Here at Bumbera's we are HUGE fans of superchargers. Our top 4 superchargers that we use are Procharger, Whipple, VMP, and Paxton.
A supercharger essentially provides more air for your motor. This air is referred to as boost. Each pound of boost or PSI the supercharger puts into the motor is more horsepower. This boost can be delivered in a few different ways. This is where different style superchargers come into play.
These superchargers are amazing for daily driving purposes. The centrifugal superchargers look like a turbo and act like a turbo, but are belt driven by the crankshaft. The two best brands we use for these types of setups are Procharger and Paxton. These superchargers do not create heat as much as the roots blowers. We’ll get to those in a minute. Houston weather isn't very "roots blower friendly" which means the centrifugal superchargers stay nice and cool so more power is made. Hot air going into your motor leads to loss of horsepower and overheating. While centrifugal superchargers do not make a lot of low end torque, they scream on the top end!
These superchargers are made by Whipple and VMP. Essentially, these superchargers have twin screws inside their diaphragm and are driven by a small pulley. The smaller the pulley is the faster the screws will spin therefore creating more boost. These superchargers create a lot of low end torque and low end horsepower which is great for getting you out of the hole at the drag strip, however these superchargers start to die off on the top end. They also heat soak very easily which means you shouldn’t be doing pulls back to back. However, if you drive regularly on the highway instead of making pulls over and over, these superchargers will operate just fine. You could avoid the whole heat soaking issue if you install one of our chill boxes. As long as the chill box is filled with ice and staying cool then so will your supercharger. In short, these superchargers are not for the faint of heart or idling in the staging lanes at the track. But, when you push the pedal to the metal you better be ready for it to break the tires loose!
In terms of cost, the Whipple will be on the high end of the spectrum compared to the other 3 superchargers we talked about and Paxton will be on the low end. Although, a supercharger is often viewed as a premium power adder so even a lower cost option will still produce results as long as it’s made well.
Of course this depends on your vehicle and what you want to achieve, but we really like Procharger. The reason being there’s not as much room for error, they produce massive power, and they run more efficiently. The quality of their products is top-notch as well. It’s not the most expensive option either which makes it a popular choice.
