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8 month/11,000 mile Vortech Supercharger Update!

55K views 103 replies 44 participants last post by  777 
#1 ·
As most of you may know we (BMC Performance) installed one of the first production Vortech Supercharger Systems on my 2006 SRT8 Charger back in July 2008. A lot of time has passed and miles have been logged in these past 8 months. Obviously, we get alot of questions regarding forced induction here at BMCP, so I wanted to post this thread with first hand experiences I have had using this system daily on my car. There have been many who have said you can't S/C a daily driven hemi, or that you can't safely run boost on a stock block. While there are definitely issues that can arise if you push the limits, my experience has been that a S/C makes a great reliable and most importantly fast daily driver.

When we installed the kit my car had 38,000 daily driven miles on it. The car had bean beaten on a bit with several road course weekends on it and more 1/4 mile passes than I can count before the blower. It has been just over 8 months now and I have almost 50,000 miles on my car:) So I have about 11,000 on the car with the S/C on, I drive my SRT everyday nad probably have 20+ 1/4 mile runs on the car with the Vortech installed, so it definitely isn't babied :) One of the things I wanted to do was run this kit how it was designed and how most of our customers or potential customers would use it. What I mean is I didn't plan to custom tune or add many other supporting mods right away. I wanted to know how drivable the canned Vortech tune is, how fast was it at the track, and how did it hold up over longer term use. So to date the only mods my car has to the drivetrain is the Vortech S/C system with the canned Vortech Tune and a Bassani Cat Back exhaust. No headers, no High Flow Cats, no Tq. Converter, no ported TB, no heads/cam etc etc.

What Hemi owners want to know is for $5000-6000, is a S/C reliable, is it drivable and how fast is it....in other words is it worth the $$. In my experience and personal opinon I would never do things differently. The car runs and drives great, is a low 12 second car on street radials, my personal best on Bald Street tires (LOL) was 12.4 at 117. For reference my best stock run on Streets was about 13.4. I know the car would be high 11's with traction as I couldn't get lower than 2.1 on my tires in the 60 foot.

One surprising advantage that I wasn't counting on was my mileage increase...my avg MPG went up 1-2 MPG which I thought was pretty cool considering I now have over 100 RWHP more than I used to!

So I say all that to say this...everyone has their opinions, and there are many different ways to get to ones goals. Boost is great and I would never go back to anN/A car again, the future holds a forged motor and more boost and some axles to handle it, but for now my 500 or so RWHP is fine with me :)

Not too many people have been running S/C on daily drivers for very long so I just wanted to pass along what I have learned and experienced. There are lots of opinion and rumors that swirl around and I just wanted to put some first hand knowledge and facts out there for anyone that is considering modding their car, and let you know boost is indeed a safe option if it is done correctly, and you don't get too aggressive with a stock block!
 
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#5 ·
Good info, hopefully I can supercharge my 3.5.
 
#7 ·
Great post, thanks for adding this info.

I read that you road raced the car a few times before the Vortech was added... have you done any track days/weekends with the new setup? Or do you think this system might not be appropriate for road racing?
 
#11 ·
Just an update...now at over over 51k miles on the clock and going into 10 months with the blower and almost 14,000 on the car with the blower and still going strong. We will be making the treck from fla to Tennessee next week for the Meet in the Mountains, so we will get some long distance road trip miles on the beast and report back!
 
#14 ·
Another update..we are closing in on having this unit installed on the car for a year now, and driving it every day in the S. Fla heat. At the current time I have over 16k miles on the blower and over 54k miles on the car. The Blower and all the hardware is still running great with no issues from day one until now. Tune is still the canned Vortech tune and doing great. We recently took a trip of approximately 1500 miles round trip to Tennessee and back for a car show and the car averaged about 23 MPG on the highway averaging 75-80 MPH.

The only issue we have had to date is the one part of the kit that isn't manufactured by Vortech...the MSD Boost A Pump. We have now had two issues with the pumps heating up and blowing up before the fuses even blow. After the first incident we were told there was a quality control issue at MSD and the fuses were not instered all the way causing this problem, but now that it has happened again, and we have heard of similar issues with other people, it seems like a design issue. With that said we are recommending to make sure your fuses are installed correctly if running this pump, and in the future to avoid any issues we will not be using these supplied Boost A Pump units and going back to the tried and true boost a pumps we have used for years on other forced induction cars. (keep in mind this only affects the 6.1L kits)


All in all though the kit continues to perform well, and I would continue to recommend this kit to anyone...very reliable and fast for the daily driver!
 
#16 ·
These updates, and your honest responses(assuming they are...I don't know you), are really helpful in providing peace of mind for those looking down the barrel of spending thousands on this type of mod....we want measured results, long-term reliability, and consistent performance...which this seems to provide....good luck and keep the posts coming....Any actual dyno numbers on your car?
 
#17 ·
Thanks, that was part of the goal...to install and run this in the way most of our customers would, on a pretty stock/bolt on mod type car, and using the canned tune Vortech provides. Now that we have well over a year and 20k miles we will probably turn up the wick a bit...first I want to get some times with the canned tune and drag radials so we can see what it can do at the track...want to wait til it cools down a bit. Low 12's on street tires was nice but traction was a huge issue, if we can run 11's on the canned tune and I think we can that would be great...then we will custom tune it and go from there.
 
#21 ·
How did I miss this thread? This is a great thread! Subscribed. Please continue to update it :bigthumb:
 
#23 ·
Good to see another SC daily driver!!!
I installed with about 32,000 miles on the car- a used unit no less-
I am now at 67,000 miles and growing... and still modding!

Love my SC!!!
 
#24 ·
man that is crazy great i would think that the motor wouldnt hold up. but i no nothing about sc great report
 
#25 ·
Most people think that, which is one reason we chose to document this over the long term. To show that you can safely supecharge these cars if you go with the right system and a good install/tune!

One thing we pride ourselves on here @ BMC, is telling the real story, whether that is good or bad!
 
#37 ·
How's the super charger for guys who don't travel that much. Most of my trips consist of a 1/2 mile ride to 7-11 and a 1/2 mile ride home. I'm a stay at home dad and I rarely travel far enough to even warm up my engine. I've got a 2006 Charger that I bought new and only have 13,000 miles on it. Would a super charger be bad on an engine that gets driven very little and barely gets a chance to heat up? Just curious.
 
#38 ·
No, it wouldn't be "bad". But it'd sure be a waste...

Seriously, a kit like the Vortech is as reliable as forced induction gets. Stay mild (~7 psi) with a good tune and you'll never regret getting one.
 
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