it's running solid.. but took alot of unecessary work and time and $$$$ to get there.