Best bang for buck: SC or heads?

2000xp8 · Dec 17, 2006

Boost is almost a sure bet for a blown head gasket on a bone stock engine, then guess what? You have to take the top of the engine apart anyway to fix it. And it's more work, because there is a SC on it.

SC has the coolness factor, but coolness doesn't win races or produce reliability.

blackened88lx · Dec 17, 2006

bryce93lx said:
JUNK in the engine bay, that is the lamest thing i have ever heard.

What I mean by junk is more stuff to work around. There isn't a ton of room in the engine bay to begin with, especially on the passenger side, which happens to be where most superchargers are located. So that just makes it harder to work on.

2000xp8 said:
Boost is almost a sure bet for a blown head gasket on a bone stock engine, then guess what? You have to take the top of the engine apart anyway to fix it. And it's more work, because there is a SC on it.

SC has the coolness factor, but coolness doesn't win races or produce reliability.

Agreed.

Venom351R · Dec 17, 2006

I threw a Supercharger on my 95 GT w/ stock heads, stock cam, Cobra intake. If I could do it over again I prob would have put heads on it first. Now w/ my 93 Im going to just do the motor first ( 347 Stroker) and throw a turbo on later.

310stanger · Dec 17, 2006

I say get the h/c/i, specifically trickflow. in fact thats what i have. I plan on doing a blower later for the finishing touch. jus like stated above, superchargers will blow stock headgaskets, tuning issues, harder to do h/c/i later, etc. Now with the amount of boost that most people run on stock engines you wont feel too much of an increase either. on paper the superchargers make more power but its all high end, whereas the h/c/i rebuilds your topend of your engine and gives you more power everywhere. A race between the h/c/i and the blower car and my money is on the h/c/i car. I have driven centrifugally s/c cars with otherwise stock engines and they dont pull all that hard. when you do a h/c/i your car feels like a monster afterwards. jus my 2 cents. Im all for blower cars jus with modified engines.

Venom351R · Dec 17, 2006

I just wanted to add as well that if you decided to do the SC dont worry about blowing the stock head gaskets. I made alot of passes at the track w/ the blower on my car w/ the stock heads/gaskets. If its tunned right you wont blow anything.

TheBocSez · Dec 17, 2006

How about Heads and a 125 shot?

blackened88lx · Dec 17, 2006

TheBocSez said:
How about Heads and a 125 shot?

Yeah, that's a good idea too. h/c/i and spray it, that's my plan as of right now.

DRock9 · Dec 17, 2006

But if you put on heads and a 125 shot wouldnt you still need a bigger MAF/TB and Injectors?

Tonys96Cobra · Dec 17, 2006

Do the HCI first, you will not regret it. But if you do, dont blame me And speaking of heads and intakes.....(very quietly look at my sig) Even a mild HCI, or even just a HI will make your car a lot of fun to drive, especially around town, where you dont have to wait for any boost to build.

5spd GT · Dec 17, 2006

bryce93lx said:
JUNK in the engine bay, that is the lamest thing i have ever heard. and no you don't need a $400 dyno tune if you know a little and get the timing and fp right just like on a h/c/i and for the less mechanicly inclined s/c is easy to diy while the h/c/i with out alot of tools, torque wrenches, cherry pickers, place to work ect may have to be done by a shop. And again you can make power with forced induction with a totally stock set up, so say 2200 for a top end kit then a tb 250 and maf 250 and a cai to fit the tb 180, and so on and so on a sc makes the parts you have work better h/c/i makes them obsolite. then you can uprage everything as cash allows instead of all at once. Boost is the cure all

It clutters the engine bay as far as working on it, junks it up. I've have a few friends with superchargers...they say the same actually. To many "working parts" More things go wrong. I still want a supercharger

I'm sorry but I'm not going to drive around with a supercharger with no real tune. I wouldn't feel comfortable hitting it with a "home tune"...to much at risk. Like detonation destroying a piston...

Yep, and the headgasket getting blown (stock car) is pretty much guaranteed again...so I guess then you could do your h/c/i

You can get your throttle bodies for under 200 and your mass air flow sensor...and my cold air was not even close to 180 bucks. That is a waste of money anyways in my opinion.

For longevity on an old car, h/c/i gets my vote.

poneypower89 · Dec 18, 2006

2000xp8 said:
Boost is almost a sure bet for a blown head gasket on a bone stock engine, then guess what? You have to take the top of the engine apart anyway to fix it. And it's more work, because there is a SC on it.

