Help me decide on an engine upgrade

Chronos[AsG] · Jun 22, 2004

I just got done with my suspension upgrade, so I won't be tackling anything in the engine until (most likely) next year. But I thought it might be advantageous to decide what I want to do now, since it may affect some of the things I do before I work on the engine. One thing I was planning on doing soon was adding a cold air intake, since they aren't too expensive. Of course, there are different kits depending on whether you have a naturally aspirated or supercharged engine. So right now I am just looking for information about the different options (NA, supercharged, turbocharged) and peoples' opinions and impressions of them.

Some questions I have right now are:

1) I intend to keep the car a street car, so what is the largest block generally recommended for street use? Can you put a 408 in it?

2) One of my biggest decisions is whether or not I want ot use a power adder. What are the pros and cons of these? Cost-wise, how do they compare to a good NA setup?

3) Hypothetically, if I had three blocks, NA, supercharged, and turbocharged, and they all had the same HP/Torque numbers, would they all behave the same? In other words, if I'm cruising along and I step on the gas and speed off are they all going to react the same? My friend has a supercharged truck and it will definitely throw you back in the seat when you gun it.

Any opinions, suggestions, stories, or links are definitely welcome. I'm trying to get as much information as I can right now.

BlackVert · Jun 23, 2004

Chronos[AsG] said:
1) I intend to keep the car a street car, so what is the largest block generally recommended for street use? Can you put a 408 in it?

most people who are looking for big cubes go with either a 347 stroker or a 351. i believe you can stroke a 351 to 408, so it should fit.

2) One of my biggest decisions is whether or not I want ot use a power adder. What are the pros and cons of these? Cost-wise, how do they compare to a good NA setup?

the better the NA setup, the better the power adder gains will be. a turbo is a more efficient power adder and it spools up faster, but it is more involved to install.

3) Hypothetically, if I had three blocks, NA, supercharged, and turbocharged, and they all had the same HP/Torque numbers, would they all behave the same? In other words, if I'm cruising along and I step on the gas and speed off are they all going to react the same? My friend has a supercharged truck and it will definitely throw you back in the seat when you gun it.

no, they will not react the same. it depends on the torque curve. the higher and flatter the curve, the better. typically, a turbo will have the highest torque curve. a supercharger will typically keep building as the rpms go up. a NA setup would have more of a mid range torque curve.

if absolute maximum horsepower were the goal, i'd go with a 351 stroked to 408 with a turbo. you could easily be in the 700 hp range with that. something like that would probably be so fast it would be hard to keep it on the road.

for me, since my car is a daily driver, a reliable NA 347 stroker with about 350 hp is the goal (at least for now). even that would snap your head back pretty good.

Chronos[AsG] · Jun 23, 2004

Are there any wear issues with a stroker engine? If I go with a stroker setup I dont want to have to tear it down and rebuild it every year. Also, with a good setup, how much HP does a 408 make on average?

Help me decide on an engine upgrade

Chronos[AsG]

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BlackVert

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Help me decide on an engine upgrade

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