First Blower Build

Hi, I'm new to this site and could use some feedback. I am building my first blown alcohol setup. I am preparing to buy a blower soon. I am doing my best to cut costs so I'm going to try to buy used.

My question is about blower selection. When shopping, I often see good deals on blowers that claim they're set up for gas. Is this an issue when running methanol? If a blower is set up for gas, what would I need to do to make it work for methanol? Thanks in advance for any feedback.

 

tighter clearances when running alcohol. run an alcohol clearance blower on gas, you'll lock it up. run a gas clearance blower on alcohol, I think you'd be ok but you wont get desired performance.

 

Thanks, that helps a lot actually.
I'm just trying to get the car going. Ultimate performance isn't my primary concern at this point.

 

if I might make a suggestion, take your time and spend a few extra $'s in the beginning getting a blower that is setup for alcohol and it will save you from spending twice the amount later on. there will come a time when ultimate performance is your ONLY concern and you'll be kicking yourself for cutting corners.

good advice for your whole build as well. I thought I'd be wise buying a used short block for cheap and it ended up being junk. a $5k purchase turned into $20k to replace it. just my .02. take it for what its worth.

 

I have followed that logic on the bottom end for sure. I bought the rotating parts according to a local engine builder, and am having machine work done at a reputable shop. Thanks again for your help.

 

I would look for a DMPE/ Fowler/Littlefield 14-71 hi-helix retro with the modern size billet K-11 rotors. I don't know if the older size rotors are made anymore. Front cover bolt patterns can differ. 5 inch snout.

 

Ssi blowers provide good bang for your buck. A hi-helix d rotor is probably comparable to an old k8 littlefield or Kobelco, except it can be repaired and a k8 can't. Ssi f rotors are even better with an f3 being on par or potentially even better than most off the shelf k11s. F4 and f5 are probably comparable to an m4 or similar, but not many used ones on the market.

A good throw away blower (k8) is going to run 3-4K. I've seen d rotors go in the same range. F3s have been 5k blowers like a k11, but this looks like a screaming deal:

http://www.racingjunk.com/Blowers/1...ification=true&page=13&offset=121&from=search

 

We just Bought a used Fresh serviced F3 From SSI. Great service and help from TJ on the set up and very happy with the performance. SSI can dyno the blower for you. (maybe all the other companies can to) We just ran 4.01 at 182mph 1/8th in an Blown/RED with a pretty ugly clutch graph. There are a lot of great blowers out there, this is just what I have and it is working great for us (Much better than our old "nostalgia" Kuhl blower) Just my very small world experience. It just depends how fast you want/need to go.

 

If your looking to go even remotely fast get a 14-71 high helix if your rules allow, they are easy to re sell later and lots of good units are out there for sale for good prices. Also keep in mind blowers without shoes in the inlet are setup to run at a specific over drive range. The bigger the opening the higher the Over drive they like. Depending on how quick your looking to go or what your looking to spend Used Littlefield blowers with the Kobelco K-8, K-9, the latest K-11 rotors, or Kobelco non superman blowers can be found for $2,500-$3,500 and are great for running low 6's on a decent Conventional head big Chevy in a dragster or 5.90's-6.0s on a Hemi dragster. The K9 rotor profiles were the ones that had the cracking issues with the rotors and that was only on models that had the bigger lightening holes in the end of the rotors, SSI D rotor blowers would also fall around that price range and are good units as well. If your looking to go even quicker SSI F2,F3, and F4 units are great units off the shelf, or you can find some Kobelco Superman blowers from $4,000-$6,000 used depending on rotor series and mods. A used DMPE M4 may be around that price also but I don't know much about them. If you are looking for new blowers it's hard to beat the new SSI units if you don't want to have it modded or the $7,700 Fowler F-11 (Formerly Kobelco Superman) units then have someone like Critchley, Billes, Jannis, ect.. mod them for about $3,000. The quickest alcohol roots blower in the world is a Critchley modded F-11 Extreme that went 3.604 on Phil Esz dragster, I currently own that unit. If you really want to go nuts you can buy a $18,000-$25,000 Billet blower from Critchley, Janis, or Chuck Ford but that is only needed if you are running NHRA pro mod or something similar. If the car is a converter car I would suggest bringing the overdrive down to 40 over or lower, Clutch cars tended to like the 48-50 over the last time IHRA TAFC was around but they may have changed now. Hope that helps, Trevor Sherwood.

 

Thanks a lot for all of the feedback!