Here's a story for you Perry.
The editor of Street Machine magazine wanted to promote the Sprintex supercharger to help a friend of his who had just started selling them, although he didn't tell me that at the time. He decided the best way to do that was to organise a back to back comparison test against a turbo car and a nitrous car.
BTW the Sprintex blower is a screw type blower which unless things have changed, is the MOST efficient blower type on the market.
By luck or coincidence the guy owned a heavily modified SD1 with a Sprintex fitted and I was just starting to make some headway with nitrous on my STOCK SD1, although I was still having the occasional melt down due to my lack of knowledge back then.
The editor contacted me saying he was organising this 3 way shoot out and was I interested in participating. It was a close thing, as it was touch and go as to whether or not I'd sort the problems out that I'd been experiencing but I took a gamble and agreed.
By the time the shootout was arranged the turbo had blown up, so it was down to a straight duel between me and the blower and I was STILL unsure about the reliability I could maintain.
I decided to take my Dad with me and we drove over 150 miles down to the test track in the car, to be met by the blown car being removed from a trailer and to discover that the owner/driver was a FAMOUS Top Fuel car driver, so I thought I was in for a beating, as I'd no idea what such a blower could do and expected to be outclassed on the driving front.
My car was fitted with 2 stages of 150 HP in fixed hits, so I was hoping I had enough in hand.
The magazine had only been able to obtain one set of timing gear, so the cars had to be run one at a time, so I was asked if I wanted to go first or 2nd. I decided to go 2nd on the basis that, IF the blown car wasn't as quick as mine, I could ease up on the power (reducing the risk of failure) and win with reliability and as it turned out this was a VERY WISE move.
The blown car was then put through its paces up to half a dozen times to achieve the best results and I was then presented with what those were. I managed to stifle my LAUGHTER until the other guys were out of ear shot but then cracked up (to the astonishment of my Dad), before explaining why.
It turned out that even with a PROFESSIONAL driver, a manual gearbox, MUCH better tires, MUCH better engine, various other performance enhancing mods and half a dozen attempts, his car was SLOWER than mine was on JUST ONE STAGE.
Consequently I increased the fuelling to both stages and did the run JUST using ONE STAGE (apart from a short burst of the 2nd stage in 2nd gear ONLY) and recorded times that were OVER ONE SECOND QUICKER over all measured distances and speeds.
I was then asked if I wanted to do a 2nd run but I declined on the basis that, there was no point rubbing the guys nose in it and left the track arriving home trouble free a few hours later.
A few years later I encountered another SD1 with a Sprintex fitted at a RWYB when I was running a 2.6 SD1. I went over to the guy and asked him if he'd like a race and he said "Yeh that'd be great as I'm sick of being blitzed by these Big Yank motors". He asked what mine was and I said it was JUST a 2.6, which obviously made him think he was going to walk it - SUCKER!!!! Needless to say he was STUNNED when I blitzed him even worse than the Yank motors were doing and came over accusing me of lying about what engine I had. LOL
In conclusion; Blowers are 'FINE' and they work well WITH nitrous but on equal terms a blower will never stand a chance against a GOOD nitrous system.
BTW I still have a very worn copy of the Street Machine magazine where the shootout was featured.
you better stand in the corner then go and see headmaster trevor ... 
lol
