Hey I am new to this forum and I have 1996 dodge ram sport edition white and I love it. It only has 91,000 miles on it. I wanted to know if there was a way to supercharge it or turbo it. Thanks in advance.

 

Anything is possible..... used to be supercharger kits for the Ram's, good luck finding one these days though...... (around 4K new.....) Turbo might be easier to set up.....

 

I think Procharger still makes a kit for the magnum engines. I'm not sure about the reliability or the quality tho. I think the price is around 4 grand and they claim a 50-60% hp increase

 

it is best to do supporting mods before you try to supercharge or turbocharge your engine.

Head studs are a good start. you will need them to help reduce the risk of blowing a head gasket due to increased cylinder pressure.

You will also need to run 92 octane every fill up with a boosted application to avoid pre-detonation.

you are also going to need a high volume fuel pump to keep up with increased fuel demand, and possibly larger injectors to avoid having a lean condition.

as far as installation goes: a supercharger will be an easier install, but a turbo will yield higher net gains in power as well as only give the power when its needed vs 100% of the time.

in other words if you are light on the throttle, you are not under boost and don't need the extra fuel to prevent running lean. when you step on it or get on a hill, the increased fuel or load on the engine will spool the turbo and give a large performance boost.


now as to why 1 gives more power than the other is quite simple:

a supercharger uses a belt to drive the compressor to force air into your engine...the belt pulls power from the engine in order to make it turn. everything being turned by the engine reduces the engines output.

a turbo on the other hand is driven by exhaust heat and flow which is essentially wasted energy that is there regardless of being turbo charged or not.

so the turbo uses this energy to spin a turbine which causes the compressor to spin and generate boost. the more heat and load on the engine, the harder the turbine is driven.

So with a v engine, you will need some custom exhaust work done to get a turbo mounted...then you plumb the air intake and output from the turbo compressor to the engine which complexity of this piping depends on where in the exhaust you mount the turbo...for simplicity many people mount whats called a tailpipe turbo...which is placing the turbo further back in the exhaust where the exhaust has already Y'ed together into a single pipe.

 

Might as well just buy a diesel, it already has a turbo

 

I don't really see the point in doing it on a full size gas v8 pickup, but if that's what he wants I'm not gonna talk him out of it.

I would rather do performance adders like that to a compact truck like my S10...something that is 1/2 the weight and mass, yet still has a full steel frame under it.

way more fun to build a hotrod out of a compact pickup than it is a full sized when dealing with gas engines...

diesels are a different story. its just ridiculously easy to make excessive power with a diesel, and they have so much torque that size/weight just aren't major factors in how quick/powerful you can be...

with gasoline power to weight ratio is everything...with diesels its how f'ing strong can I make this thing so this beast does not twist off or break drive lines, gears, explode differentials, etc...

 

Opps sorry wrong thread

 

First of all, 91K is a high mileage motor to super or turbo charge. I would suggest you first do a total rebuild on it and beef up the parts that need it for these applications. Those are ARP headbolts and studs, all highest quality head gaskets specific to turbos or superchargers, and of course do a search for the setup you can get and ask questions about what they also had to do for a tune for the OBC as well because that will have to be done. I highly suggest a supercharger kit either clean used one or new as it'll be WAY easier to bolt on and work better in all normal driving than a turbo.

The drawback of a turbo is turbo lag. an SC doesn't have any lag and is POWER right off idle if set up porperly and doesn't run as hot of underhood temps as a turbo. Plus, you might even be able to bolt on a SC kit to that motor you have and as long as you aren't always in it with the right foot, it MAY even last till you can rebuild it or get a crate motor. BTW with either, you may have to run thicker head gaskets or at least very low boost to keep them from grenading the motor since the stock pistons are too high a compression ratio for the SC or Turbo.

And of course, if you live where you don't need a smog check, you can build an all motor motor that will kick butt on a TC or SC motor that is stock other than the asperation.

 

unless he is planning on more than 5-6psi of boost, compression will be fine on 92 octane pump gas... no need to get a thicker gasket to drop compression ratio at all...

magnum v8's are NOT high compression motors... you have an 8.9:1 compression ratio... you can run a 12.5:1 compression ratio on 92 octane pump gas with proper timing.

the engine will need to have its ECM custom tuned for turbo or supercharger applications to get the most out of it and to have proper timing, but its very easily done.

 

I know about the compression thing which is why I said if he ran high boost. Shoot, 5~6lbs is low. On my SHO I was running the 15psi pully or the 22lb pully depending on what I was doing. I always HAD to run 93 or better octaine and usually used race gas at the strip. Of course this was a centrifugal supercharger but basically the same as a roots type for boost numbers.