OK, I knew this day was coming sooner or later. I now have 147K miles on my supercharged 351W and I think a cylinder is going out. So, sooner or later, I will need to rebuild. I have never opened dug into the engine or tranny aside from replacing the valve covers. Everything that has been added has been external (headers, supercharver, ignotion components, etc.).

I have a 92 F150, 4x4.

I am fairly confident (mechanicallY) I can rebuild the engine but I need to know things like what to put in this thing to make it a beast. I don't know what size intake manifold to use, what size cam to use, what size torque converter to use, etc.

I need to learn and that is what I am asking for help on. Can anyone give me any advice for me starting to research this? I need it to be comprehensive so I know how to make the best part selection. I need to learn what the important parts do and how to determine what my limitations are.

Thanks.

Joe.

 

First you need to decide what your goal is...

Decide where you want to be, then learn how to get there.

I'm assuming you'd want to keep the supercharger in effect...

Are you racing...concerns for top hp...or just a truck with some good power...define your goal, specifically.

 

I certainly don't want to go ***** out, I mean it would be nice but that just isn't me (a complete show off). I want something to make things fun but I like to keep things conservative. As an example: I don't show off my truck to everyone, I don't challenge everone to a race...what I do like is to use the power when I want...when I want to show off (which isn't very often) but when I do I like to know that I can.

I guess middle of the road would satisfy me but like I said: I want to learn about the components enough to make the decision that will suit me.

Can't answer your questions with a word or phrase so I hope this helps you to help me

 

I meant, more specifically...what do you want...maybe this will help...

250hp? 300hp? 350? 400+? what level are you looking at? What about torque levels? Keep your drivetrain in mind when thinking of these figures...

Daily driver?

Octane gas? You willing to run 93?

Going to use the supercharger? What psi? What type of supercharger is it? Twin screw/centrifugal? You've gotta build the motor with that in consideration...

Operating RPM range? redline RPM?

Prefered powerband...low - mid - high? I'd assume midrange power...where do you want your tq peak to be?

Building a S/C motor is a little different than building an N/A motor...lotta homework to do to build a well matched combo.

 

From what I have read, heads and camshafts can make a little bit of difference, but not much when a blower is used, since you are forcing the air into the engine. A simple pulley ratio change or however you raise the boost for your setup will give you instant power increases.

What you need to do is make the engine live. You will need forged pistons and possibly get some with more of a dish to them to lower the compression ratio if you are going to turn up the boost. Stronger rods and rod bolts, and some very good head gaskets. I don't know if you need to o-ring the block or not. There are some books out there on supercharging, and they can give you some guidelines as to how strong you need the engine with the boost number you want to run.

 

I think what I need to do is learn about the options first before I can answer these.

I know what you mean by the questions here (that is to say I understand everything technically) but I don't know the answers.

I assume I am running a little below 300 HP and about that much torque. Don't know about the red line. It is a vortech (centrifugal).

Aside from that I would need to learn more to answer. I would need to know what difference a larger intake manifold would make to answer you, I would need to know what kind of difference a larger cam would make to answer you.

I think I have some time but starting this process (since it is new for me) is good now. I am hoping by the time I need to do this we don't have smog check anymore.

One thing I also need to think about: I am at 6500 feet above sea leve.

Joe.

 

I certainly had thought of using better-than-stock parts, mainly because I know a supercharger is a little harder on the motor. I don't want to rebuild too often but would be cool to change things up every couple of years, if $$ permits. Not saying I want to make that my goal but if that happened I wouldn't be upset.

Thanks.

Joe.

 

Just thought about this:

One of the other things I need to know is what blocks I can use for my model year, I am leaning towards getting a larger displacement...really just depends on how much trouble it would be.

Joe.

 

This I don't understand...the options are virtually endless, you just need to establish what you want the motor to do and behave like...

Don't focus on trying to learn what each part will do...theres thousands of parts out there...

Spend time trying to figure out what you want the engine to behave like. Look at dyno graphs of engine's outputs and make comparisons...

I'd assume you want a daily driver type motor, so it needs to have a steady idle, and good low-mid range power. Probably redline RPM of 5500, no more than 6000.

I'd say stick with a 351ci...but you could go stroker and up to 427ci on that block. Since you've got a S/C, the 351 is probably a good place to be.

You'll want forged pistons, good rings, cast crank is fine (don't need forged), and some good rods with ARP bolts. Stock oil system would be adequate or you could go HV if you want. Get pistons meant for a supercharger, you want your compression at a level depended on how much boost you're going to run. How much boost are you going to run, 6psi...9psi? What's it at now, 5-6?

You'll typically build the engine to make good low-mid range RPM power, where the centrifugal chips in at the higher RPM, giving you a very broad powerband (the plus with a supercharger!).

By the way, don't forget you can edit posts within 1 hour to add/change information, rather than making multiple posts.

 

OK that'll work. I will take the approach of what I want the engine to do for me.

Where is a good place for this information? Are new book up to date enough or are there some good internet resources?

I am not sure what boost I am running now...all I did was bolt things on and go. I knew it was fast and powerful enough for me so I never really bothered to have it put on a dyno.

So far what I am reading here in the forum is helping...information about the pistons, block, bolts, etc. is part of what I was lookng for.

Thanks,

Joe.

 

http://www.motorhaven.com/home.php

Check out some of the manuals and books they have here. They're current.

Hang out in the supercharger forum we have here...

Most likely you're running 5-6psi on that vortech. That is good for about 70-100 hp give or take, a 9psi is about 150hp. So on a 200hp motor you'd see around 300hp. The psi is determined by what size pulley you use on the supercharger. You may want to consider building the engine capable of handling the 9psi (not hard) or more psi, and having the option of switching pulleys...

Say you run the 6psi pulley around town and go to the track and wish to bump the power, switch to the 9psi pulley before you go and get another 50-60 hp out of it....

It sounds to me like you're trying to setup a pretty mild motor. I think around 300-350hp would be about right for ya...which isn't going to take much.

Blown 351's with the right setup, can easily make over 600-700hp

They make aftermarket 351 blocks, and all kinds of parts to make some serious power out of them.

Sounds like a 351, with the right internals, some aftermarket aluminum heads (mild, not very high flowing, just better than the stockers), would be a good choice. The smaller heads will keep the base power down in RPM, and leave it up to the supercharger to make power at high rpm.

I chose the 393ci 351 stroker and kept it N/A. I'm not a big supercharger guy...don't care for the whine and prefer N/A power.