ATI Pro-charger for carb'd SBC

[Guest Anonymous]

Besides Darius, who is having some WIERD problems with his, I'm considering an ATI procharger for a carb'd chevy.. They are saying, on a 350, which had 338HP before, they are getting 547 after the SC!. While my goal is 500, just wondering what everyone thought about ATI, and has ANYONE seen a centrifugal SC on a carb motor??

 

ATI Procharger for carb SBC

 

Thanks guys.

[Guest Fast Frog]

Many of us have thot of doing a Procharger on our setups. John Scott has one on his V6. I'm not sure if anyone else besides Darius and JS are using it. I was using a Paxton until I sold it a few months ago. The Procharger appears to be the best of any of the under the hood SCs. Go for it!!!

 

[ May 10, 2001: Message edited by: Fast Frog ]

[Guest JAMIE T]

I have seen a couple of blow through carb Procharged cars. Both were very strong running, one was late model mustang that ran well into the 9's, and the other was a big block chevy that was also a 9 second contender. Must agree with Fast Frog, go for it. ATI can recommend a carb tuner for the blow through configuration, it is hell on tuning. Good Luck.

 

Jamie,

Project Deathstar

[Guest Anonymous]

I have a friend here in GA that hes an ATI system on his stock 302 Mustang and it pulls harder than most big blocks that I've been in, but best of all it came with the intercooler for the same price that Paxton and Vortech want for their systems without the intercooler.

[Guest Frank280z]

Rick. Why did you stop using/sell the procharger?

[BLKMGK]

My friend's shop is one of th eonly dealers for ATI in Virginia. A few other shops make that claim but a call to ATI always proves them to be liars - I've seen TONS of ATI blowers as a result

 

IMO they make a good blower. I've seen, aside from the troubles Darius has had, two of them with problems. One was an early numbered one right after they switched to their newer D's from the P series. It had oil seal failure and pumped a ton of oil into the motor's intake and was on my friend's car (the one who owns the shop). ATI took care of him and found a manufacturing defect in the housing. The second one is one at their shop now, it's not making the boost it should and has been beat on pretty good. Don't know the whole story on it but it's going back to ATI. Oh, a third was my P1200. It had a cog belt on it and was raced pretty hard. The bearings had a little play in them and the impeller was coming too close to the housing as it wobbled. No contact but visible defelction. I had ATI put new bearings in it and when it came back there was NO deflection. It's not gotten many miles on it since then as the Mustang has been parked... I paid for the new bearings but they were fairly quick about it. Not sure what went wrong with Darius' blower but ATI took care of it. ATI seems like good people and if you're honest and polite with them they stand behind their products.

 

My friend likes the new "oiless" series they've got. No holes in the pan and it's a TINY bit quieter - not much though. My P1200 can be heard over the exhaust easily BTW. However with the oiless models you MUST use the ATI oil - it has a tattletale dye in it and if you don't and it fails they WILL know about it. No warranty claims would be honored if you don't do this. What I don't like about the new D series and these new oiless blowers is that they stick out to the side more, at least on Mustang applications. Space could be an issue.

 

 

Lastly, you're asking about using one on a carb. I posted earlier about this but I'll say it again - don't. You can make it work but IMO it's a hassle to tune and people I've met who have don't it regretted it. Draw through blowers like Roots style work better for this unless you want to draw through the ATI blower - ick. No intercooler if you do that

 

Well gotta' run but that's my 20 cents worth on it. If you've got questions about the ATI stuff I can try to get you answers. If you're in VA I can help you with a deal maybe an dused Ford blowers are always aorund for sale here, people keep moving up to bigger blowers!

