hi, i was looking in my Tri Ad, and came across an old SSE Bonneville Supercharger for 400 bucks, then i got thinkin, wouldnt it be a wicked idea to supercharge my old F150? yes i have read the turbo information thread, and was amazed by how u can turbocharge an inline 6. call me crazy, but i was just thinking about how you can make up a bracket to mount the supercharger and just run it off an accessory belt, or run a seperate pulley for it, and run your own tubing for the boost. i dunno how this would work, but can i get ur opinions on this?

 

sounds like it might work, tell m ehow it turns out

 

ya well im not getting much support from you guys on this haha, i would love to try it but i know my fuel milage will suffer and possibly my motor might suffer too...

 

You would be embarking on a very complicated project to supercharge a 300.

It has been done; but, I am not sure they got the return on their investment they had hoped for?

 

ya well i was thinking that the supercharger, instead of a turbo, would make more low end power and torque, what the inline six is good for anyways, and i was thinking that it wouldnt be a very expensive project because of the price of the supercharger, but the it will be the labour that counts for it, im seriously thinking about doing this as i called the guy about the supercharger, its it good condition and i talked him down to 300, so i will have to see what happens, i will probobly start this project in a couple of weeks

 

I was thinking of this same idea over the summer while I worked at Vortech. The more I thought about it made sense that I'd have to swap my '79 over to a serpentine belt system. The blower could be mounted where the ac would sit. You'd have to fab a plate to bolt to? and some carefully machined standoffs. You'll still need a blow off valve and possibly fuel management upgrades. The more I thought about it I decided to stick with my original plan of building a turbocharged motor. Hats off to you if you do the mod. it would be cool. Just makesure the trim/volute and pully are matched well enought that you don't do harm to your motor.

 

ya, thats what i need to figure out, to make sure i dont detonate my motor and screw it up, what about trying it with a carbed truck? you would think it would be easier than efi, because u gotta reprogram the ecu, and bigger injectors and what not. with a carb, you could probobly get away with just putting bigger jets in and adjusting the air fuel mixture. but i dunno, i still gotta do some research into this before i start making anything

 

Seems to me it would be easier on an EFI setup to let the sensors do the legwork on how much fuel you need in the mix.

Hope it works

 

Actually, the efi sensors are about useless in this scenario as they do not read boost. You'd end up tricking the fuel delivery with a FMU of some sort to keep them happy. The only real sensor of concern would be the map sensor, which cannot read boost, well the stock ford map cannot read boost.

Taking care of the fuel delivery whether efi or carbed is a no brainer, just call any reputable company and they will have something to offer.

The hard part is fabrication. Sure a supercharger would net you low rpm TQ by its nature but so would a well matched turbo. Advantage would go to the turbo for ease of installation. Fabricating brackets and adapter flanges for the supercharger seems like too much trouble, as compared to laying out some piping.

As far as tuning the speed density system, the advantage would go to the supercharger, as its power is predictable aka linear, as opposed to the turbo. If you have a carb setup, run what you like.

IMO, if you have efi, get a supercharger kit for a speed density 302, then its a matter of fabricating the bracket, the other bag of tricks you'd get, you can use for the fuel delivery.

A little inspiration for a carbed setup, go to the gallery and look for one titled "matt's 67 pro street".

Good luck with whatever you decide

 

I think a properly sized turbo would work better on a 300 than a S/C. If sized properly the turbo would spool quickly in the lower rpms, while the S/C relys on higher rpms to make power. You could change the pulley on a S/C to spin higher at lower rpms, but you take the chance of overdriving it into oblivion.
A turbo also requires less hp to run than a S/C. I believe that for every 100 hp a S/C makes, itself consumes 30 hp.
If you have a carb you will also need to have it modified, as well as your ignition recurved. If running a turbo or a S/C on a stocker, I wouldn't push boost pass 5-6 psi.

 

I checked out that gallery you referred to Motorhead351. That is a sweet setup.
Looks like a draw thru setup to me.

 

Ive seen those pics once or twice. He's got a bell s/c on it i think. Theres always been talk about using a eaton m90 of a t-bird. A roots type I think...? It seems if you had the extra engine and the extra s/c lying around to try, but thats a lot of money to "try" a s/c. It can be done, i would think how the pic abov would be the easiest way to set one up.

 

I would disagree here. Having the knock sensor is imperative to getting the most out of your forced induction, be it turbo or supercharger. It is possible to supercharge successfully without computer control, but a computer controlled setup is ALWAYS better with forced induction and pump gas.

The problem is preignition. Increasing boost has the same effect as increasing compression ratio in that they both cause the fuel/air mix to reach much much higher temperatures during the compression stroke. Avoiding auto-ignition temperatures is very difficult with pump gas. If you do not have a knock sensor, you will have to retard your timing to avoid preignition.

With computer controlled ignition and a knock sensor, the computer will continuously push the timing advance up and up until it detects a knock, at which point it will retard the timing a bit, then it starts the advancing again. It keeps doing this several times a second assuring that you are running as much advance as you can at all times without preignition.

This was the primary reason that the 301 Trans Am turbo setup made lousy power. The engine compression was so low and timing had to be retarded so much to avoid preignition, that it negated all benefit of even having the turbo present. You look at the rice grinders out there with their tiny displacement engines making big horsepower and wonder, "How does 301 cubic inches of turbocharged engines run so poorly?" ANSWER: no computer control with knock sensor present...

There's a highly tunable ECM made by Haltech which can be retrofitted onto nearly ANY engine of 4,5,6,8, or 10 cylinders called the E11. You can find it and other useful information for forced induction and EFI retrofits at www.force-efi.com. It's pricy, but extremely tunable,, and does allow you to use multiple different map sensors that ARE capable of reading boost.

The supercharger you are talking about is a screw type charger like the Whipple brand superchargers. This is an excellent choice for 2 reasons. First they make nearly constant boost from just off idle throughout the entire power band. Second, they produce the most boost with the least amount of heat added to your air charge. If you're considering going the carbed boost route, I would strongly consider an intercooler as well. This will minimize the negative effects of charge heating that I was speaking of above.

Also keep in mind that a different cam grind will be necessary to fully take advantage of a supercharged setup, computer controlled or not.

 

IMO, if you can't get the other components inline, the knock sensor is useless like the stock map. Albeit a nice addition once thats been done.

a cost effective efi retrofit system http://www.bgsoflex.com/megasquirt.html

Forced induction and non carb applications can work very well.

If I remember correctly the pontiac 301, turbocharged or otherwise wasn't a desirable engine.

 

Actually, positive displacement superchargers like the Roots style blowers as well as the twin screw type blowers from companies like Kenne Bell, Magnacharger and others who use the Eaton design don't require a lot of RPM to create boost. They pretty much manage to create boost from just above an idle Only centrifugal superchargers like the Paxtons need to run at higher RPMs to build full boost, and if properly sized and set up even those do a pretty darn job.

Good advice.