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Supercharging good or bad?

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Old 05-05-2011, 01:41 AM
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Supercharging good or bad?

I have a v6 Camaro that I use as my daily driver. I want it to be faster to run it at the track also. I would go v8 but I'm a delivery driver and need a fast and gas efficient car for delivering. I'm looking to supercharge my car but how much would it cost about? I will be driving my car a lot and I have rather high mileage on it. Is it bad for the car, do I require anything to handle the supercharger and is it easy to install"?
Old 05-05-2011, 02:25 AM
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Re: Supercharging good or bad?

Man... if I were you and the car was my daily bread winner, I wouldn't mess with any thing as drastic as a SC. What do you have? 2.8? SC's are kinda involved to install and get tuned right for max power and reliability. You would probably be better off getting some sort of a better flowing exhaust system before you start stuffing air into the intake.

The best outcome will be that it will work fine but you really won't be much faster then a stock 305, if that, which isn't saying much. Definitely not a car that can be competitive at the track.

The worst outcome is that you'll blow your head gaskets and won't have your trust daily driver any more. Sorry to be discouraging. See if you can score a cheap gas saving Honda or something to deliver stuff in, and then bolt power adders to your Camaro. Good Luck!
Old 05-05-2011, 02:38 AM
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Re: Supercharging good or bad?

Yeah? I have a cherrybomb exhaust idk if thats good enough. But yeah I am looking into getting a smaller car. I would love to have this going as fast as a stock 305 because of how slow it is ha. Its the 3.1 btw
Old 05-05-2011, 02:52 AM
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Re: Supercharging good or bad?

And I also heard the supercharging it will give me better gas mileage
Old 05-05-2011, 03:14 AM
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Re: Supercharging good or bad?

the bottom wont hold up to the increased cylinder pressures, you will lose gas milage, and still be slow relatively speaking. Get a tune up, make sure your emissions equipment is functioning, and enjoy what it is until you have the means to do more
Old 05-05-2011, 04:35 AM
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Re: Supercharging good or bad?

I just did a full tune up. Its running smooth. Im just going to buy a v8 with a 350 when I get another job.
Old 05-05-2011, 07:16 AM
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Re: Supercharging good or bad?

Originally Posted by jkrustchinsky
the bottom wont hold up to the increased cylinder pressures, you will lose gas milage, and still be slow relatively speaking. Get a tune up, make sure your emissions equipment is functioning, and enjoy what it is until you have the means to do more
The bottom end will be fine. There's quite a few in the V6 section who run turbos on stock motors and haven't had problems. OP go down into the V6 section, there's lots of information on boost for the V6. But if it's your work car and DD, its not worth it.
Old 05-05-2011, 12:08 PM
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Re: Supercharging good or bad?

drop a gn motor in there. faster than a stock 305 and still a v6
Old 05-06-2011, 05:02 AM
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Re: Supercharging good or bad?

Alright thanks man I'll check it out
Old 05-06-2011, 09:42 AM
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Re: Supercharging good or bad?

Originally Posted by RubberDucky
. But if it's your work car and DD, its not worth it.
I agree here it takes a good amount of time to swap an motor out and get it running again. But the gn motor is also a great idea but after you pick up a little gas saver car as a DD and can build your thirdgen
Old 05-10-2011, 05:11 PM
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Re: Supercharging good or bad?

A gn motor isn't a simple swap. You could put a t3 on your motor cheap and be reasonably happy with 10 psi. Made my 2.8 fun.
Old 05-10-2011, 08:06 PM
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Re: Supercharging good or bad?

Originally Posted by oamhmad

The best outcome will be that it will work fine but you really won't be much faster then a stock 305, if that, which isn't saying much. Definitely not a car that can be competitive at the track.

The worst outcome is that you'll blow your head gaskets and won't have your trust daily driver any more. Sorry to be discouraging. See if you can score a cheap gas saving Honda or something to deliver stuff in, and then bolt power adders to your Camaro. Good Luck!
completly wrong answer

Originally Posted by jkrustchinsky
the bottom wont hold up to the increased cylinder pressures, you will lose gas milage, and still be slow relatively speaking. Get a tune up, make sure your emissions equipment is functioning, and enjoy what it is until you have the means to do more
also completly wrong

my car picked up over 7 mpg and that was with a 4,500 stall converter and 4:10 rear gears with a turbo.

the bottom end of the v6 will hold anything u throw at it ,turbocharging is a much better option ,but if ur not famliar with it and cant do the work urself, its going to cost a decent penny to do
Old 05-11-2011, 01:15 AM
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Re: Supercharging good or bad?

Quote:
Originally Posted by oamhmad

The best outcome will be that it will work fine but you really won't be much faster then a stock 305, if that, which isn't saying much. Definitely not a car that can be competitive at the track.

