Will someone please explain the differeneces between a supercharger, turbo, and procharger? what works better with a V8? which is harder on the engine? what else needs upgrading if you are using one of these? how do each of these work? if there is already a thread on this will someone please redirect me? and sorry for starting a new one

just want to know as much about these before i purchase one.

Thanks for help

 

Procharger is a company that makes some of the best superchargers available.

Determining which works "best" for your engine depends largely on what you want to do with the car, how you want it to behave, etc. Feel free to ask more questions.

Just about everything might need upgrading. A mild supercharger or turbocharger setup can get by with just a few upgrades. Again, it depends on the details.

As for what the differences are and how they work, I think you should look at these articles on HowStuffWorks.com:

How a turbocharger works
How a supercharger works

 

One more thing -- before you even know what these mods are isn't a very good time to be deciding that you're going to buy one. There are a lot of people on these forums with tons of experience, and they will be able to help you determine whether forced induction is right for you.

Let's start with the following:
What is the year and model of your car?
Is it a daily driver?
Do you (plan to) drag race?
Do you (plan to) autocross or participate in other kinds of road racing?
Do you (plan to) street race?
How fast do you want to be?
Do you have any experience with fast cars?

 

The car i have now is a 98 SS, it is a daily driver, and i occasionally take it to the drag strip. I don't plan on doing anything else to the car. It has headers or header whatever, K&N filter, 3' borla exhaust, nothing huge, and some suspension upgrades that i really dont know( sub frame connectors or something). This is just something my dad and I have been working on. I doubt we will add that much more. But when/if the new camaro comes out, we want to do a lot more to it. We were thinking a supercharger or turbo would be something different and also add more hp. This car too will be a daily driver and the occasional drag racing. So overall, what is the best way to add more hp with out spending tons of money and tons of time? But if you dont recommend a supercharger or turbo. what do you recommend? And maybe this is the wrong board, if so sorry.

my experience with cars has always been V8's as far as racing, i have only done the drag strip.
the cars we have been working on are: 69 Fastback Mustang, 70 Fastback Mustang, 93 Z28, and the 98 SS. This is all of my experience with cars =( so anything helps.

Thanks again for your help.

 

and for as fast as i want to be. ill go by the quarter mile track. We want to have it at 10's, or low 11's.

 

Do you realize that you'd have to install a roll bar if you were running that fast at the track? Do you want a roll bar in your daily driver?

If you run faster than 11.50 in the quarter, you need the bar. If you're not wearing a helmet, the roll bar actually makes it more dangerous to ride in the car. The rear seat gets pretty inaccessible, too.

I'm not trying to squash your dreams or anything, I just thought you should know before you get too far along with these plans.

 

nope i had no idea. but that is only track requirements correct? and what about the other questions i have, any ideas?

 

Well, you'll have to wear an approved helmet at the strip. There might be other requirements, but I don't know what they are.

The "what works better" question is unanswerable. Both are very effective power adders, and there is a unique character to an engine with one vs. the other. In addition, there are different types, styles, and setups of each.

At a given level of boost (that's what we call the additional air pressure in the intake manifold caused by either a supercharger or a turbocharger, measured in pounds per square inch, or PSI), you're going to be equally hard on the engine with either device. You can safely run about 6psi on a stock LS1 without beefing up the engine internals. Beyond that, you'll need to start upgrading things (rods, pistons) to withstand the extra power.

What needs upgrading:
1. fuel system (pumps, injectors)
2. rear end (the stock 10-bolt isn't very strong and tends to break around 400rwhp)
3. suspension (in order to get that power to the ground, you'll want to upgrade a few things, including panhard rod, lower control arms, and torque arm)
4. torque converter (auto trans) or clutch (manual trans)

No matter how you attain your performance goals, you should upgrade those three things accordingly.

There are a number of ways to add power. Here are some of the most popular:
1. Nitrous (aka N20 or NOS)
2. Heads/cam
3. Forced induction (supercharger, turbocharger)

Nitrous is very affordable, but it puts a lot of stress on the pistons, among other things. You can upgrade the pistons and piston rings to compensate -- I'd go ask questions in the N20 forum if you're interested in this -- I am not an expert.

Heads/cam is probably the most popular option. There are tons of options and variations, so it's hard to describe what you can do. This option starts around $1500 (unless you find some used equipment) and scales up to several thousand dollars if you want to get fancy. You can get an LS1 into the 11's very easily with a heads/cam setup, and the 10's without much trouble.

About the cheapest you would be able to pull off a forced induction setup is $5000, but there is pretty much no limit to the amount of power you can make if you're willing to spend the money. 1000hp and quarter mile times in the 7's have been done on turbo LS1s with nitrous, and there's one LS1 car out there running in the 6's.

 

Honestly, a supercharger is probably a bit harder on the engine since it's placing a decent amount of stress on the crank snout, especially at higher levels of boost.