Will a supercharger hurt the longevety of the motor?
Several threads have talked about more maintenence and other problems related to superchargers. What are they?
I have been told a cam/intake mod is a better way to go.
I have a O6 Z51 A6 am very happy now but will want more HP just in case some WRX/Hemi/Mustang/Camaro or other idiot tries to eat this vette. Any information would be appreciated. Thanks

 

Not sure how it relates to a C6 Corvette, but I have a vortech supercharger on my '99 F-150. I haven't had any serious problems related with the supercharger. I have had a few minor headaches, though - the pulley's wear out fairly often and have to be replaced, and my supercharger eats through belts like nobody's business (but that's only because the people at Vortech are retards and put together a system w/ a 6-groove belt when all superchargers should have at least 8-groove). But I've got about 60k miles on an almost 7 year old truck with no serious longevity related issues.

That said, I probably won't have an aftermarket supercharger on any of my cars ever again. Too many small headache related issues, and it's just not worth voiding the warranty IMO.

 

Yes, of course a supercharger will reduce the longevity of the motor. It is like a person with high blood pressure, the light may burn brighter, but it won't last as long.

Now, just stand by for some lunkhead to say "It's all about the tune".

John

 

It's all about the tune... haha.

I've got a Supercharged 98 TransAm. It's been supercharged for about 2 years. What it all comes down to is your driving style, if your not whaling on it all the time it gonna last longer no matter if you do supercharger or heads/cam. As for your "heads/cam vs. supercharger" question I would suggest you take a closer look at what you want. If you want a street car with good manners then the supercharger is what you want, if you want a stree/strip car and aren't concerned with drivability/noise then heads and cam are your best bet. Both will add wear over a stock motors parts because they are both acheiving the same thing, "more horsepower". But my point of view is, if you want the power don't worry about the extra wear or reduced life, you gotta pay to play. you could always do it the right way and build the entire motor for your specific choice I'll tell yout this I don't regret dropping the money on the supercharger, it's such a cool feeling to hit the pedal and fell the car pull and pull and pull and pull. I may do turbos on my next car...

 

Justin's answer is a good one. No matter how you make more power, you put more strain on the engine, and that means it will wear out/fail sooner than if you left it stock. But there are some differences depending on how you make the extra power.

Heads/cam require you to rev higher to make more power, ie to take advantage of the better breathing. Now dynamic stress due to rotational inertia on rods, crank, etc is proportional to the 4th power of RPM. So you don't have to increase peak hp RPM very much before engine stresses reach the breaking point, rods stretch and break, bearings fail, etc. Valve springs take a beating too.

A blower, particularly a roots blower, improves breathing at lower RPM, so you don't have to spin the engine as high to make the same power. But dynamic pressure is higher, you're much more vulnerable to detonation when you supercharge. So instead of flying apart from rotational inertia loads, the engine is more likely to break a piston (and ours are cast). The high static compression ratio of our engines makes them very touchy when supercharged. Your tune has to be perfect, and your gas had better be perfect too.

Nitrous behaves much like a supercharger in that it raises dynamic pressure, but it does so independent of RPM. You can get in big trouble in a hurry if you spray at too low an RPM. If you spray below about 3500 RPM, its like running a blower with too much boost. Spray above 3500, and the situation is much less extreme. (There's a complex explanation for why 3500 RPM is a "magic" number in these engines, but I won't go into that now.)

If power greed doesn't get you, ie you can restrain yourself to a reasonable size shot, nitrous is the easiest on the engine way to make extra power. There are no parasitic loads on the engine. The engine can stay in a reasonable RPM range. And the engine runs pure stock when you aren't spraying, no extra wear and tear except when you are actually spraying. It is the cheapest to install too. The only downside is that it is so much fun you'll always be going back to the nitrous fill station for another "fix". That can get expensive after a while.

 

Any experience with ProCharger on a C6? Roland