Question for Roe SC Owners / Prospective Buyers

[varanus]

I considered that before getting the sc. At the time no one was getting over 550rwhp with heads, camshaft, & possibly upgraded fuel system. and I was looking for 600rwhp. One guy put out about 530 to 550 but the cost was over $7,000. Not to mention it wasn't smog legal.
The roe sc isn't either so far, but if it comes to push and shove to get the car back to passable conditions, I think the labor would be expensive to changing back to stock heads & cam vs yanking off the blower.
The other thing is to do it that way you would need a stock set of heads and another set that was worked, so the cost would definitely run over $7,000.
Try calling apex as I thought they had a package that was NA that passed emmisions. Although I think the conversion might be closer to $15,000.

 

[RedSnakeGTS]

yeah but 15k is installed i believe.....not too bad of a deal if you ask me

 

[Cudaman]

Fuelman ran 11.1 at V-10 nationals with no BUGS and all most stock motor.... only 2 mods is cat-back and 1.7T&D roller rockers, stock headers, stock throttlebodies. He has not dyno yet so he doesn't know whp yet. Larry @ M2 in Orlando was the bug remover. It is not that expensive to remove bugs and drive with NO codes.... but Larry is a bussiness man like you and me, so do not call him and ask him for FREE advise. He is very fair and resonable in his pricing. I also run with no codes , no hicups, nobugs in a modified engine and S/C.
Cudaman

 

[Sean Roe]

I was told by a long time engine builder many years ago "Horsepower sells motors, but torque wins races". One of the biggest reasons we used a positive displacement Supercharger is because it has such a strong and flat torque curve. A head / cam engine may make near the same peak HP, but most of our kits pickup 150 200 ft/lbs of torque in the low end and midrange, where you can use it all day. Regarding bugs, we now spray Terminix on each box and our tech calls have dropped 90%

Sean

 

[lleone]

Regarding bugs, we now spray Terminix on each box and our tech calls have dropped 90%

Sean

Chuckle, chuckle, snort...

 

[SUN RA KAT]

The bugs are almost gone and soon will be. The power curve of the Roe Supercharger - gobs of torque down low and gobs of horsepower up high due to the twin screw supercharger - isn't going to be duplicated by a heads & cam package.

I drive in the real world where I use low & mid RPMs a whole lot more than high RPMs and that is where the Roe system is perfect for me. Even in the unreal world of Viper Days I never went full throttle and the torque was so great that I never shifted out of 4th gear on the track and it could still easily pull with the rest of the Vipers there that were running through all the gears and using full throttle. Only 1/2 throttle and 150 MPH @ 6,000 RPM slightly more than 1/3 of the way down the long straightaway at Mid Ohio Sports Car Course - I promised that I would take it easy at Viper Days since I was the rookiest of rookies (most everyone there passed me as I was learning how to run the course slowly, but even slow learners finally get it and I started to run at non-embarrassing speeds and got real consistant - 5 laps within 2 seconds of each other in a row). Most of the time I was taking it real easy and only hitting 100-120 MPH in the long straightaway, but I did a few 150 MPH runs just to have experienced it. If I were more experienced (and had a roll bar & 5 points), I could have easily shifted gears and gotten to 180-200 MPH in the long straightaway and still have had enough track left to easily slow down enough to make the hard right hand corner at the end.

Getting back to the real world of street driving, my Viper drives better than it ever did, even in stop-and-go traffic.

Even with the bugs I've had, I'd still go with the Roe Supercharger.

But think about a heads & cam package for the Roe Supercharger...

 

[fuelman]

Bugs seem to be gone now, but they were never bad. I have stock manifolds, Corsa Catback, T&Ds, and the Roe 5 Lb Supercharger. It has been 93 F all week here in Florida, I have driven the car to work every day. No lights, no detonation, it just hauls ass and that is with the air on. Torque does win races, this is the exact information from one of my last runs at V-10 nationals:

3:19 PM (Hottest part of the day)

60' 1.661
330 4.723
1/8 7.227
MPH 101.13
1000 9.354
1/4 11.13
MPH 126.77

I had a lot of wheel spin on this run. I was running drag radials.
I think if we had been able to shake the car down more on Friday (less rain) I could have touched the high 10s in the morning on Saturday when the air was much cooler. Buy what makes you happy, but this Roe kit offers a lot of bang for the buck.

 

[fuelman]

Jim,

I know Larry Macedo has some nice head and Cam packages, as well as stroker kits, or he can tune in your super charger or turbo kits. Larry is a well rounded tuner. I know he is building a turbo car now that I think is going to be one mean machine.

