There's no doubt that a supercharger will improve the
performance of your car greatly, on a V8 it's usually good for
150 to 200 HP with no problem, it's one of the single best
upgrades you can do, not to mention the HP improvement, it just
looks mean, it looks like it will chew you up and spit you out.
Superchargers have been used for years to increase the
performance of muscle cars and hot rods, it's not like a
turbocharger, no lag, the power is there when you need it, and
that's a big plus in my book, the supercharger is a wicked tool
to beat the competition, it usually works in your favor.
A supercharger will increase the power of you engine through
it's entire power range, a supercharger is in essence just a
large compressor that sits on top or to the side of your engine,
it basically takes the air going in to your engine and
compresses it and then shoves it in to the engine.
It's main job is to increase the air & fuel volumetric
efficiency of your engine, the more air and fuel that you have
coming in to the engine, the more power it will make, so what a
supercharger does is it works to fill the cylinders up as much
as possible with air and fuel.
The one huge draw back to a supercharger is the fact that they
will make extra heat, and heat destroys engines, enter the
intercooler, an intercooler will cool down the air and fuel
coming in to the engine, colder air is denser air making it
easier to pack the cylinders with more air and fuel at a faster
rate, thereby increasing the efficiency and making more power.
Just remember that you can't supercharge a high compression
engine, anything above 9:1 for a compression is a no, you can
blow your engine sky high if you don't follow this rule, this is
not a rule that's meant to be broken, unless of course you have
a lot of money to build another engine.
Now lets yammer a bit about boost, this is a term that you hear
all the time, and it's a very important part of getting the most
from your supercharger, I can take a Chevy big block 572 and
slap a supercharger on there running 12 pounds of boost and
squeeze over 800 hp out without torturing the engine, your
optimum boost for a street driven car would be from 10 - 12 psi,
anything more and your looking to run racing fuel and not pump
gas.
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