Let me start off with a disclaimer here, I don't have the money to do anything proposed, just dreaming.

As it sits my car runs heads / cam / headers and makes some 382 rwhp. It's stupid fast, but as we all know that's never fast enough. I absolutely love the LT1 but I've run out of ways to make more horsepower short of ramming air down it's throat. Now turbo's are cost prohibitive because there are no true bolt on kits. This leaves the only viable option in my mind to a Vortech Supercharger kit.

I don't like ATI for several reasons that I won't get into, but regardless of who makes the kit you run into the same problems.

The bolt on kits are all designed for low boost, maybe 6-8 pounds maximum. On an otherwise stock engine this is supposed to be fairly reliable.

My question is this.... How badly would my existing mods adversely affect the supercharger. My static compression ratio is approximately the same as it always was. With the cam though my dynamic compression will actually be less than stock. As such the more I think about it the more I think it might actually take the same boost level even a little bit better than the stocker.

Whatcha think about a blower on a stock bottom end with heads / cam?

 

I would think that if you add a blower you will want heads that flow very well... so you are not hurting here. The cam may need to be changed to better maximize the power of the blower. The idea of the blower is to force air into the combustion chamber so blower cams are designed with low lift, but high duration to better enhance the characteristics of forced induction. Other than that... you should make incredible power and be 'stupider' fast

 

The LT4 Hot Cam as such is a fairly tight duration, moderate lift. The heads flow very well. I imagine that it would be a fairly good blower cam setup but I can't prove it. If somebody would like to donate the money I would gladly give it a shot.

 

I will promise that if I win the PowerBall... every forum member will be getting blowers on me!!! I'm interested in hearing if your concept on the hotcam being a good blower cam is correct or not. I'm no expert, but I'd like to do all of the mods that you have done and also eventually add a blower... but I ain't made of $$$ either. Anyone else want to chime in???

 

well all I can say is this past summer I had a guy at a strip come up and start asking me questions. He told me he was running a blower with 10.8:1 compression. I asked him Why? He said basically the same thing as you, that is what I had, so I figured he would give it a shot. He said the car was a 355, can't remember all the specifics of it, and it ran 12.4s. Not very good, IMHO but to each his own. Said this was the second time out with the SC and he upped the boost for today. I told him he was wasting his time and was probably on borrowed time, especially as elevated boost levels.

He left, probably not wanting to hear what he just heard, but oh well. I told Dad, he will not make it past today with that setup. It did not take long to prove my point. Very next run down, he blew the motor. White smoke POURED out of the exhaust - later learned the entire motor was toast.

At the end of the day, as I have said before there are NO free lunches in this sport. If your going to do something - do it right. Take shortcuts or start off on another tangent - you might get get away cheap for the time being, but you will pay later.

Conversly corky told me about a guy he met this past weekend at the strip, running a 355 CI motor, stock steel crank, decent pistons, in a stock block. Corky said the car left so hard it was nearly instantly on the back bumper. Come to learn the guy was leaving on a 400 shot of nitrous and then an additional 200 shot once he was moving!!! Corky said the front did not touch down till the 330' mark! Ran something like mid 9s on it. He can fill in the details. But upon talking to the guy, he said he's been doing that for 2 years now with no problems. Now either he's not telling the truth ( the guy with the car) or he's one lucky SOB. At any rate, that is probably not the normal outcome of what I would call taking a shortcut.

 

A blower added to your top end setup might be a great next step if you lived at high altitude, like anywhere in Colorado. (I might move there now that I'm retiring). You would overcome the effect of thin air.

Otherwise it doesn't seem worth it unless you rebuild the block with forged internals and lower compression so you could add really big boost. Reading about other guy's cars, the LT1/4 stock bottom end motors produce poor results even if they don't blow up.

I love the setup on my supercharged Buick, but that kind of blower won't fit under the hood of a C4.

 

Well my theory is that the vortech kit on a stock LT1 produces very good results. I figure that the ported heads and cam should only amplify those results.

Naturally in an ideal situation I'd build a low compression stroker motor, the stroke would make up for the low compression and the blower would make the top end power.

I'm wondering though about reasonable boost levels. I don't need ultra hp, just about an extra 100 hp would be good.

 

SKI,

I think the biggest problem people have with forced induction is that lack of knowledge and rational thought. I watche a friend bolt a supercharger onto his 2003 Mustang and fight it forever. They didn't actually make a bolt on kit, so he used a 2002 kit. Well the fuel system was different. All he did was throw parts at the problem when all he really needed was to tune the computer.

Had he taken half the effort he put into bolting on crap he could have learned how to tune the computer and fix his problems. He eventually sold the car, with it running very poorly. I seriously have my doubts as to if that engine is running today.

IMHO if you did it right you could be OK. For example take the tune and strip most of the timing out of it and make it go VERY fat on the fuel, remember rich is safe. Then get it on they dyno with a wideband and monitor it very carefully. The instant it starts to go lean, let off and adjust the tune. Work with it until the A/F ratio is OK and then start playing with the timing, creaping up on it slowly.

I wouldn't dream to think that I could just bolt on a blower with my current tune and not blast the pistons into a million pieces, the timing is way to aggressive for that.

Stupidity and impatience is the biggest drawback when dealing with forced induction. I did have one friend however who took a logical approach and worked slowly and carefully on his Mustang. That car made stupid power and was very reliable.

