Does anyone out there know if you need to change to steel forged pistons when you put a superchager on??? That is what one on the techs told me at the dealership. He said it would work without them but it could ruin my engine is this true??? Thanks for the help.
Iron

 

The out of the box supercharger kits are designed for stock engines. They keep the boost at conservative levels. You only need to go to forged internals if you start increasing boost to significantly. Check out the superchargers forum or do a search on boost levels.

 

You do not need to upgrade to forged parts for the reasons that BIG ORANGE stated the boost levels on the superchargers that are made for stock engines are only in the 6-8 pounds of boost area. Saying that though you need to also consider that long term usage of a supercharger will in fact make your engine work harder so it could shortren the life of the engine but that is the nature of the beast. If you are thinking of putting a supecharger on I highly suggest that you consider the ATI Pro Charger it in my opinion is the best one available for our trucks the reason I say this is most other superchargers require computer upgrades and severe ignition retarding do to the supercharger making more heat into the engine. The ATI uses a air to air intercooler so no ignition retarding is reguired and the engine operates at its normal temps. Go to Procharegr website and read up on it.
http://www.procharger.com/

Richard D.

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Ideally, forged internals would be the way to go. Our motors can handle a bit of boost, stock.

As Big Orange said a majority of the kits out there have been specificly designed for a given aplication. You pay a lot of money for these kits and part of what your paying for is the R&D it took to make sure that it will work properly.

I don't believe that a supercharger will always "wear" the motor prematurely. I think that the way the vehicle is opperated has much more to do with it. I believe it's entirely possible to have an engine last it's "natural expected life" with a supercharger on it. A conservative driver would be more likely to see this than someone who drives more aggressively.

When looking at kits the most important thing to look for is reliability. There are sever good kits out there for our trucks. ATI is one of them. There are a lot of things to consider when choosing the kit. Magnacharger (which I run) and Kenne Bell have served many well as well. In order to have optimal performance "all" superchargers should have proper ECU adjustments. Not all kits "require" computer upgrades. In fact the Magnacharger I installed said not to. I think that you will find that most would reccomend a proper tune.

The superchargers section of this message board has been very helpful to me and many others. I think that you will find the same.

Good luck!