junehhan said:
there are many people on this forum running a blower(some for a while now), and we havn't heard of anyone having an engine blow up yet.
I agree. And that's what has been the deciding factor in my opt for a Supercharger for my Marauder. No, nothing is fool proof when it comes to Hi-performance, but I've spoken to several owners of Trilogy equipped Marauders, and one of them drives his back and forth to work as i do, and he had his Trilogy kit installed when the car had 32K on it, and it now has 43K on it, and everything is fine. my car had 11K on it when I installed the S/Cer, and there are a couple other guys who I've spoken to who not only race their S/ced marauders at the track ocassionaly, but who drive then primarily on the street just as all of us do, and they haven't had any problems either.
if you go on Lidio's website (
www.alternativeauto.com ), you'll see the "Lidio's rant" article he has on there where he describes how important it is to have a conservative engine tune on your car if it's S/Ced, and how he has tuned several dozen S/ced Mustangs that also have the 4.6L engine w/out the forged pistons nor the forged steel crankshafts, and none of them has had problems. And Lidio's experience w/S/Ced Mustang engines that do NOT have the forged internals, goes back more than ten years ago.
And Lidio is the one who burns all the chips that come w/the Trilogy S/Cer kits. So to me that says a lot about what you can safely do to a 4.6L Ford engine in the way of S/Cing. And that goes for weather you're talking a centrifugal S/Cer, or a roots type S/Cer, because Lidio installs both kinds on Mustangs, and has been doing so for awhile.
Remember, the biggest danger to a S/Ced engine is detonating (aka "pinging" or "knocking"). That will crack or melt pistons real quick. But having a conservative Air/fuel ratio, along w/a conservative timing advance curve will prevent the engine from detonatioin. And that all is in the tune.
I'm not claiming to be an expert on this in any way, but I did do my homework before I made the decision to S/C my Marauder. I purchased and read three books on S/Cing, read all I can find on the subject on the internet, Read the entire Magnuson/Eaton supercharger website, and talked to as many guys on this board on the phone and in person that I could find who had already S/Ced their Marauders. Let me point out that because my interest and therefore my focus was on the Eaton roots type S/Cer, it was only the Trilogy customers who I've sought to talk to. And that in no way disqulifies the guys who have a centrifugal s/cer on their Marauder. But all I can tell you is what I've learned from what knowledge I myself have gained, and much of that was due to seeking info on the roots type S/Cer.
In conclusion, all I can tell you is that I was originally dead set against S/Cing my Marauder because I had the same concerns as you do about durability issues. But looking back on it now, I think my concerns where only there because I hadn't really much knowledge on the subject, especially concerning Marauders specifically, and the 4.6L engine in general, when it comes to S/Cing.
