A friend of mine is going to sale me his powerdyne supercharger and all his gagues for 2,250. He has had his supercharger for about 5 months. He's selling it because he blew his engine. He didn't know he had bad seals. Is this a pretty good deal? I will also be adding a cam later.

 

For that price is sounds like his car is an LT1 car (93-97). If so then the Powerdyne won't work on your LS1 if that is the car you are buying it for. Otherwise, that is a decent deal for the money if it is a 6 lb. kit and includes the additional fuel pump and ignition box.

 

Yes his car is a LS1. He has a 2002 WS6. It is a 6 lb kit and includes everything with it. I think he just wants to get rid of it. He just had a Zo6 engine put in.

 

The blower should add 100 hp on top of what you already at. if you get 6 psi on the gauge. I ve seen good numbers of ls1's with powedynes on them.

 

Not a bad deal for it but don't forget you will need another $1500+ to setup the car "right". Dyno tune, custom computer program, upgraded cooling, etc....., also start saving for the "rebuild" Good Luck in any case, after you get a SC nothing else come close to the fun factor and the rush(except a turbo)!!

 

Not a bad deal, but don't forget all the hidden costs that can easy add on alot of money. Dyno tune, custom computer program, upgraded ignition, etc.... also plan to start saving for the eventual rebuild. All that being said after you get a supercharger it is alot of fun and adds to the whole fun factor of driving a f-body. Good luck. Sorry for the double post I thought the first one did not go through.

 

Man, this don't sound good. Are the bottom end of an LS1 really that weak? I've only got 53k on mine (driven by an old woman for the first 40k). It's an A4. The stock 10.5:1 compression kinda scares me and it's my daily driver. I don't plan to go crazy with it, just once in a while at a redlight.

How about Powerdynes? I've read mostly bad things (80-85% of the time) about them on the Mustang boards (where there are much more supercharged cars). I'm sure it's the same blower with different plumbing but they just charge us more for LS1s.

Do a search on keyword "powerdyne" at www.corral.net and you get a lot of horror stories.

 

GT40, the reason why I say start saving up for a rebuild is not due to the LS1 having a weak bottom end, it is due to the fact that since the original motor was not setup from the factory with a blower the usual R&D that comes with a factory setup=reliablity, is not always there. I am a small percentage of SC owners that have had a setup last very very long, but in most cases the motor will give up the ghost. Usually when a sc motor goes its not really that bad of a rebuild (only broken ringlands)and if done on the cheap, like I did it only cost me a bit over $1800(I was able to do most of the rebuild myself), but the motor will go. I say that so all people that slap on a SC know what is coming in the future. I had two factors that helpped me out,1. my seup lasted a very long time allowing alot of time to save up money,2. I had the ablitiy to rebuild my engine myself with little outside help, thus lowering the cost of a rebuild. Most of the time people do not have the facilities or knowledge base to do a rebuild so the cost of a "cheap rebuild can easy go above $4000, and then if you want to get fancy, the sky is the limit on the cost. So to sum up, the LS1 bottom end is not crappy, it is just that if a SC motor is to be really reliable it has to be built with that in mind in the first place, which the LS1 motor was not. A good example is the turbo buick V-6's from the factory(esp the years of 86&87). They were build from the get go knowing a forced induction setup was going to be used on the motors, and were setup with all that in mind(to a point, due to cost & profit margines from GM) so they lasted a long time(also before getting modded out to the max!). Hope this clears it up for you. Also almost forgot, I beleive the problem with the powerdyne is that most people that had issues was due to the "overtighting" of the belt, this cause undue pressure on the bearings and thus caused early failures on the systems. I am not 100% on this because I only have talked to guys that have had the powerdyne setup, and I have a ATI SC setup. In any case Good Luck.

 

One other factor with Mustangs breaking a Powerdyne is that a lot of those folks break the internal drive belt. This is from running the Mustang 9 PSI pulley on a 6-speed car and revving the motor to 6300+ RPM. This is past the safe operating speed for the impellor as well as more RPM and load than the internal drive belt can handle repeatedly. Since winding a 6-speed to the moon before shifting can be really fun this tends to happen continually until the internal belt breaks. The head units for F-bodies and Mustangs are not exactly alike but the differences shouldn't affect reliability.

If you don't wring the motor real tight all through the gears as an everyday way of driving then the motor should last for a while. But a little detonation and those stock pistons while give it up. This could happen as soon as you put the SC on if the tune isn't rich enough (better rich than lean). My LT1 lasted 2 1/2 years and over 33K miles before I broke 2 pistons (lands on both pistons). But then I have an automatic and don't rev past 6K even at the track (no need to since it makes a lot of torque down low).

later ... Larry S.

 

I guess you mean running a 9 psi pulley on a 6 psi Powerdyne. I think you're right. As I recall, whenever there's a thread about Powerdynes on the Corral, there would be a bunch who hates it and then there will be almost as many who had no problems with their Powerdynes...and these would also state that they've left the pulley stock at 6 lbs. I've heard that the new BD-11s are much better too.

I guess many of the Mustang guys tends to overspin s/c's. Like many would spin the Vortec 5 lb to 10 lbs (w/pulley and powerpipe) !

I'm still not sure about Powerdynes though. Although GM uses them on some of the trucks right? And Ford rebadge Powerdynes and market them as their own Ford Racing Parts.

 

No .... I really meant to say a 6-speed car. PD offers a 9 lb. kit for Mustangs. The 9 lb. Mustang pulley puts the max impellor RPM within easy reach. Quite a few people like to rev the heck out of their motors and therefore run the impellor RPM up to the max (or beyond). Do this enough times and the internal belt breaks. If it were gear driven you would see a power drop off as you would have people puching the RPM past the efficiency zone for the PD head unit.

I have basically the same pulley (2.70") on my PD unit but I don't rev it past 6K RPM so I don't over-tax the internal belt. My motor is set-up to provide a good torque curve down low where I do the greatest part of my driving. Coupled with my mild cam (212/224 114 LSA) and low stall converter (@2000) and there is no reason to rev past 6K. Max RWTQ is at 4600 (411 lb. ft.) with max RWHP at 5700 (410 RWHP). This gives me some confidence that the internal belt will live for a while to come (about 50K on my BD-11 head unit and counting).

All brands have had trouble, PD is limited to 6 lb. boost to be efficient, if you ever want more then another brand is right for you.

Later ... Larry S.

 

Is it possible to get a pulley to spin the 6 lb Powerdyne at 5 or 4.5 psi?

I was looking on the PD site, and install looks like it'll be a breeze.

http://www.powerdyne.com/manuals/LS1.PDF

 

For an F-body (LT1 motor) the standard Powerdyne kit is 4.5 lb. boost. You usually have to upgrade to the 6 lb. pulley which also includes an additional fuel pump and an ignition box.

Installation is fairly simple. You should reead the instructions a couple of times and physically locate and touch each item in the instructions. Once you are familiar with what must be done you can get started. This helps take some of the frustration out of being in the middle of things and realizing you can't reach a part or you can't get a drill in there to drill the two holes to relocate the cruise control. Not difficult but it is nice to know what to expect ahead of time.

later ... Larry S.