The worst outcome is that you'll blow your head gaskets and won't have your trust daily driver any more. Sorry to be discouraging. See if you can score a cheap gas saving Honda or something to deliver stuff in, and then bolt power adders to your Camaro. Good Luck!


completly wrong answer

My point was that he would be sacrificing reliability over performance on a DD vehicle by supercharging it.

Stock 3.1 produce what 135hp? Supercharge it and we're looking at what? 270-300 hp? So perhaps I was wrong about it not being much faster than a 305 V8. Ok. That's more than a 200% increase over what the stock internals were intended to tolerate. Are the crank bearings on a V6 really over engineered to the point that they will handle that kind of power and torque while not blowing up after 20,000 miles. An engine that eats bearings in 20K miles is not reliable in my books.

Just out of curiosity how much boost and HP are you running on your turbo setup and how many miles do you have on it?

I saw a pic on here of a stock v6 bottom end that had withstood 20 PSI of boost without damage. But how many miles of daily driving can a V6 tolerate the stresses generated at that out put?

Build the bottom end and you get your reliability back, but I don't think the OP was asking about tearing into his motor like that.

If you have any evidence to the contrary, I'm really interested in hearing about it. I'd really like to hear from the guy who has supercharged his V6 and not blown anything up as a consequence over 100K miles of driving and several years. That would be a reliable setup. Until then, completely wrong answer? Hardly so.
Old 05-11-2011, 04:05 AM
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Re: Supercharging good or bad?

Originally Posted by oamhmad
Quote:
Originally Posted by oamhmad

The best outcome will be that it will work fine but you really won't be much faster then a stock 305, if that, which isn't saying much. Definitely not a car that can be competitive at the track.

The worst outcome is that you'll blow your head gaskets and won't have your trust daily driver any more. Sorry to be discouraging. See if you can score a cheap gas saving Honda or something to deliver stuff in, and then bolt power adders to your Camaro. Good Luck!


completly wrong answer

My point was that he would be sacrificing reliability over performance on a DD vehicle by supercharging it.

Stock 3.1 produce what 135hp? Supercharge it and we're looking at what? 270-300 hp? So perhaps I was wrong about it not being much faster than a 305 V8. Ok. That's more than a 200% increase over what the stock internals were intended to tolerate. Are the crank bearings on a V6 really over engineered to the point that they will handle that kind of power and torque while not blowing up after 20,000 miles. An engine that eats bearings in 20K miles is not reliable in my books.

Just out of curiosity how much boost and HP are you running on your turbo setup and how many miles do you have on it?

I saw a pic on here of a stock v6 bottom end that had withstood 20 PSI of boost without damage. But how many miles of daily driving can a V6 tolerate the stresses generated at that out put?

Build the bottom end and you get your reliability back, but I don't think the OP was asking about tearing into his motor like that.

If you have any evidence to the contrary, I'm really interested in hearing about it. I'd really like to hear from the guy who has supercharged his V6 and not blown anything up as a consequence over 100K miles of driving and several years. That would be a reliable setup. Until then, completely wrong answer? Hardly so.
the only motor in the car i ever had dynoed was a stock bottom end 3.1,and when it dynoed it had no ignition advance at all
@ 9psi it put down 270rwhp and get this 370rwftlbs

my first motor was a 150k mile 2.8 bone stock no tunning just larger injectors and fmu tunning, i put another 150k on it daily driving it ,i should say7 beating the crap out of it, anywere from 5-18 psi, i even accidently hit it with 40* btdc timing at the track when i finally did install an engine mangement system by accident it still held up.a fellow board member was there to witness that and prolly still has the videos of that. i pulled that motor for the 3.1 because i got distracted while doing an oil change and forgot to put oil back in it before i started the car.

it ran for about 2 mins before i caught it, put oil in it and it only had 5-10 psi at idle, put another bunch of miles on it just like that ran fine even the day i pulled it out, i have pics somewere of what it look liked when i pulled it ill see if i cant find them and post them
Old 05-11-2011, 04:16 AM
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Re: Supercharging good or bad?

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thats my original 2.8
Old 05-11-2011, 04:30 AM
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Re: Supercharging good or bad?

I'm always amazed when I read about people that are more of a dreamer than me. You want it to be fast, fuel efficient, reliable, and you want this all at a dirt cheap price most likely. I almost want to just say GTFO.

Save a grand or two and pick yourself up a cheap Civic as the delivery car. They're light, fuel efficient, and even the whole 100 HP DX Civic isn't too slow, due to how light they are.

This is still a joke. A fast supercharged V6 powered third gen that you expect reliability and fuel efficiency from without spending too much.

Old 05-11-2011, 04:38 AM
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Re: Supercharging good or bad?

Originally Posted by Shadow Z
I'm always amazed when I read about people that are more of a dreamer than me. You want it to be fast, fuel efficient, reliable, and you want this all at a dirt cheap price most likely. I almost want to just say GTFO.