 

[VIPR GTS]

I really like my Roe SC and I think any high HP modifications will have some computer glitches to overcome, it is not at all upsetting or unexpected. What I don't understand is why my car at 1/2 throttle is only pulling in the mid 3000 rpm range and I know is no where near 150 mph at half throttle in fourth gear. Kenny, what else are you
running there? I know, yellow is faster.

 

[Paolo Castellano]

I have read some of the posts in the Roe SC discussion forum. Sounds like the bottom line is that everyone likes the power gains (550 - 600 rw hp depending on other mods). But it sounds like most Roe SC owners have some sort of bugs to work out. Most seem content with the bugs as long as the car runs good most the time and makes great power. Others dont seem as content. Either way, seems like most agree that the kit itself is a very nice system.

You spent $7k for the blower kit and another sum to install it and an additional sum of money and time to tinker/tune it, for the gain in power up to 550-600 rw hp.

If there were an alternative kit consisting of hi-flow cylinder heads and a camshaft that gave the same final power output of 550-600 rw hp and had no negative side effects and cost less than $7k for the parts, would this be something that you would consider buying over the SC?

Thanks for your feedback.

Jim

Jim, are you sure your initials are not J.H.? I would not be surprised at all if this was true. I think it is unethical for you to take a shot at Sean while at the same time trying to test the market for your product you used to charge 35K for a few years back. If there is anything you should try to take from Sean would be a good lesson in delivering what you promise along with the some of the best customer service in the Viper business. If you did this for your entire Viper tuning history, you could even post here under your real name......Imagine that!

 

[SUN RA KAT]

VIPR GTS -

I was running 100 octane unleaded Sunoco race gasoline ($4.75/gal.) and my VEC2 100 octane programming card. BIG increase in power. Being Yellow probably helped, but I think most of the credit goes to the VEC2 being able to adapt to different gasolines.

BTW - This was with the original VEC2 - I now have the new, improved version VEC2 installed and it runs a whole lot more powerfull than the original VEC2.

 

[onerareviper]

VIPR GTS,

Do you have stock TB's or 70mm? From my understanding, the 70mm add a little more HP (Overall), but feed a lot more air at lighter pedal pressure. All this means is the 'pedal push' to 'power ratio' changes. If memory serves, this info. came directly from Sean. Basically, Kenny is probably getting much more than 50% of his total power at 1/2 pedal, were as you are only getting half if your using stock TB's.

 

[onerareviper]

Jim Stark,

Are you a Viper owner? Tuner? Inquiring minds want to know.... After reading some of your previous post, it is hard to tell.....

Later

 

[1TONY1]

VIPR GTS -
BTW - This was with the original VEC2 - I now have the new, improved version VEC2 installed and it runs a whole lot more powerfull than the original VEC2.

The only thing I can figure out is that Kenny must be on Sean's payroll. The above statement is not even close to being the truth and the system is not golden or magical like Kenny represents it. I don't want to hurt feelings but "give me a break". Some of us that continue to have problems get tired of hearing it.

 

[SUN RA KAT]

1TONY1 -

I'm still waiting on my 1st paycheck from Sean. I'm sorry that you're continuing to have problems. I am fortunate in that my problems are minor ones. Every Viper is different - some Vipers ran great with just the original supercharger, mine needed a lot of computer adjustments which the VEC2 solved and now my problems seem to be with mechanical items like fuel injector fasteners not making perfect contact - and some Vipers have a lot more issues. When I went to Woodhouse to pick up my Viper there was another brand new 2002 Yellow Viper GTS near my car and the hood did not fit nearly as well as the hood on my Viper - hand built cars are not all the same.

When the Roe Supercharger came out at a price thousands of dollars less than the other tuners' supercharger systems I didn't think that the other tuners were "overcharging" by thousands of dollars and I didn't think that the Roe Supercharger wouldn't need tweaking to be perfect on every Viper it was installed on. Sean has come through with fixes for practically every problem in a timely fashion. Almost every Viper that has the Roe S/C on it has different mods - different brands of headers, cats, cat backs, etc. - and each affects the total system differently - and each system will need different tweaking.

I asked Sean about the very easily noticed increase of power when I got the new version of the VEC2 -

On Thu, 01 May 2003 16:07:30 -0400 [email protected] writes:
Hi Sean!

Thanks for the quick turnaround on the new, improved VEC2.

My car starts about twice as fast as it did before. After a few
rough running miles the PCM learned how to drive with the VEC2 and
everything smoothed out. It feels even smoother running than before.

Is it possible that I now have more power than I had before? It
feels friskier and the temperatures are about 20 degrees warmer
today than the friskiness I experienced on the day I'm comparing
today with. And I'm running 93 octane today and on the cooler day I
was running 94 octane.

