dprantl

Well, I bought a S/C'ed 91GT and it was the best car purchase ever. For the price, I pretty much got the supercharger free with the car and already installed. I was thinking of buying a kit for my '86 beforehand. Since I work on all my cars myself, it was a no-brainer. Of course I did my research on the kit that was on the car, and was able to compile a very complete history of the car from searches for posts by the previous owner on rennlist. It really isn't hard to educate yourself on the kit on a car unless it's a one-off deal.

The car has now been supercharged for over 60k miles with no top or bottom end rebuild. Yes, I hit 8.5psi every day and so did the PO. Saying that a FI kit does not work 100% on cars is just an uninformed opinion that holds no basis. Andy K's kit was one of the least robust kits out there, but it sure works great in my car all the time. I think one of the keys to this reliability was the sharktuned chip it received.

Dan
'91 928GT S/C

hacker-pschorr

I'm almost as involved with modified Vette's and Mustangs as I am with 928's (I'm helping tune a pair of high powered Vette's on Monday).

IMO there is no such thing an "off the shelf / complete" kit for those either. I guess that is what really impresses me about Tim's setup, for such a low volume car it's well sorted out. Perfect? No, nothing will ever be perfect (even from the factory). How many small changes did Porsche make to the 928 over the years?
I've helped out with plenty of other installs on domestic stuff from major tuners. Needless to say I have yet to be impressed by any of them. Friend of mine who is a local Mustang guru has a list of parts he changes with each kit when he's hired to install one.

You lost me here, not trying to argue but I really have no idea what you are saying. He encourages the customer to be where?

Mike Frye

Well, I've now ventured beyond my area of personal experience and into the realm of 'what I've heard' and I won't take offense when I'm corrected.

I'd heard or read that Tim encouraged the owners of his system to be there when it was installed (if Tim is doing it) and even help install it so that they can see what gets done to what and how. Was that someone else?

AO

Yep... just like I said.

AO

Whether true or not, I completely agree with this philosophy.

dprantl

Me too. And if the owner does not wrench, I would have their mechanic be there instead. And folks, it really isn't rocket science. It's not that hard to figure out what has been changed and why components were added/removed. And if you're stumped, a message to the list clears it up the majority of the time.

Dan
'91 928GT S/C

hacker-pschorr

I'm sure there are those who do not agree with me on this. Maybe expectations for a Mustang kit are lower, I dunno. I'm not trying to say these other kits are crap, but they are far from perfect.

I still remember the first time I helped install a supercharger on a Corvette....wow, what a mess that was.
That's Tim!! And I 100% agree whith this. In fact, I would encourage anyone with any make / model car doing any modification to do the same. It's just a good idea to know more about what is happening to your vehicle.
Only a few have taken Tim up on this, so out of all kits sold it applies to maybe 5%.
I'm sure DR and the other kits makers would agree.

No different than a German / Factory delivered Porsche.

Mike Frye

This is another case of us (here on the list) only hearing about a small percentage of the cases, and not knowing any better, I would have put the percentage higher. However, to my earlier point, this is a major selling point and a testament to the kind of person and mechanic/designer he is, but for someone who doesn't do their own wrenching, I'm sure it's intimidating as hell and may be a deal breaker.

They're used to things happening when they're not around and just being right the first time. If any adjustment is required (as is often the case, especially for someone who just wants to write a check and go faster) they wonder why.

Back to the original discussion though, I don't think even a perfectly tuned S/C setup will add as much value on top of a well sorted out car as you could fetch by selling the car in stock setup and the kit in a box, possibly even to the same person.

Mike Frye

Andrew and Dan, you've both been through it though. You either built or bought yours with eyes wide open and knowing all of the repercussions. The average buyer probably just wants to be able to make this decision for themselves. Also, a search on here probably doesn't yield many threads entitled, 'My S/C-ed car started and ran great again today, that's the 425th day in a row'

We hear about some cool stuff, but also lots of prototyping (as Erik mentioned) and the occasional boosted car that really wasn't ready for it and mechanically 100% before the addition.

dprantl

Hmm, I'm not quite sure I follow your reasoning. From what you've said above, people who do not wrench would be intimidated and less likely to buy a FI kit, but more likely to buy a car that already has the FI kit installed and has all the kinks worked out. That means a car with a kit already installed should fetch a *better* price than a stock car + kit.

Of course, the question becomes how many people want a faster-than-stock car? I think that's what makes the price fall. Most people don't want to trade more power for the unknown (or they just don't want more power than stock, period), and are too lazy/unwilling to research the kits to educate themselves about them.

Dan
'91 928GT S/C

hacker-pschorr

I've been involved one way or the other with every kit Tim has installed for a customer. IIRC it's like 5-6 kits, so out of 50-55 kits (assuming that is still an accurate number) that's about 10%, so just a tad off
I don't count my car, sure it was installed in Tim's garage, but he didn't do much in the way of helping...

j/k Tim

Hard to disagree with that. With the Ford / Vette world I'm suprised how many owners choose not to be involved at all with the supercharger (or any other) performance installation.
Not to mention if you do not install it yourself, there is the added cost paying a shop to do the install for you.

+1 - even more so with the Chevy powered 928's. From what I've seen, those sell for is far less than what it costs to build one. Problem is, going "back to stock" isn't really an option.

Shane E.

Thats what I got to do...

Write a check and drive away in an extremely fast car!

I have two NA '86.5 5 speeds that need boost next, I'd like to add a turbo to one and a DR Twinscrew to the other, provided I can get some dyno numbers out of the turbo guys, otherwise I'll order another kit from Tim. I might just do that anyway since the intercooler that Todd made rocks!!!

If I decided to sell (Will never happen) but If I did, I'd sell it complete with S/C plus all the stock parts to return it to stock, and I would increase my asking price based off of the mods done to it, if that meant it didn't sell then so be it, but I wouldn't take it in the shorts just to off-load the car.

Landseer

If a car had a supercharger, and it was removed, would you expect the owner to reveal that part of its history to you?

Vice versa, would you as a seller disclose that fact?

Gretch

Then there are the very few who installed their stage II kits 100% themselves, with no supervision, and added to the install manual as they went along.......

AO

Maybe... maybe not. Depends on the seller and the buyer. Caveat emptor.