Save a grand or two and pick yourself up a cheap Civic as the delivery car. They're light, fuel efficient, and even the whole 100 HP DX Civic isn't too slow, due to how light they are.

This is still a joke. A fast supercharged V6 powered third gen that you expect reliability and fuel efficiency from without spending too much.
its not terribly expsensive, the single turbo iroc im building right now is about 10x the cost, what i have in just the fuel system alone is probably what it cost me to turbocharge the v6 reliably on the cheap the first time around, granted the iroc will make 3x the power lmao.

blc had his turbocharged for under 200 bucks iirc it was reliable till he hit it with a 100 or 200 shot of nitrous i think it was ontop of 14psi of boost from an overworked t3 turbo and it lean poped
Old 05-11-2011, 04:50 AM
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Re: Supercharging good or bad?

For 200 dollars? I have a little over 2K right now, think he could send me a package deal? A single turbo IROC that's in half way decent shape for 2K?

The cheapest way I know of turbocharging the typical 350 is a blow through carb, and an ebay setup. At the bare minimum I'd guess a little over 1,500 if you did the installation yourself. For 200 dollars, did he basically just pick up a turbo, then fabricate his own headers, and come up with some free solution when it comes to a carb or the injection setup?

But seriously, threads like this pop up all the time. It's dumb. Everyone wants a fast, well built reliable car that won't break the bank with fuel costs, and have the build be nearly free. That's sort of why I moved on from wanting to restore the IROC and picked up a Mustang, and keep the IROC as another project for another day. I wanted something reliable, newer, decently quick, and not too horrible on gas.

I was thinking about an LS1 Firebird though. Just wanted to try out something besides an F body, and there honestly aren't many decent ones around for under 10K. Hard to get any decent shape LS1 car with less than 100K miles for under 10K for that matter. There's only 19 on autotrader right now, 6 speed LS1 cars with less than 100K miles for under 10K. So I went after my Mustang that was listed at 7K with less than 90K miles and picked it up for 6,200. Slow, but worth it.
Old 05-11-2011, 05:08 AM
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Re: Supercharging good or bad?

i dont recall exactly what he used other then a jy t3 off a volvo and he used some downpipes he got in the jy to fab everything, i dont rember if he made his own heade ron the oassenger side or just modified the stocker to work , he just tuned the stock ecm himself since the 3.1 ecms wont work with boost in stock, were as the 2.8 ecms will

theres a thread in the v6 section with the build in there

my iroc deffinatly isnt cheap to turbo charge just off the top of my head i have

300 in a standalone
300 in a tpi setup to convert it back to fi
112 bucks for a rebuilt t6 76mm turbo
250 bucks for brand new precision 65# injectors
175 bucks in the intercooler and 3 inch coldside pipes/couplers/clamps
another 100 bucks in 50mm watsegate and bov
90 bucks in oil feed and return
150 bucks in hotside tubning
200 bucks for wideband
350 bucks for dual 340 lph pumps

so about 2k in it so far + all the lil bs parts that nickle and dime ya and thats done as cheap as possible lol

still need to figure in the future driveline upgrades

1800 for a strange s60 rear
500 for a turbo 400
+ whatever the crossmember/ tq arm mount and ds costs me
Old 05-11-2011, 01:00 PM
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Re: Supercharging good or bad?

Originally Posted by project89
the only motor in the car i ever had dynoed was a stock bottom end 3.1,and when it dynoed it had no ignition advance at all
@ 9psi it put down 270rwhp and get this 370rwftlbs

my first motor was a 150k mile 2.8 bone stock no tunning just larger injectors and fmu tunning, i put another 150k on it daily driving it ,i should say7 beating the crap out of it, anywere from 5-18 psi, i even accidently hit it with 40* btdc timing at the track when i finally did install an engine mangement system by accident it still held up.a fellow board member was there to witness that and prolly still has the videos of that. i pulled that motor for the 3.1 because i got distracted while doing an oil change and forgot to put oil back in it before i started the car.

it ran for about 2 mins before i caught it, put oil in it and it only had 5-10 psi at idle, put another bunch of miles on it just like that ran fine even the day i pulled it out, i have pics somewere of what it look liked when i pulled it ill see if i cant find them and post them
Wow that's pretty cool, my apologies, learn something new everyday. Sounds like you were able to get decent reliability out of your setup.

I did the oil thing with my 305 too, ran it for around 2 minutes without the oil sender screwed in. I stopped the engine only when I realized that the oil was shooting out at the fire wall and making a huge puddle. Didn't seem to hurt the motor.
Old 05-11-2011, 01:58 PM
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Re: Supercharging good or bad?

Shadow you're a naysayer..... just because you cant figure out how to put thing together on the cheap doesn't mean it isn't possible...

With a small motor you can find used turbos all the time (import guys love to upgrade) then it's just inlet and outlet piping and a FMU (if you wanna be really cheap) it's not that hard to turbo something it really isn't...
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