No engine check lights and no momentary cut offs experienced with
the new VEC2. Thanks again for building a great system!

Now, is it possible I have more Roe Power?

- Ken

and here is the answer I got -

Hi Ken,
We made a few minor changes to the fuel and timing curves based on some
recent findings on the dyno and street.
I didn't tell anybody that we were taking the opportunity to make some
improvements at the same time the firmware version upgrade was occurring.
Glad to hear you noticed
Regards,
Sean

 

[1TONY1]

My point is you, by your own admission can't or don't ???? hardly ever use full throttle so......why bother. Every little change and the way you express it you are picking up 50 horsepower. Your must have an increase of 400 rwhp by now. When you say "a whole lot more powerful" what do you mean ? If I said that I would mean more than 3/10 or better et. meaning 30+ hp. and that would be at the bottom end. You are feeling this based on half throttle now and dirty salty roads in your past posts/increases ?

 

[BlueGTS]

Tony,
Are you saying you would not purchase the kit if had to do over again? I personally think that everyone that got the first run of SC’s took a bit of a risk. The chance for bugs was high and from what you have said he had more than your share. With that said, would you do it again? If not what would you recommend?

 

[SUN RA KAT]

1TONY1 -

I don't think that I am "picking up 50 horsepower" with every little change. I am sorry that I don't have the money to go to a dyno every time there's a change on my Viper. I am feeling changes in the way it drives, and if the change is easily noticable to me I say it is an easily noticable change. How much of a change in power does it take to easily feel it? I've heard that 3% is the minimum change that can be felt, so the increase is about 10 rwHP if the change is noticable where my Viper had previously made 300 rwHP, or close to 20 rwHP where my Viper was making 580 rwHP. I mean by "a whole lot more powerful" that the change is easily felt - what % change does it takes to be easily felt? 3%? 4%? 5%? 6%? More?

It's true that I rarely use full throttle - living in Ohio with overcrowded roads where traffic is heavy most of the time has its drawbacks. Also, Ohio has an overabundance of police looking for speeders - I only can use full throttle for very short periods of time before I would get a speeding ticket for being over double the speed limit. Or running into the rear end of cars ahead of me.

I only report what I feel and/or experience, except for the 2 times where I got actual dyno charts, SAE corrected. Next March I plan on going to the dyno and will post actual SAE corrected numbers and we can all see how much better my Viper runs by then.

BTW - Until ALL the Roe Supercharger issues, as minor as they may be for me, are completely fixed, I will not run my Viper extremely hard, say like full throttle on a drag strip for obvious reasons.

BTW#2 - Congrats on your super drag run (1996 GTS Venom 500 Roe supercharger 10.48 @ 137). I trust that you weren't having any problems with your Roe Supercharger when you ran it.

 

[fuelman]

Tony,

Sorry you are having problems. It was good to meet you and race you at the V-10 nationals. In reading your dialog with Sun Kat, I thought I might jump in. I counted my time slips from the V-10 nationals. I made six runs on Friday due to the rain and eight runs on Saturday, all were full throttle gear to gear and all were in the 11s to low 11s, except for once where I missed third gear. On Saturday Macedo did the final tuning on my VEC2 and I stayed in the low 11's all day. This was late in the day so the outside temp was increasing and many of the runs were back to back as well. The Roe kit seems to hold up well, my car is a cream puff with just a few mods. I hope you'll be able to get your bugs worked out. I am not on the Roe payroll, but if Sean wants to send me a check I'll take it.

 

[2MANYTOYS]

Does Macedo know something everyone else don't? The cars he's been working on seem to run very well.

 

[1TONY1]

Tony,

Sorry you are having problems. It was good to meet you and race you at the V-10 nationals. In reading your dialog with Sun Kat, I thought I might jump in. I counted my time slips from the V-10 nationals. I made six runs on Friday due to the rain and eight runs on Saturday, all were full throttle gear to gear and all were in the 11s to low 11s, except for once where I missed third gear. On Saturday Macedo did the final tuning on my VEC2 and I stayed in the low 11's all day. This was late in the day so the outside temp was increasing and many of the runs were back to back as well. The Roe kit seems to hold up well, my car is a cream puff with just a few mods. I hope you'll be able to get your bugs worked out. I am not on the Roe payroll, but if Sean wants to send me a check I'll take it.

Maybe I was misunderstood.....My post was not meant to be about any problems I may or MAY NOT have. Its just that I am tired of the cheerleading for EVERY little thing. I would have been tired of it if it was cheerleading for Khumo tires. I doubt that anybody here except for Sean has beat on and worked on one single Roe s/c car more then me. Now over to Cudamans post to piss everybody else off

 

[Newport Viper]

waiting on gen 1 sc..................