Hi there,
I have been very interested in this particular thread and felt having read it that I could maybe throw in my 2 pence worth. As some of you may be aware, I have bought ACSB 7020. This was the last of the line of Superblowers that AC made, but it was never finished by AC Cars. I am in the process of finishing the car, which is taking forever!!
However, I have a Ford 5.0 1994 engine. I have researched the fitting of a Supercharger (as my Superblower should have) to it and I am aware that AC Cars used to fit a Powerdyne unit through Ford Motorsports. I have read some positive and some negaitive reviews on that particular supercharger. If my memory serves me correctly, it is internally driven by a kevlar belt, which I read is prone to snapping? There were other reliability problems with them also. I have also looked at the othet market leading brands including Vortech, Paxton (I believe have now been bought out by Vortech?)and ATI Prochargers.
From what I have read, Vortech seems to offer a very good and reliable system. It is highly regarded. It is the one which I will eventually go for.
A couple of things I have read and which must be born in mind and which I would like to pass on are as follows. The Supercharger forces a high volume of air into the combustion chamber resulting in a far more powerful,'power' stroke. The compression ratios also increase. I have therefore stripped my engine down and purchased forged internals to cope with the added power. I have also bought forged dished pistons to reduce the compression ratio. I am aiming for late 7:1 or early 8:1 CR. I have bought new aluminium GT-40 heads which flow far better that the stock iron heads. They also have quite a thick 'deck' to prevent warping and cylinder head sealing problems. This is important because its no good having a supercharger creating a ton more air, if it is restricted by the narrow inlet passages. I have also bought Ford Racing SS exhaust headers, again to improve the flow of gas through the heads.
The stock engine computers aren't really capable of dealing with the new engine parametres created by aftermarket improvements and I have read you'd have to have the computer chipped with I think what is called a Tweecer, although I may be wrong on this. I have also heard of better aftermarket computers such as an Anderson PMS which is very capable of refining the engine parametres. I have also heard of Ford having produced an Extreme Performance Engine Control computer, known as an EPEC. It piggy backs onto the back of your existing engine computer but takes over the control at certain points. This is the system I have bought. I can't comment on its ability yet as my engine isn't yet built.
Another thing is that the stock injectors are only 24lb items. The problem with these are that if your engine decides it needs to squirt a load of petrol into the cylinder for a given mass of air, if your injectors don't have the capacity to meet the demand, it will burn lean and could cause pre-detonation. Ive gone for 30lb injectors to cope with lowish boost levels (6-8 lb)So there is alot to think about when putting a Supercharger onto these engines. The above is a very quick and simplified input but I hope it has been of use to you all.