Pro charger on FE, which intake and block?

[fairlaniac]

I’m not committing to anything just kind a mulling something over. Getting back into my Comet project and wondering what it would be like to run a pro charger? Which block would one use? I am assuming a thicker aftermarket block?. And then which intake manifold to run? Just curious as I may have access and a bargain on a pro charger from a friend. Again just thinking aloud. Thanks

[Jb427]

Modern would be nice to see cnc intake and jays head meth 40+ pounds of boost. Any of new blocks you would think should be as good as any of the dart after market high hp capable deals

[Stangman]

Very interesting. My neighbor has an F2 on a big block Chevy 68 Camero. Yeah I know but we are on the subject. It’s a 540 9 to1 good heads motor makes 682 makes 1296 with the procharger 917 lbs of torque. I always wondered if anybody has used one nobody really talks about them. I would have to imagine 900 to 1000 HP with a 500 cube FE should be attainable with a good set of heads.

[jayb]

I ran a Vortech V7 Ysi supercharger on a 490" FE and made 1030 HP and over 900 foot pounds of torque.  It ran 17 pounds of boost, 8.5:1 compression, Blue Thunder heads and a Shelby block.  Ran the engine in my Mach 1 at Drag Week in 2007, ran a best of 9.30 at 150, if I recall correctly.

I plan on repeating the same program with a new version of the engine, using my new heads.  I agree that any aftermarket block should be able to hold the power.  My setup was a blow through carb setup into a single 4 Shelby intake (very similar to a Performer RPM), which worked but was touchy on tuning due to the carb.  Next time around I plan to go direct port EFI and a single plane intake.

[Stangman]

Yes I should have remembered that Jay. She must have been a beast. Do you know which is better that supercharger or the procharger?. Did you run and water injection system or was the 8.5 to 1 fine. Do you know what the motor made unsupercharged. Was it a solid roller. Sorry for all the questions just would love to do one one day. I think the next motor might see something like this.

[jayb]

The Vortech supercharger fit in the car better than the Procharger, which is why I went that route.  I think in a bigger car, or a car with the shock towers removed, the Procharger might be better.  The  Prochargers that are available would certainly be capable of making more power; the Vortech was pushing it at 1030 HP.  By the way, that number was with an air to water intercooler on the dyno.  In the car, the air to water intercooler didn't fit, so I had to delete it, at a cost of about 100 HP.

I never ran water injection, just good race fuel on the dyno and at the track.  The motor used a solid roller cam.  The engine made about 575 HP without the supercharger.  The supercharger belt consumed over 100 HP when the engine was at peak.

The pictures below are the three iterations of my supercharged engine.  The first picture shows the original version, which made 850 HP on the dyno.  The box on the left housed the air to water intercooler.  I didn't like the carb box on this setup because it was a pain to tweak the carb on the dyno with that in place, and the Barry Grant carb I had was just not up to the drill.  Next time around the carb box was removed and replaced with a carb hat, and the carb was updated to a CSU Carbs blower carb; the engine was run again as shown in the second photo, and made about 950 HP IIRC.  That time the 10 rib supercharger belt was slipping a lot and limiting boost, so in the end I went with a ribbed blower belt setup to get the peak power.  I incorporated the blower inlet and outlet and the carb hat into the shaker assembly as shown in the third photo, since it was going into my Mach 1.  The last photo shows the best dyno results with that combo.

[Stangman]

Wow Jay at only 6000 rpm. I could see how the box on the carb could be a pain. The middle with the carb hat looks clean looking. And you won drag week with that setup. If you drove around normal without getting into it was it very driveable. With 8.5 to 1 and I’m assuming a fairly low duration cam it must have been a good driver on the road.

[jayb]

The year I took that setup on Drag Week I was second in class, not first.  The cam was actually pretty big, around 265@.050 on the intake duration I think.  But with all that torque I had to run a 3.50 rear end gear to avoid blowing the 10" slicks away, and when the GVOD kicked in the car was outstanding on the highway.  I remember driving across Wisconsin that year at about 85 MPH, well under 2500 RPM.  Around town it was like any other car with a great big cam, a little soggy on throttle response, but I had no problems with driveability.  And of course you could smoke the tires at will  from any speed.

[Stangman]

Very nice. Well Doug you got your hands full.

[fairlaniac]

Joe, I have more than my hands full :-) Since my Comet has the shock towers cut out and everything is open at he moment, I thought it might be something to consider. The car needs more work structurally to get to that point but I can plan for all of the needed accessories to make it work.

Here are some pics, time to get back on this project.

[bobb428]

Troy Meek out of Kansas was No Prep racing a 67 with a Pond blocked FE & a Procharger. He was having head gasket issues sealing so went to a Windsor combo. He is on Facebook.

[Stangman]

Now thats good information right there bobb428. Jay did you do anything special for that besides good machine work. I guess only 4 bolts per cylinder
aint much under 20 psi of boost.

[jayb]

I had no issues at 17 pounds of boost with the Shelby block, Blue Thunder heads, and a Cometic MLS head gasket.  Wouldn't be afraid to go a little higher boost wise, but if I really wanted to be safe I think I'd O-ring the block and use a copper head gasket.