Originally Posted by CT_Texas

I second Randy's position. Tuning your car to insane horsepower sounds cool, but when your tranny or engine blows, its gonna be an ugly day for you and your car might end up being worth nothing. End of the day, you might have been better off buying Z06 if you add up the costs of repairing it. I've been doing slow and careful research.... coming from the performance crazy Audi S4 folks, who report blown turbos and trannys often (B5 bodies for those purists who are about to point out that the new S4 has no turbos... those who don't do it the right way). Some of the folks here who tune their cars go the whole 9 yards, rebuilding internals and trannys. At the end of the day, you want power AND reliability. The 2 terms are oxymorons, but if I have to give up 30k to the engine's life for 100+ more horses, it might be acceptable. But if I give up 80-100k of the engine's life for more horses, I have to pause and consider.
Just my 2 cents.

Originally Posted by brittain

Here is my personal take on it:
stillen- safe, has a warranty, ugly hood, small gains not worth the money spent
ATI- blew up way too many engines in the beginning, not sure how they are now. wouldnt buy one.
vortech- owned one for a few months, but never installed it. IMO the best SC
greddy TT - good system, but needs some extras to optimize performance/safety.
APS- safe so far, good for up to 400 WHP, then needs complicated tuning to make more HP.

If you want around 350 WHP, go SC. If you want more, build your engine and get a TT.

Originally Posted by CT_Texas

Ckwik,

Thanks for your very informative response. Some of the responses from others were confusing and went against what I knew of turbos and superchargers. What about the types of SCs? Roots vs. Centrifugal? I was told the latter i.e. Vortech, would place less stress on the engine vs. a roots based configuration i.e. Stillen, though the Roots would give better low end performance (assuming you could handle the wheel spin).

C.