Say that I had an '03 F-150 FX4 with the 5.4L in it with a 6" lift and 35's. If I put a Kenny Belle supercharger on it, how long can the motor actually lasy with it on there. Certainly not as long as if I left it stock, right? What I'm asking is essentially is it safe to supercharge a truck that you need to be reliable and that you wheel and give abuse to at the same time? Or would it be a lot safer to just chip it, put on a full exhaust and an intake?

I don't know much about forced induction, but the whole idea just seems dangerous to your truck.

 

as long as you do everything right and get it properly tuned it will be fine

 

its all in the tuning, and how you drive it.

 

There's a lot more here than meets the eye. In terms of reliability, the best answer is to leave your truck stock. The tune in the ECU is made to last and the extensive amount of testing on that setup will ensure that you won't blow the engine. With that being said, both options you proposed have their dangers.

There are a lot of issues and concerns with both upgrades. The real issue in both is detonation as this strains the engine more than anything. The pistons and rods are designed to take the repeated loading of each power stroke, given that it looks like a bell curve of pressure. The amount of force transmitted by the rod varies over the course of the stroke, but this variation in loading never exceeds what the rod was intended to do. Without getting too technical, detonation is a surge in the cylinder pressure. Since this surge is not sustained, small detonation does not give you substantially more power but rather forces the engine components to instantaneously handle multiple times the load that it was designed to handle. This is how you will blow up the engine. If you decide to modify your engine, be sure to get a conservative tune if you care so much about reliability.

You would have this detonation concern with both a supercharger or an intake, exhaust, and tune. The supercharger requires a reflash so that the timing can be retarded when the engine is boosting. The tune by definition would have to be more aggressive in the same conditions to give you more power. There are gains to be made with higher octane and a tune, but this still puts your reliability into question as it is a tuner's work as opposed to the big blue oval's calibration team. Of course it can be more conservative, but I've never seen a tune advertised as 100,000 mile safe! rather only by the advertised horsepower it will give you. The intake and exhaust should be fairly benign changes, so long as you make sure that the ECU is reflashed for the updated mass air function.

My recommendation. If you really need your truck and the engine, keep it stock. If you want to upgrade it and maintain reliability, do the intake and exhaust. If you want more power. you are much better off going with a supercharger and a conservative tune than getting a more aggressive tune for your naturally aspirated truck. It's both safer and you'll have more performance gains.

Hope this helps! and to directly answer your question, I would say it is much safer to supercharge than to chip your N/A truck so long as joe schmoe isn't doing the tuning. Try to keep the kit to completely what is recommended by the supercharger manufacturer so that you have the set up they tuned the blower on.

 

Ole Sparky there is right, though a bit long winded. It all comes down to the tune. These engines can handle a lot more than Fords gives you. There's a lot of guys here that have been running S/Cs for many miles and loving it including myself. My 01 SCAB 4x4 is putting down 320/403 to the wheels with a conservative tune. That's up from 178 rwhp at the beginning. My AFRs are at 12.5, a little rich but safe. Just don't go crazy with it and you'll enjoy the extra power for many miles to come.

https://www.f150online.com/galleries....cfm?gnum=7238

 

Thanks guys, I don't really feel safer putting one on. But I can't think of any other way to get the power like that instantly when I hit the gas.

 

If that's how you feel, then you got the jist of what we're trying to say.
Safest is to leave the truck as is. Next safest, get a supercharger, and run it with low boost and a conservative tune. There's always gears, but i have the strangest feeling that will only satisfy you for a couple of weeks!

let us know what you decide!

 

I don't think I would put a suprhcarger on-everyone I talk to seems to give different answers. I say, if I hear anything bad at all it's most-likely not a good idea to do something . Plus, the truck woud be a daily driver as well as going camping and stuff. I need it to be reliable no matter what.

 

I won't own a vehicle anymore that isnt boosted....

Just get a good tune and you can put 100-200k miles on the truck no problem..

 

You say your forced induction tune is conservative and then claim that 12.5 AF's are fat (rich)????????????????? A lot closer to lean and not too conservative !!!!!! I'v had several SC'd vehicles and would never think to run any of them at 12.5 and expect longivity..What SC are you running and how may pounds of boost??

 

My truck has been boosted for the last four years, it is a daily driver takes me to work seven days a week 361 days a year. I am running 9.5# of boost with a Troyer tune. it is driven in 90 degree weather and this year at -5, it has never missed a beet and never let me down. I do proper maintenance and drive it like I stole it. And as Fatherford so eloquently stated I would never own anything without boost again, I even turbocharged my tractor!!!

 

That's a huge key to reliability.
I think a lot of us who have done the blower are also very meticulous about maintenence.

 

Sal with PSP handled my tuning. He says it's a little rich but it's better to be safe so I'll be keeping it there for now. I'm currently running a Prochager P1-SC at 10 psi at WOT. Sal has not gone aggressive with the tune since we're doing it long distance. How much experience do you have tuning these trucks with blowers?

 

Marc works quite often with Mike Troyer, who's tuned a few trucks, too. He doesn't need defending, but I also believe that 12.5/1 is lean (both from LOTS of reading and my own tuner here). Perhaps your 12.5/1 was a misprint?

Lee

 

Amen - words to live by.