SC has the coolness factor, but coolness doesn't win races or produce reliability.

sorry.. biggest bunch of BS i've ever heard.

2 years... 140,000 miles.. 11psi... no blown gaskets ever.. and never tuned.

that my set up.. i rag on it like a red headed step child and I absolutely LAUGH when people post things like u just have... its simply not true.

2000xp8 · Dec 18, 2006

Note: I said "almost".

I see more supercharged mustangs in one day then you've seen in your life.
Sometimes people get lucky and they hold, it's just not usually the case.
As you can see above, i'm not the only person that feels this way.

Don't forget there is also the chance with an SC, you blow a HG, and you don't know and you drive around ruining the engine completely, which absolutely happens to people.

85_SS_302_Coupe · Dec 18, 2006

I think supercharging a stock engine is like reverse engineering. But, once you've got the SC you can always buy the other stuff later and put it all together. I'd just work from the ground up instead of back tracking.

poneypower89 · Dec 18, 2006

Its funny how everyone without a blower thinks they are gonna blow a head gasket...

Venom351R · Dec 18, 2006

poneypower89 said:
Its funny how everyone without a blower thinks they are gonna blow a head gasket...

Like I said I had the stock heads/gaskets on my 95GT w/ a Paxton Novi 2000 10-12 PSI and ran it good at the track for a summer and never blew anything. Its all in the tune.

5spd GT · Dec 19, 2006

poneypower89 said:
Its funny how everyone without a blower thinks they are gonna blow a head gasket...

It's funny how everyone with friends with blowers (stock headgaskets) has blown them at one point or another

Tune is crucial. I would just like the piece of mind of a good strong gasket and a good tune...getting half of it isn't enough for me

Kevins89notch5.0 · Dec 19, 2006

poneypower89 said:
sorry.. biggest bunch of BS i've ever heard.

2 years... 140,000 miles.. 11psi... no blown gaskets ever.. and never tuned.

that my set up.. i rag on it like a red headed step child and I absolutely LAUGH when people post things like u just have... its simply not true.

Damn, about time someone with some sense jumps in this thread.

Out of the box h/c/i will not make more than 310rwhp without porting, customs cams, etc.

I dropped a used S-Trim on my 89(only had gears and exhaust) along with some 36lb injectors, and a mass air meter. A friend helped my set the timing retard to what he thought was best. I borrowed some slicks, and was ripping off high 11 sec 1/4th times. I never dynoed it, but over the years, I've seen this exact setup(stock 5.0 + s-trim) make from 320-370rwhp.

Oh, and during my two hour drive to the track(to runs 11s) I got 25.X mpg. Again, don't see h/c/i cars doing that. 4 months later, I loaded my 89 with all my personal belongings, drove 22 hours straight to FL, for a 7 month internship. It was my true drive driver, and saw 5K pulls in 3rd and 4th daily. I ended up not leaving FL, and my 89 was my true only car here for just about a year. Now, about 16 or so months after that, my 89 is done, but only because I have a new H/C/I longblock I bought from a friend. She ran fine till the day I started ripping into her.

Plus, to add, in the last couple years, used blower prices have really dropped. I spent 2K for mine(back in 01 or so, it came with a powerpipe and crane ignition as well), and then 300 for the injectors and mass air. Recently I've seen used S-Trims as low as $1,500.

1SLO306 · Dec 19, 2006

personally i would built the engine n/a first and then add the blower. so i say go for the heads man!

mricci · Dec 19, 2006

well the original question was about what will make more power, and a blower will definitely make more power than a good H/C/I. It will probably be a little more money for a blower, but thats what im doing with my car. In the process of possible getting a procharger right now.

5spd GT · Dec 19, 2006

mricci said:
well the original question was about what will make more power, and a blower will definitely make more power than a good H/C/I. It will probably be a little more money for a blower, but thats what im doing with my car. In the process of possible getting a procharger right now.

It may make a bit more peak power (blower) or the same, but it will not beat a properly put together h/c/i kit. It will have more average power, the h/c/i that is.

A supercharger on a stock intake and heads isn't the most efficient way of making power.

Either choice will be close and give you a smile when you hit the throttle

I have gotten 24mpg untuned with my h/c/i. My mpg increased after adding it.

Kevins89 - What mph did you run?

Some h/c/i cars have hit 115mph...stock bottomend. Some in the 112mph full weight.

I can't see a 8psi supercharger getting a car from 94mph (stock mph average) to 115mph. That is just from what I have seen.

Best bang for buck: SC or heads?

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