All things being equal (which isn't ever the case, but for the sake of comparison, let's do this):

Kappa, we're going to clone you and your car. Absolute perfect clones.

YOU and your current car will be outfitted with a Turbo.
Your clone and clone car will get a JRSC kit with the eaton M45 as the base power-adder.

You will launch side by side in the same manner (you're clones, after all).

Your clone will eat your lunch and take your milk money. You might get it back if you stay in the throttle past 100mph, but it's going to take some effort.

Now how often do you drive (race) and exceed those speeds? Even cruising side by side on the freeway, the SC will have the advantage. When your clone hits the gas, he's in boost NOW. RIGHT now. Even if he's cruising at only 1500 rpm's.

There are two sides of the argument, and we can go all week debating back and forth, but what it comes down to is do you want your power down low, or above the spooling rpm's of a Turbo. Pick one.

And no, you won't have traction issues with a SC. At all. You adapt your driving style for whichever forum of Forced Induction you choose, whether it be a roots, centrifigal, Turbo, or Nitrous.

 

nice post red, well put.

My friend is the proud new owner of a 500whp Supercharged Mustang GT (which I helped install)... amazingly enough he can keep traction on launch with a slight chirp and hand me my *** OFF THE LINE. So the traction argument holds no weight.

 

Ok, let me try to straighten this out for you ONE MORE TIME... I'm not arguing that SC's are WORSE by any means (though I myself wouldn't prefer one; I guess Polo's right about me being a Turbo Groupie).

What I am TRYING to say is that, on a Honda Civic, a turbo will be more comfortable as a daily driver TO THE RELATIVELY INEXPERIENCED... sure they can adapt to a SC, but on a HONDA, the higher-end is where all the fun is at anyway. REMEMBER: the CIVIC is the car in question, NOT my (former) S14, NOT a Mustang GT, NOT a Bonny, NOT a Cavalier or a Fiero or a ****ing dune buggy.

Here's a couple problems with your clone comparison:

1)If you put a blower on what I still fondly refer to as my car, it would be twincharged (or maybe triple charged, if you account for both turbos).
2) If I turned the boost on my turbos up to 1.6 BAR on stock everything, and you put a pulley on the blower to match (assuming the blower replaced the TT's) I would eat the blown S14 alive beginning at about 3,500 rpm and carrying on through 8,000. You (here, "you" refers to the "blown clone," as it were) might have a CL or two off the line, but after that, it's nothing but turbocharged taillights filling up your windshield. The mechanics and dynamics of an RB26 are obviously something you have yet to experience...

 

Kappa, keep in mind that I'm not arguing.......but back at you, there's obviously alot about forced induction you haven't experienced or researched yet.

There will be NO problem supercharging a civic, or driving it either, for the inexperienced. This is a big bunch of bull. You make it sound like tire-squealing hell for the 15 year old driver, and that's just not going to happen.

I'm talking blower vs turbo, not ADDING a blower to an aleady turbo'd car. BASE cars starting from scratch. EQUAL comparison.

And even in your TT, you're at a disadvantage off the line, since the SC doesn't have to wait while you're spooling. You'll see HIS taillights before he sees yours. It's where you want the power. Off the line, or on the high end.

A SC will take you off the line, all the way to the quarter (somewhere between 800-100mph), and will give you enough of an edge over MOST torbo'd civics, that they cannot make up the deficit within a 1/4 mile. Maybe by the half.

 

Of course I'm at a disadvantage off the line. And I'll probably see his taillights first. BUT, as long as we're racing for more than 40 feet, the tables will turn faster than you can imagine.

And yes, it's true, I've only driven 2 blown Civic's, but the point I've been trying to make is one of comparison... I have no gripes with how SC's perform on Civics, as long as you know how to handle it. But what's obviously slipping through the cracks here is my whole point here of comparison. COMPARE the ease and daily driveability of a blown vs. a turboed Civic, NOT how often you race for 50 feet from a stop light. A supercharger will obviously give you a flatter torque curve that helps with drag launches and provides instant-on power, but a turbo just gives you so much more where your car (Civic) is comfortable: in the high end.

Unfortunately, it's that time again. I'm off to class. Be back in an hour or two.

 

Friendly debate continues......in a simple sense, if Turbo's were all you crack them up to be, we wouldn't be having this conversation, because superchargers wouldn't exist. But since the do exist, they obviously have alot of value.

Yes, you are a Turbo junkie, and you're very biased. That's why I'm trying to dispel some inaccuracies or misunderstandings, because it's not fair to the original author of this topic, nor anyone else reading it.

Ease of driving? There's NO DIFFERENCE! NONE! You keep coming back (even in subtle hints) to this myth that a supercharged civic will be hard to handle, and this is MAJOR BS. Raise the BS flag!