 

I just pulled my engine out and tore it apart this weekend. I was running 6 pounds (on a good day) of intercooled Procharger boost on a stock bottom end with the Hot Cam kit and some mildly ported heads. The engine still ran beautifully and was spooky fast, but blew oil out of every seal and blew smoke out the breathers like a train. I pulled the heads and looked at the cylinders and they still showed crosshatching. I got all but the last piston out and had yet to find anything wrong. I was wiping oil off the last piston and the ring land between the compression rings came out with the rings. I looked at the other pistons carefully and found the same thing on two more. Other than that, the pistons were in perfect shape. The rings kept the chunks of pistons in place so the block wasn't hurt. I haven't heard of this happening to anyone else here on the forum, maybe it's just my luck. I still don't regret the Procharger, though, it was alot of fun right up until the time it blew up.

I kinda wondered what might happen when I put boost on top of high compression, now I know. It gave me an excuse to build a 383 with forged internals and 9:1 instead of 10.5, but I sure could have used that money someplace else.

 

Hmm... not nice. Any idea what kind of HP it made before it blew?

 

Well, the theory is that lower static compression lets you add a LOT of boost. Like more than 20psi. That's where the big power comes from.

The LT1 is already a fairly high compression engine at 10.6 on pump gas, with pistons that are not built to take more than a static setup. Which is why so many blow up.

 

Sounds to me like nitrous is the way to go. Definitely has the most bang for your buck (maybe quite literally if you get carried away). So short of a stroker or forced induction, nitrous is looking like your most viable option. Of course, that depends on how important it is to you for the power to always be there.

 

It is extremely important to me that the power be there all the time. I drive my car on the street 99.99% of the time so nitrous isn't gonna cut it. The only thing I want to have to fill on my car on a regular basis is the gas tank. Otherwise I just want to be able to punch the throttle and go for it.

If I'm getting on the interstate and I need to beat that semi, I don't need to open my bottle, turn on the heater, purge it, blah, blah, blah.

Nitrous is great horsepower for the track, but not at all practical for street use.

 

Before I put the shelled out the big bucks, I talked to a guy that put the kit on his car and he claimed 420 HP to the rear on an otherwise stock 96 after bolting it on. I never dynoed mine, but I don't think that figure was out of line from my butt-o-meter. It was stout, but I don't know how stout for sure, and I know there was more left in it that a good tuner could have gotten out of it for me. I'm planning on having Jesse help me dial in the 383 when I get it in the car. With all the chips he's burned for folks here, I'm sure he can get me close.

 

i run nos and i run on the street 99% of the time also. the fact is you really dont need more rwhp than you have most of the time. so basiclly what i did was get myself a $99 filling station and i fill my own. i may go threw 1 bottle a week unless i go to the track.
the way i see it you have 2 options
1) throw on a 125hp nos kit and get a fill station. about $700 total
2) either rebuild your short block and reduce you comp ratio to 8.75/1 by changing pistons. or change heads to get 8.75/1 comp ratio. either way you go your looking at around 5k...with blower..
running a blower on a 10/1 + engine like ski said is just a waste of time and money not to mention a time bomb.

i have around the same hp as you and with a totaly stock bottom end and 11/1 cr i run a 150 wet shot. i monitor very closely after each bottle i go threw and ive seen no signs of anything unusual.. i also have a innovate afr meter to watch my afr very closly. i shoot for 11.5/1 with the spray.

the bottom line... how often do you need 500rwhp on the street. yes i know what your saying about wanting it there all the time but at what cost. not including the cost of tickets.
when you have your own filling station you basicly hold you hand on the button all the time.

good luck with your decision

 

Whatever works for ya, it's not for me though. Eventually the bottle runs out.

 

Ya know, Banks is making twin turbos that bolt up real easy (relitivley) and have effectivley dealt with turbo lag.

http://www.bankspower.com/twin-turbo-products.cfm

This would be MY preference, ahhh maybe someday.

 

Nathan, I have done exactly what you are talking about on a friends 95 F Body LT1. He has ported LT4 heads which flow 262cfm@.550 lift, LT4 intake ported by Pete at CNC heads, and the hot cam and a stock shortblock. He dynoed 362 rwhp and 351 rwtq just on motor. Then I put a Vortech S trim, intercooled with 6 lbs boost. It then made 478 rwhp and 420 rwtq. He also sprays a 75 shot of nitrous at it, on top of that. We can get away with the high compression up here, (DA 6000-8500 ft) so you may have some problems at sealevel, but the combination makes alot of power. The tuning also is dialed in real well. He has been running this thing hard for 3 years and it hasn't blown up.

 

damn. that kit is a ****ing jigsaw puzzle.

They don't show if it's available for the LT1 tho...

 

The more general question is how strong is the bottom end...whether the power comes from supercharger, nitrous, wild cam, or whatever..

I think a supercharger could work on your engine with proper engine management & intercooler.....if done right wouldn't screw up driveability....would certainly push you way over 400rwhp

Your point that a supercharger is always there....very easy to use....means you stress engine more frequently so...

I like the idea of supercharging, but kind of pricey....

Have you consider other ways of getting hp to the ground.....aluminum flywheel, lighter damper, lighter wheels, lighter driveshaft, and jeez I have to say it..58mm tb....