Anyone regret going turbo?
- Thread starter DCTHOM3
- Start date
I have had both and I do not regret going turbo. That being said the turbo route is a good bit more expensive and the twin screw is a little more fun on the street IMO. It really depends what you want to do with the car. If you like drag racing the TS is the easier of the two to make fast but a turbo set up done right can be made extremely fast also. If you do roll racing a turboed cobra is a monster and turbo cars get really good gas mileage as well (not that anybody cares about that).
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get the best of both man. remember the Manhattan project
I want
Compound Boost 2003 Mustang Cobra Twin-Turbo - Muscle Mustangs & Fast Fords Magazine
I want
Compound Boost 2003 Mustang Cobra Twin-Turbo - Muscle Mustangs & Fast Fords Magazine
I would not recommend going compound... I see that as the final move for these cars, not the first.
Compound > Turbo > TS > Nitrous > *
Open your wallet and fork down 10 grand for a twin kit and supporting mods and be done with it.
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Before I go TS I am going TT.
Unless your goal is "all out horse power" I would advise you give the TT some more thought. There are other issues to be considered and in the end you may not be as happy with the results as you thought you would (a few people have switched back). A TT Cobra will be most at home on the highway where it can stretch it legs. A PD blower feels like you got 600 inches under the hood and will pull a stump out of the ground anything just north of idle......and you get to keep that angry Mustang exhaust note to boot. In a Turbo Mustang listing to the stereo becomes a viable option.
A turbo Cobra only "lives" in the triple digit speed zone, its only purpose is to put people into cardiac arrest and mainly turns on when you’re already going too fast. The higher the gear the higher the load the more boost they make and the acceleration just builds and builds. The thought of being able to spin the wheels "at will" going 80 mph is not very appealing. A speeding ticket in one of those gets you jail time. And don't forget all the new found plumbing snaking it's way thru your engine compartment which makes wrenching on it an even more enjoyable experience.
.........then again this may be exactly what your looking for :dw:
Not ragging on a turbo. It’s the fastest most efficient set-up period! But it comes at a price. After having my turbo Cobra experience I am glad I stuck with a TS. An exhaust driven blower Cobra was just too over the top for me
Just something to consider.
A turbo Cobra only "lives" in the triple digit speed zone, its only purpose is to put people into cardiac arrest and mainly turns on when you’re already going too fast. The higher the gear the higher the load the more boost they make and the acceleration just builds and builds. The thought of being able to spin the wheels "at will" going 80 mph is not very appealing. A speeding ticket in one of those gets you jail time. And don't forget all the new found plumbing snaking it's way thru your engine compartment which makes wrenching on it an even more enjoyable experience.
.........then again this may be exactly what your looking for :dw:
Not ragging on a turbo. It’s the fastest most efficient set-up period! But it comes at a price. After having my turbo Cobra experience I am glad I stuck with a TS. An exhaust driven blower Cobra was just too over the top for me
Just something to consider.
I'm probably the only one on here that really cares about this, but I definitely prefer the look of having the supercharger up top to having just a regular n/a Cobra intake with some pipes leading to it. I know the turbo is way more efficient, has more potential for big numbers, etc., but there is just something really cool about having that big blower sitting on top to me! Honestly, if I ever went turbo, it would have to be a compound setup for this reason.
How much power are you looking to make? If you don't like the TS you can always sell it. They hold their value pretty well.
I drove turbo cars all the way up until getting the Cobra.... the blower is fun, and has great torque, but there's something about a turbo car that is much more fun to drive, IMO. The mid range and top end is unlike anything else, I love the feeling that it's never going to stop pulling.
That makes 2 of us.:beer:
Unless your goal is "all out horse power" I would advise you give the TT some more thought. There are other issues to be considered and in the end you may not be as happy with the results as you thought you would (a few people have switched back). A TT Cobra will be most at home on the highway where it can stretch it legs. A PD blower feels like you got 600 inches under the hood and will pull a stump out of the ground anything just north of idle......and you get to keep that angry Mustang exhaust note to boot. In a Turbo Mustang listing to the stereo becomes a viable option.
A turbo Cobra only "lives" in the triple digit speed zone, its only purpose is to put people into cardiac arrest and mainly turns on when you’re already going too fast. The higher the gear the higher the load the more boost they make and the acceleration just builds and builds. The thought of being able to spin the wheels "at will" going 80 mph is not very appealing. A speeding ticket in one of those gets you jail time. And don't forget all the new found plumbing snaking it's way thru your engine compartment which makes wrenching on it an even more enjoyable experience.
.........then again this may be exactly what your looking for :dw:
Not ragging on a turbo. It’s the fastest most efficient set-up period! But it comes at a price. After having my turbo Cobra experience I am glad I stuck with a TS. An exhaust driven blower Cobra was just too over the top for me
Just something to consider.
