Welcome to Dodgetalk!

YOu have a great truck to start with and it seems that you have already done some mods. To be completely honest with you, with 70k miles on it and the fact that it is your daily driver I wouldnt go down the blower route. My personal opinion is that the motor has too many miles on it to start with forced induction. If the truck had 30k miles on it and you wanted to make the switch then we would be having a different conversation! I would stick with the basic N/A mods and go from there or think about a re-build or stroker kit.

As for the procharger being a roots style blower with an internal intercooler, please link me to this information! If it is so then ATI Prochargers have made some changes in their style that I am interesting in learning more about! I am a huge roots blower fan!!!

As far as I know the ATI Procharger lineup consists of only centrafugal(SP?) style superchargers, not roots style. Also you are right that the Procharger setup has an intercooler, but as far as I know it is an air to air intercooler not an air to water intercooler like you would find on most roots blower setups(IE: 331ci lightnings us an Eaton roots blower with this type intercooler mounted under the blower in the valley.)

I am not trying to be mean or sarcastic I am just saying what I know as fact and if ATI has started up with a roots blower lineup please by all means send me a link because as stated above I love roots blowers! As far as I know kennebell is the only company making roots style blowers for 5.2L/5.9L applications.

-Scott

 

Scott,

First off, your right about Procharger not being a roots type blower. I did my blower research over a year ago and I guess I crossed my facts somehow.

As far as the 70K on the motor. I am willing to go into the motor to beef it up for the blower. What I need to know is what do I have to do to the motor to handle forced induction? The same with the trans?

Any help in this area would be appreciated.

Ed

 

I would pull the motor and strip it down to a bare block for a full inspection. Replace all the bearings and rings if needed as well as new oil pump, lifters, and timing chain. Once this is all done you will move to the heads and have them checked over for cracks(common with 360 heads) and decked if needed. When it comes time to re-install the heads I would go with a heavy duty head gasket and stud the heads to insure a nice tight seal.

Once the motor is out of the way the trans could use atleast a shift kit and stall converter as well as a fluid change and filter change and bands adjusted if none of this has been done recently. If you have the money and time I would send it out for a freshing up with some street/strip parts to insure its longivity. If time and money are both factors you can go with the above mentioned trans parts/services and hope for the best!

Your 9.25 rear with 3.92 gears is a good setup.....I would switch the differential fluid out and fill it with full synthetic race lube. I like royal purple but that is just my choice. If you have the money I would also look into a locker for the rear but if the LSD is holding up well the fluid change should be all it needs.

I hope some of my suggestions will get the gears turning and help you get on your way to one badass SS/T!!!

-Scott :rck:

 

Scott,

Thanks for the info. I really appreciate it.

Time and money are always a concern. Time because this is my daily driver and any shop down time has an impact. Money is a concern and may slow this project down but doing it right the first time is more of a concern.

Any recommendatios on which blower to use. I am looking for low end performance ( I love stop lights). Again, this is my daily driver, so it needs to really be streetable.

Actually, there is a dual purpose here. I really want "Show and Go". I got back into classic cars over the last year. I restored a 1969 Mercury Marauder X100 (429/360) and got into the car show circuit. I seriously thought about selling the SST and buying a 60's era pickup and throwing a big block into it. But I love the Ram. It just isn't fast enough and it has no real car show appeal. So my thoughts were to solve both problems by putting a blower on the SST and chromeing it up a bit. This would give me street fun and and a show car without laboring a year or so restoring something...

Again thanks.

Ed

 

I don't think it's as much of a reliability issue as some would like to make it. I've had a s/c set-up for little less than 2 years and the only thing going bad on my truck is the tires!If you stay to the 6-8 pound rule and keep your A/F down under 12/1 you should have no problem. I paid $1900 for my s/c and got 80 rwhp from it with no other additions. The plenum gasket is the biggest culprit on our trucks. The blow under normal aspiration so they need to be reinforced if you go to forced induction.

 

Thanks for the info.

What s/c are you using?

What would you recommend?

Ed

 

It depends what your looking for. I think most truck owners would agree that the KB set-up is a good one for our trucks. Gobs of torque down low. If your racing then I would go with a ATI air to water intercooled. I went the cheap route and have a powerdyne with a 11# pulley and have had no issues with it.

 

I agree with the above recommendations.....KB for daily driver just be careful and patient with the tuning, and the ATI Procharger with either the air to air or air to water intercooler. With either of these setups you will be very happy.

-Scott

 

I have the Powerdyne unit and love it.

 

Why did you go with Powerdyne?

Did you install youself?

If not what did the install cost?

Ed

 

I went with the Powerdyne for several reasons, the first being the lower cost. I also like the silent drive (they use a belt). In all fairness in the cost category, though, I did wind up adding to the cost by having to install an MSD-6BTM to help with spark knock while under boost. At the time, that was about $300. If memory serves I paid $2795 for the Powerdyne setup from Summit Racing... this was back in Feb. of 2000, mind you.

Yes, I did it myself (with a little help from a bro). I only needed help with installing the inline auxiliary fuel pump. The rest was pretty straight forward and easy.

Oh, and I also did my own intake design. The one they provided and wanted you to use was noisy and didn't flow enough air. That may have changed by now, though.

I do highly recommend the Powerdyne setup. It's easy, much quieter than it's competition, costs less, and works very well.

 

I have a 98 ram 4X4. i was wondering if there were any issues involving mud? i want to supercharge it, mostly to get that extra power to the wheels in the deeper mud holes. I have been looking into a bunch of different manufactures, and it looks like the charger would give out if any clump of mud were to fling into it. any answers would be good, and i really want to put one on my 360, just had a couple of concerns before i fork out the $$. thanks for any help you can provide.

 

Well, any motor will crap out with the ingestion of mud, so the trick is to keep mud out of the intake whether your truck is supercharged or normally aspirated. Whatever you do now to keep mud out of the engine should also work just fine with a supercharger installed...

 

Right now i have a homemade snorkel that goes into a compartment that i made inside the fenderwell. but here shortly i will be making it go to the top of the roof ( mainly to work on my fording capability, have drowned the engine once) with a filter on the end, facing backwards. I think i will put some kind of shield around half the filter just to keep out water. What my main concern was though, is with the cyntrifical superchargers it seems they have some kind of turbine like thing in the middle of the pulley, i am worried about something getting inside that, and blowing the charger up, which wouldnt be good for my engine either, i would think. are there any kind of intake manifold type(like the 8-71 wieland) superchargers that the throttle body sits on for the newer type magnum 360's? If so who and where could I find any info on it? thanks for you input mecg, i appreciate it.

 

It's a solid pulley; I wouldn't worry about getting anything in there.

 

growing98-1500, it sounds to me like you want a roots-type blower and the one on the market for us would be a Kennebell supercharger setup. Its an awesome setup for low end torque and brute power but be prepared to spend some time tuning this setup.

-Scott

 

The Powerdyne head unit is a sealed unit, so I wouldn't imagine any water and muck could get inside it. But, I'd also recommend asking Powerdyne about it, directly. Their website is http://www.powerdyne.com.