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- Welcome to our page how superchargers and blowers work in our website, we will provide for you information about superchargers also known as "blowers", how they work, and how vehicles benefit from having one of these devices installed in them.

 
      
  - Supercharger

    

  
    -Supercharged F-150 pick-up



  
 - Installed supercharger kit










 

 - What is a supercharger or "blower" ?

- A supercharger is a device that pumps air in to your engine to increase compression,  as a by product it results in increased horsepower and torque.

Superchargers are belt driven, meaning that a belt connects the supercharger to the crankshaft of the vehicle, so as long as the engine turns, the supercharger will turn with it, the way you control the turning ratio is by the size of the pulley, a large pulley in the supercharger will produce less turns, a smaller pulley will allow the supercharger to turn faster.

- Normally aspirated engines rely solely in atmospheric pressure to fill the cylinders with air, this air and fuel mixture is compressed by the piston moving up against the combustion chamber.

- The normal compression in a modern gasoline engine is 9:1, meaning that you will have a mixture compressed 9 times from its original size when the piston was at the bottom of the cylinder, the mixture is compressed  in the combustion chamber, located in the cylinder head, it is also in this area that the spark plug is found, the spark plug sends the spark needed to ignite the compressed mixture and push the piston down.

- Superchargers pump additional air in to the cylinder creating higher pressures in the combustion chamber, by doing this the mixture will ignite harder  resulting in  more pushing power against the piston once the mixture ignites. ( more power).

- But you can't just pump air in to an engine and hope for the best, auto manufacturers, and aftermarket companies like Paxton, Weiand, Roush,Vortech etc.  Design "supercharger systems"

SUPERCHARGER SYSTEM, or also known as SUPERCHARGER KIT:
- A supercharger system or "kit", is a complete system ( that's how it gets its name) that includes not only a supercharger, but the necessary items to make it work correctly without damaging your engine, it includes items like:
-Larger fuel injectors
-Intercooler
-computer chip or computer programmer
-Larger fuel pump
-fuel pressure regulator
- all other items like hoses, clamps, belts etc. to make it work.

- The correct way to add a supercharger to your vehicle is to buy a complete system  from the aftermarket companies, they are not cheap, the prices range from $2,000.00 to $7,000.00  depending on your vehicle and the brand you are buying.
You can find several systems at:
   WWW.JLSPORTTRUCKS.COM
- The reason why this systems come with all these items is this:
- Increased cylinder pressure generated by pushing more air in to an engine needs more fuel to avoid having a "lean" mixture, remember: your car computer doesn't know that you installed a supercharger, and it can't compensate enough for the added air being pump in to the engine, a  lean mixture will generate so much heat that the mixture will start igniting before the spark plug sends a spark, known as "detonation" the knock sensor will catch it and it will retard the timing, but because the detonation is being caused by a lean mixture retarding the timing won't help much.
-Under severe detonation pistons can actually break, or connecting rods can also break by the force being applied by the burning mixture pushing the piston down when it is trying to go up!!.

-Severe heat can also cause the exhaust valves to get so hot, that eventually they won't seat properly in the cylinder head causing that or those cylinders to lose compression.

- An intercooler helps to send cooler compressed air in to the cylinders, an intercooler is a device that looks almost like a radiator, but instead of water passing through it, the air being pumped by the supercharger passes through it to help it to cool down before it enters the engine.
- Larger fuel injectors and a larger fuel pump allow the modified car computer to send the extra fuel needed to have a correct mixture now that the supercharger is in use.

- So, as you can see, when pumping more air, you also need more fuel to have a correct mixture, and that can only be achieved by having a complete system where all the parts work together for maximum efficiency.

- How much power can you expect when adding a supercharger kit?

- A supercharger depending on the amount of PSI it generates, it can add up to half of your current engine power, for instance:
- Let's say your engine puts out 300 horsepower, a supercharger can add 150 additional horsepower without damaging your engine, generating a total of 450 hp
- Not bad for a simple bolt on system!.

- You must remember that your engine was not designed to have extra boost, so as a rule of thumb, it will wear faster than a naturally aspirated engine.  Everything has a price.
- Also, your engine will generate more heat, it will benefit from a larger radiator, cooler thermostat, and larger cooling fans.

- Is it worth going to all this trouble to add a supercharger to your car or truck?

- Well, that is completely up to you, but you will definitely notice the extra horsepower added by a supercharger, more likely you will enjoy the new sound of your engine too.