Posted by Alan Bowes on November 11, 1997 at 12:48:30:
In Reply to: SUPERCHARGING? posted by ec on November 10, 1997 at 19:44:53:
The Dodge 230/251 wouldn't be my first choice of engines to outfit with a supercharger, but it could be done. Whether the engine can handle the additional stress will depend on several factors, such as how much boost you'll be running, how the engine is cammed, what kind of modifications you plan to do to the bottom half to make it more durable, etc. These engines have good forged steel crankshafts, and I think the con rods can be reworked to handle a fair amount more stress. Better pistons can be had. Better valves/seats can also be had. This would be a great experiment for a true tinkerer.
However, it will involve quite a bit of work and a fair chunk of pocket change. Supercharging/turbocharging systems aren't cheap, and there's always a lot of work involved in adapting something that wasn't designed specifically for a particular engine (I'm assuming that they don't have a setup specifically for the L-head six, but I could be wrong).
Some mild boost could certainly be tolerated by a stock engine. For example, if you only had enough boost to provide sea-level atmospheric pressure, it would allow your engine to develop full rated horsepower at any altitude. If you live in Leadville, Colorado or Cuzco, Peru, or some rarified location like that, it would make a huge difference in power without hurting the engine at all. I think the earlier stock engines could handle boost a little over sea-level pressure, since the later models of these engines had their compression ratios raised without any other modifications to the bottom half that I'm aware of.
Regards,
Alan