Vortech VTS Supercharged Positive Replacement

Vortech, as any kid who's mastered the 1-2 shift can tell you, is synonymous with centrifugal superchargers. From Vortech's first day in 1991, the company offered one class of product-superchargers-and every last one of them has had a belt-driven whiz wheel whirring away inside. That's because Vortech owner Jim Middlebrook is an engineer who is passionate about efficiency, and nothing is more efficient than a centrifugal blower. Just ask Jim.

But last fall Vortech showed a Lysholm screw supercharger in its SEMA booth. Details were sparse, but the official word was Vortech would soon offer the foreign technology on Mustang applications. Well, soon is approaching, and Vortech just hosted us at its Camarillo, California, headquarters for an exclusive, detailed inspection of its screw supercharger program.

Frankly, we weren't quite sure what to expect. Vortech's screw blower could have been anything from a supplement to its existing supercharger line to a replacement technology involving massive retooling and design. As it turns out, the former is the case.

Make no mistake-Jim Middlebrook remains completely committed to the centrifugal supercharger due to its superior adiabatic (heat) efficiency, but he sees a viable market for those wanting to upgrade their Roots-type superchargers on those Fords supercharged by the factory. That means '03-'04 Cobras, '07-'10 GT500s, and Lightning pickups. Not that it concerns us, but Vortech also sees a ready market for the Lysholm on GM pickup trucks.

The Fords just mentioned are all equipped with modestly efficient, Eaton-built Roots blowers with limited hot-rodding potential. In a perfect world, Vortech would prefer moving these owners to a big centrifugal supercharger, but that exchange would involve far too much hardware. Such a swap is too expensive and time-consuming to make sense, hence the booming replacement market using screw-type superchargers.

Vortech is also definitely in favor of twin-screw superchargers rather than any version of a Roots blower. Its testing shows a major advantage to the twin-screw compressor, including the latest twin-vortices variations. Furthermore, Vortech sees no sense in cannibalizing its centrifugal blower sales with a screw supercharger. Therefore Vortech won't offer a screw blower where it already offers a centrifugal-or wherever a centrifugal makes sense. For example, Vortech will not offer its screw blower for a Mustang GT.

While Vortech has long been blessed with excellent CNC machining capabilities, it has chosen to purchase its screw superchargers direct from the originator and patent-holder of the twin-screw: Lysholm. The Swedish company is selling its 2.3- and 3.3-liter screw blowers as finished rotor and case assemblies to Vortech. In turn, Vortech has developed its own mounting and support hardware, calling the finished product the Vortech Twin Screw.

Vortech sees the screw-replacement supercharger market as a tuner's market. By that we mean Vortech is kitting its screw blowers for professional installations, not weekend installs by car owners. So the VTS kits are all Tuner Kits, in Vortech-speak.

A Tuner Kit is a supercharger kit optimized for pro installation. Because the pros have their own ideas on how to dress a blower, the Tuner Kit omits much of the hardware common in typical consumer supercharger kits. Tuners, as you'd guess, like to do their own electronic tunes, so Vortech Tuner Kits do not include any electronic tuning. There's no handheld in this carton. Likewise the fuel injectors, throttle body, induction, and such are all left to the tuner, as these items are custom selected by tuners anyway.