Does supercharging a motor nullify the benifits of a good head design over a bad? Say a 18* head vs a 23* head?

Thanks
Jeremy

 

Depends on the setup. If you have a small SC, there won't be nearly as large a gain from better flow on the intake side. That's because the blower will flow only so much air, even if there is no resistance. There will still be gains, but they will be relatively small if you are maxing the blower. OTOH, any blower will love better exhaust flow.

The nice thing about a street/strip blower combo vs. a max effort setup is that you can make excellent power with relatively small intake ports and a mild cam. This avoids the drivability issues, and costs, asoociated with exotic heads with large ports and big cams. But for max hp, just as with NA, you need great heads. The thing is, a big blower and great heads will probably make more hp than you want, unless you are prepared to spend huge $$$ on supporting components. IOW, do you really want a 1,000hp car? If you really think it through, the answer may well be no. I went with N2O on top of the blower, rather than better heads/bigger cam to get that last couple of hundred hp. The idea was to preserve street manners. And it worked. But it was far from cheap and I am still conflicted over the results. Better in some ways, worse in others.

Rich Krause