I am not going to get into an argument, but man, some of this is incorrect information. Turns on when you are already going to fast? I have plenty of use with it in 1-3rd gear. Spin the wheels at will at 80mph? Really, and the instant torq of a PD blower doesn't do that? ask everyone making 600 plus with a TS and even some guys running mid 500's with an eaton. I can run 15# of boost in the summer with my street tires...not drag radials, but actual street tires(295/35/18 BFG KDW2) and not spin all the way to redline in 4th gear. Sure, if I nail it in first gear all the way to redline and shift through each gear without stopping I can spin them, but I am not going 80 in 1st gear.
no matter the power adder, stock eaton to compound boost, speeding can get you a ticket and you can get to that jail time speed just as easy with any of them. it depends on the driver and his foot, not the power adder.
working on them? I have worked on hellion equipped cars and and HP equipped cars. There is less for me to do on a hellion car when changing a clutch. you can also get to the inner belt and idlers a lot easier with a turbo setup. not so much with the factory setup. valve cover changes are easier, injector changes can be easier depending on the PD blower setup. So far, the positives outweigh the negatives for me. It may not for others. Your 2 major differences will be cost and instant power. although now with compound boost if you went that route, cost will be the major difference between a TS setup and turbo setup.
the only maintenance I ever did on my first turbo cobra was changing my wideband sensor and oil changes. other than that, I drove it and enjoyed it. drove it on the hot rod power tour and took it long distances(MD to FL) without issue.
turbo is not for everyone and some have gone back to a TS because they like the instant torq. I have no problem giving unbiased info, but I also don't like it when people give incorrect info.
some people have issues with certain turbo companies and kits, so it puts a bad taste in their mouth and they badmouth them(going turbo) from then on. it is definitely something that people need to weigh their options and what they are trying to accomplish with their car.
Well, consider this. I have yet to hear of anyone who went turbo on a 2003-2004 Cobra regret it. Rather, the owners just praising their setups. So that says a lot IMO.
id go the turbo route, except maybe a big single, for less headache. I want to go turbo with my whipple cobra but just dont erally want to fork the money out, but you guys are right about hte turbo feeling being different, i miss my 600hp srt4 neon.
I may be wrong with this statement, but it seems to me that it takes alot of tune time to get a turbo streetable. Sure they make huge power but if you gotta spend many hours to tune it. Please correct me if i'm wrong turbo guys. I mean when i put the KB on i downloaded tune sent to me from RWTD and it was perfect. PD seems more predictable is this sense, easier to tune. Turbo's seem finicky to me on the street.
I had a streetable tune in less than a few hours with mine. Started on the first crank. The tuner just needs to know what he is doing. I just got a little anxious with out throwing it on the dyno and it ran lean on me in 4th gear and that was all she wrote.
I went the custom route and over the course of 6-8 months we got the car running great. I had no drivablity issues at all. There were some headaches involved going custom route though, I went through 3 pumps before I found one that worked with out leaking, switched the crankcase vent a couple of times, and even though my turbo is located in the bumper we made a drain canister to make sure the oil did not burn up before it would drain or after the car was shut down and the turbo was still hot (you don't have these with off the shelf kits because they make sure all this is fine tuned in R&D before selling). Finally got the car running the way it was intended and then impatients took over:nonono:.
I only contimplated going back to the SC because of the cost to rebuild the engine but I got a very good quote on a built long block so money issue solved.
I agree it is costly and can be time consuming but I don't regret going turbo. My engine blew because of lack of patients not because of the FI route I chose. There is nothing like driving the turbo car though, the sound of it spooling, and the never ending seat of the pants feel. It is extremely hard to launch the car with out a 2-step but when the boost hits you quickly forget about that. My car would break the tires loose in first still just at a different rpm than with the eaton.
My set up did however make it a pain in the A** to change the oil because of the downpipe but after doing it a few times it is not that bad anymore.
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I was about to fire up the siege engines but you took care of that.
Like VNM said it's really about setup. You can get two little turbos and make 600rwhp at 18psi and they'll come on SUPER quick. Then you have people here running 80mm turbos at 9psi and wonder why it wont spool till 5000rpm.
Also as VNM stated for people who want to brave a compound setup you get insane power with almost no turbo lag and that instant boost off idle.
The problem with turbos I think right now is the lack of info and abundance of POOR info.
I think the manufacturers have a part in this as well. If you go on hellions site you can buy a turbo kit for ~5000 so people instantly pick that up asuming they are going to have a awesome kit but they fail to realise that they got the lowest grade items.
They didnt check any boxes for the upgrades that are needed to spool faster or create more power, etc.
Then they cry that they have ass loads of lag and arent making as much power as they thought they would.. Well if you didnt cheap out you wouldent have any lag and butt loads of power.
Turbos arent like blowers, they arent all made equal. Theres a reason you can get a 500$ turbo off ebay with the same "stats" as a 2000$ turbo and the two once bolted to the car will perform COMPLETELY different.
People make the mistake in diving into turbos head first without any research and they end up getting swept up in everything not realising how much money it actually costs to build a really good performing turbo cobra.
We're not talking about 300-400hp evos here. We're talking about almost a THOUSAND horse power in a lot of cases from a little 281 engine.
You're going way past what you can with a twin screw but you gotta know what you're doing.
IMO, ts is the way to go. even if you decide to go turbo in the future you can always sell the ts for almost as much as you paid for it. IMO 600-700 hp is already too much for a street car. my car is in the low 600's and i can barely "get on it" and feel the power without going 120+ mph. unless you are into dyno numbers or you are a hardcore street racer i really see no need to exceed 700hp......
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