Turbo or Supercharger?

[Touring E36]

I am having trouble deciding if I should have a turbo custom fitted onto my car or should I buy a Downing Atlanta supercharger. Has anyone had any experience with DA superchargers for 4 cyl Bimmers? They are advertised for $3,400, I live down the road from GSM Motoren and they told me if it were them they would turbo charge the car. They said they could do it with everything at some where between 4 and 5 thousand. My car is automatic and I was told to switch it over to a manual to optimize the performance of forced induction. As much as I would like to I'm not made of money. I think the supercharger would optimize the automatic better with its lower end torque but I'm not sure. Anybody got a suggestion?

[m3racer36]

wow zack looks like you are in the same boat as me i want boost also but no one seems to be able to give me a reasonable price so im selling my m and going toget a supra

[Privatestreet]

man - you are in wilmington and are selling your M. what year/mileage and $$$? im definatly in the market for an M.

[m3racer36]

word its a 98 61k miles make me an offer book value is 28k without options dont believe in adding price on for options i g=have all the stock parts to just make me an offer i have a guy whos looking at it monday too and i havent put it up for sale yet either

[JimmyDoanV2.0]

back on topic..

I love the supercharger, I used to have one on my 95 M3 and its great..A turbo maybe better for ur 318, but u would have a lot of lag, and with an automatic, thats all bad...I say supercharge it, even though its an auto, it will make it a LOT quicker, 318's are slow and the only way to make them REALLY fast is to go with forced induction...

[Touring E36]

Yeah the supercharger is looking better and better all the time. More torque at 2000 rpm than the car has anywhere in the power curve without it, plus less to go wrong and less heat. Sorry to hear you are selling your M. I like 3rd gen RX7 if you are going the Japan route. They're amazing if you have the commitment. One of my friends has one, close to 500 hp at the wheels , 2800 lbs, that car is sick.

[m3racer36]

yeh i like the rx7s not reliable enough for me though im going for a supra you shouldnt go forced induction and just buy my car haha plenty of raw power haha i think turbo is more fun personally but the power will always be there no matter when you hit the gas with a blower

[JimmyDoanV2.0]

Originally posted by m3racer36
but the power will always be there no matter when you hit the gas with a blower

exactly, thats why a supercharger might be better on an automatic car...

[m3racer36]

see what gsm is charging for their blower i saw there kit for their 325 it was impressive especially the numbers it was making

[m3racer36]

its going to be hard to make over 200 at the wheels i think dinans kit is impressive i saw a guys z3 with one up at eurospeed it was pretty nice

[ebdy]

m3racer36, you are making a very wise choice, to switch to the Supra from the M. I think the Supra is a better car overall. You can attain SOOO much power out of it for cheap. The damn turbo for the M costs $11,000 for 435 HP. Not worth it in my opinion.