[Guest Fast Frog]

Frank 280Z:

 

A couple of reasons why I sold it: First, the SN 93 series is far from the state of the art in supercharging. Part of it is the "one size fits all" aspect of the SN 93. The same size is used for 302ci engine as well as the 454ci engine. With the 302, one realizes 10 to 12 lbs of boost with the potential for detonation(it has no intercooler but does have an inlet for water injection-somewhat less than state of the art). With the 350ci, boost is in the 7-9 lbs range-still subject to possible detonation depending upon compression ratio. My 383ci ran 5-6 lbs-somewhat out of the detonation range unless one has over 10:1 cr. The 454 and 460 BB Ford run with 2-4 lbs of boost. DUHHH, why spend $3-$4000 for a SC to gain maybe 60 -70 HP??? The new Novi 2000 was supposed to be the answer to the more state of the art Vortex and ATI, but its application was limited to only a few models of cars and after several calls to Paxton over the past 5 yrs, a sbc kit has yet to materialize for the street! The reason why I got the paxton in the first place, 5 yrs ago, was cause it was the smallest of the SCs available and the one most likely to require less fabrication to make it fit in the small Z engine bay. As it was, it still took me a fair amount of fabing to make it fit!!

 

Second: the SN 93 is not a smooth gear driven setup like Vortex and ATI. It's the old planetary drive/centripetal action setup and it takes a fair amount of power to get the rotating elements up to speed, especially when starting the engine!! I went thru 4 large batteries in as many yrs just by cranking the engine over! It took about 50-60 lbs of torque just to turn the SC pulley wheel(without the belt) with a wrench!!

 

In addition, a trait comman to other SCs, is the constant stretching of the belt!! A new belt tightly fixed with lots of tension by the tension wheel would allow the SC to make 6 lbs of boost. But in no time at all, the belt would start to stretch due to both high tension and the amount of power needed just to turn the SC!! Soon the boost would slip to 5 lbs. Then 4 1/2 lbs. Then 4 lbs. I had to tighten the belt at least once a week to keep it at 5 or more lbs. And since I don't drive the car that much, it was like ever other time I drove the car, I had to tighten the belt!! Add to that the poor design of putting tension on the belt. Most other SCs have the tension wheel pushing on the outside of the belt in toward the center of the loop, thereby greating tension as well as allowing the belt to cover more surface of the pulley wheels for more traction!! The SN 93, however, had the tension wheel set inside the belt loop and pushed out against the belt. It created tension but also pushed the belt out creating less contact area on the pulley wheels and reduced traction!! After a while, I started throwing the belt with regularity!

 

One final thing: ATI and I think Vortex, run off of engine oil(ATI now has a self lubbing model out)which one changed every 4-6000 miles. The Paxton used automatic transmission fluid you had to change every 3 months! And, instead of just draining the oil from the crank case, with the Paxton you need a suction bulb! What a mess!!!

 

All in all, for the 4-6 lbs of boost(75-90 HP gain) it was a real pain in the butt!!

 

[ May 14, 2001: Message edited by: Fast Frog ]

[Guest Frank280z]

Oh...I didn't know that SCs were that much maintenance. I also thought they spooled freely. Thanks for the info.

Frank

[BLKMGK]

Agree with everything you said about the old Paxtons. I had one, I didn't much like it. The new ATI blowers take care of the belt tension with a spring loaded idler (an option sometimes) and use as many as 12ribs on th ebelt. My Mustang has one of those 12rib spring loaded idler setups, it's nice. It also has a good bit of wrap on the pulley - something my Paxton setup didn't have. The squeeze bulb thing - and even the aftermarket "coolers" for the fluid were indeed a PITA. Heck, first time I pulled the "dipstick" on my Paxton the rod dropped into the blower! ATI's use a stainless cable for a dipstick but I think you still need a turkey baster to suck th efluid out - they might have a drain.

 

Blowers have come a looong way since Paxton was king! Progress is good. Vortech was formed by ex-Paxton engineers that were upset Paxton wouldn't build their idea, the gear driven blower. I'm not sure where the ATI guys come from but I wouldn't be surprised if there was some cross polination there too. Powerdyne guys have some interesting ideas as well - their new blower is gear driven too BTW.

 

If you do a blower in the Z expect to fabricate mounts. You'll need plate steel and it'll require some work. However my friend's shop has done it with Ford blowers from scratch so it CAN be done with a little common sense. I think a better idea would be to look at th eLT1 setups that folks like ATI use that really tuck the blower in tight. Perhaps one of these would work? I'll try to get some pics of one - you can barely see the blower once it's all buttoned up in a Z - don't even ask about the 'Vette setups (shiver).