i was wondering what would be the best upgrade for the cost between a turbo, supercharger or pro charger? and whats would be the most realiable for a 3800 non supercharged and if people have had any problems with doing any of these input would be appriciated, thanks

 

there are posts about upgrading the na 3800 to a supercharger as well as a full build. there is a guy here that has a really nice monte he built his engine from the ground up he might chime in to help you out a little more about the 3800. there is so much you can do to yours first off how many miles is on the engine second if the miles are high you might want to get a little extra gaskets when getting the top end swap. what i want to ask is are you looking for a mild set up or a full high out put out of the engine?

 

How competent are you as a DIYer?

The turbo build is probably more upfront money, but it is easier to do and easier to get higher HP.

The supercharger top-swap build is cheaper, but requires taking the engine apart from the heads up, and will require good tuning and other modifications to get higher power.

The procharger is a dead setup and hard to find the kit to adapt them to our cars nowadays.

 

you mention Cost and Reliable..... there is an old quote "Fast, Cheap, Reliable... You can only pick 2" Keeping that in mind. you really need to set/figure out a goal.

1) How much can you really afford to spend?
Budget will give an idea of what mods you can afford and may open up a faster way to get where you want to be.

2) Is this a Daily Driver and your only car? or is it a track toy?
if you push things too far and risk blowing the trany or other damage you may need to have a back up car or just tone down the build to safe levels.

3) How fast do you want it? Be honest here. ZZP made a track car get into the 8's !!! there are plenty of cars out there in the 10's and 11's but as a DD what do you really want?


without knowing all that its hard to tell you what to do. but here is my suggestion...

get headers and a tuner and learn to tune your car while it is NA. once you have the grasp of it, then look into a top swap or complete L67 swap. the lower compression of the L67 will be easier to tune but wont make as much power. ZZP makes a top swap kit for the 3800 but with the price of the custom fuel rails you are pretty much at the price range of swapping the l67 top end.

 

yes its my daily driving car im not looking to make it a track car just something to give it a chance against some of the v8s around here, there are89,000miles on the motor

 

now by V8's do you mean the mustangs or catty's and grand marque's with V8's lol just playin.

ok so im guessing you want around the 13.5 1/4 mile mark.

A low boost turbo setup would prob be what i would recommend. i say turbo because a top swap alone will prob drop you to the 14.6-14.7 mark add in supporting mods and a pulley drop or two and you would be in low 14' most likely. by this point if you want faster, you will have spent more then a turbo build.

if you only want to spend a little at a time do the top swap. but if you want to save money over all just go with the turbo now.

 

I would recommend the ZZP Z3 turbo.

ZZPerformance.com under Grand Prix and Engine.

You have to pay to play

 

You really have 4 options listed there:
-turbo kit
-factory 3800 supercharger
-aftermarket supercharger (whipple, TVS, KB)
-CSC (I don't think anyone uses procharger, the only ones I've seen are the Paxton Novi's)

IMO, best bang for the buck would be the factory 3800 supercharger. Parts can be had for dirt cheap, and although the power gains aren't massive as is- a few minor, cheap bolt ons can get you to the 300 crank hp mark pretty quick. Assuming you don't screw up the install, then it should be nearly stock reliable, since you're using 100% stock parts. However, installation is probably the hardest of all the above, since you basically are stripping the engine to the block like for a head gasket change, and swapping balancers and other stuff- it is a bit involved. There is a part B to this, which is the ZZP SSM90 kit, which allows you to keep your stock heads and balancer (thus cutting like half the install off, but is also crazy expensive for the power gains, and limits what pullies you can run).

An aftermarket supercharger is pretty much out of the question- since you don't seem like you have any major engine mods now, you really can't take advantage of the extra airflow.

A CSC setup is nice, but as said- the whole kits are no longer sold, so you're limited to buying a used kit- or trying to piece together a kit by trying to get new adapters made. Support is rather limited, and honestly- the turbo setups make more power, and don't require the extra drive belt to mess with.

Turbo setups are the best for power, and probably the easiest to install also, since you leave 98% of the engine untouched. However, cost of entry is higher compared to a factory supercharger- you aren't going to be getting any parts here for free/super cheap. Even used turbo kits start at $1500-2000 usually. New kits tend to start about $2500 plus injectors (for the Z3 kit). Turbos can make good power for little money once you get the initial investment in- add an IC, a nice turbo cam, and start off with a decent size turbo- and you can start getting some really big hp- enough to need a built trans to handle it, so you've got to watch how deep you start going with mods once you go this route.


Most reliable- stock. Leave it as is, and don't beat on it anymore (I'm assuming you race it since you're looking for more power). No setup above can match the reliability of OEM. Aftermarket parts don't tend to have nearly the engineering time spent as stock, and tend to fail more often. Plus, upping the power adds stress to everything else- the transmission, axles, tires, etc. Adding boost means you need to start watching for KR, or you'll end up chunking pistons (other than maybe a factory SC with a bigger SS pulley). Also, with some of these installs (particularly the factory SC top swap), you are seriously tearing into the engine- and install error can cause failure. A handful of people have spun bearings taking the intake off- dumping coolant into the valley, and not changing/flushing the oil before driving again, some people have issues with head gaskets not sealing from not properly prepping heads/decks and so on, I mean there are a lot of hazards.

Not saying not to mod the car, but if reliability is #1 (ie people depend on you to have a running car for whatever reason), leave it stock or get a DD. Sure there are plenty of people who DD crazy high HP turbo cars and all kinds of crap- but the chances of failures on modded parts/setups is much higher than stock.

 

Listen to Chibi he knows his stuff!