The Turbo does NOT give you 'so much more where your car is comfortable'. The car could give a crap. Where the civic lacks is the low end. Give it some! Kappa, I'd invite you to investigate supercharging a bit more and actually go out and experience it so that you can be a bit more objective in these topics.

I've owned both, and driven many more of both. I can honestly tell you from my personal experience, I prefer Supercharging for it's simplistic practicality, but turbo's do have their uses, and there are applications where I'd prefer them.

From a cost, ease of installation, maintenance, and 'transparent' effect while driving, the original author of this topic would benefit more from a SC than a Turbo. And he'll get off the line like no other civic out there. And he may not care if his car falls flat on it's face (although still better than stock) at over 100mph.

Please quit giving supercharging the inferior role in every comment.

Edit.....this isn't the Fast and the Furious here. Honestly, how many here have the opportunity to do much footwork above 100mph?

 

This is not a point of debate, but just for reference, I believe superchargers were actually invented first (Bentley Blower).

I could say the same (on the opposite side) for you.

Let me ask you something: have YOU ever driven a SC'd Civic? From what I've gathered from your posts, you're simply speaking from a standpoint of, "well, it worked fine for these guys; it'll work fine for you too." Having driven both a 5G EX sedan and a 6G EX coupe with blowers, I KNOW that the lack of front-end weight on a Civic combined with the low-end grunt of a supercharged engine WILL cause a lot of wheelspin if you don't feather the clutch. It's the same thing with a B18 swap, and that's not even that much of a change in torque.

See, you need to be aware that cars are designed differently. Hondas are designed to perform in the mid to high rpms, so giving them an excuse to dig down to 1000 is actually putting unnecesary wear on the engine parts... I should know; I've seen it many many times.

I'm not questioning this at all (except the last part), so I see no reason to keep bringing it up except to play the other side and give turbocharging the inferior role in every comment... But a SC will not hold strong on a Civic all the way to 100mph... it's not an M3, you know.

 

just wanted to throw in my 2 cents. i can attest to this. i have a bone stock b18c in my 95 civic coupe, and in dry weather, i have to pull throttle all the way through first gear (open diff) and in rain, forget about it. there is no hard acceleration till at least third. a SCd sohc, would have more torque, lower down than my 1.8. and id have to agree with Kappa on the fact that civics are designed to stay a little higher in the rpm range. if you put extra stress on the engine while its spinning slow, like, 3000 and below, the oil pressure is not high enough to properly lube the motor. so it can put a lot of undue wear on the engine. and when i shift my engine at redline(8200) it drops down to about 5800-6000, so once i hit 2500-3000, and my turbo spools, theres no going back. i dont need that low-end grunt, except for the first 20-40 ft. yeah hondas may be lacking low-end, but they make up for it in a massive redline, and a very big final drive, mine is 4.4, and there are some that are bigger than that. the type r tranny has 4.785. thats another reason the low-end isnt really welcome. im not saying that SCs are no good by any means, and i would not begrudge anyone for getting one, but, from my own experiences and observations, a turbo has more performance potential. and there is a reason that so many mustangs out there are SCd, not turbod. the trends follow the racing. turbos are not allowed in many classes of v8 drag racing, so the trends follow the racers using SCs. they are not allowed because they dominated too much when they were. and i got that straight from a musclecar magazine (dont remember which). i saw a 99 SI, with a JRSC kit on his B16, with a boost upgrade, and he was running 14.4-14.6. my brother had better times in his stock si with a 50 shot of nitrous, spraying in second gear on up. he managed a 14.2, with a slipping clutch, on street tires (i mean STREET tires, not drag radials. they were Toyo Proxes FZ4s). so traction is essential in these cars. ill be the first to admit there are some apps that an SC is better, but, i dont think a civic is one. im not necessarily saying a turbo is better, because its not always true. im just trying to put it out there that turbos are not the bad idea you seem (i dont think its your intention, but you are putting forth the attitude) to be saying.

 

It seems to me that this all depends entirely on your driving habits. If you never go to the strip, but like the occasional "race till the speed limit" at a stoplight, a supercharger is probably the way to go. But, if you go to the drag stip a lot and plan to run low 1/4 mile times, a turbo is probably the way to go. Note this is strictly for Civics here. Taking into account the build of the Honda engine and the final drive ratio, a supercharger just isn't going to give you power where you need it. When you are dragging, you spend probably about 5% of the time in the launch and below 4000 rpm in a civic. This is why turbo civics do so well, because the turbos will put the power where you drive during most of the race. In the end, it all matters who crosses the finish line first. Nobody is going to give you props for keeping ahead for the first 100 ft.

 

a positive displacement or roots style s/c gives near instantaneous power. so that is ideal for most street cars.

a centri s/c has to get into the higher rpms b4 you cant take advantage of it. ideal for the strip.