Has anybody here supercharged a Nailhead? Is it really worth the money? Just an option I'm pondering Tim
If you still have the Dynaflow in your Rivi and you're thinking of supercharging it, I'd say no...... Upgrade to a st400 or sp400 and it may be. But the manifolds seem to be hard to find and expensive when you do... A well built 401/425 will move the car down the road plenty fast...
Don't forget that nearly all 401/425's came with 10.25:1 compression from the factory, so I'd highly suggest you tone that down a notch or 2 unless you want stuff going kaboom in the ouch-my-wallet way.
There's a 401/425 blower manifold on ebay right now; 2days left, and it's already at $910. I'm sure it'll close for way over a grand. Yeah, it'd be cool, but unless you're building a nostalgia drag car, it seems really expensive, just for the basic manifold! Obviously you're going to need forged pistons, and you certainly wouldn't want to put re-conditioned stock rods in it...plus the cost of the blower. You'd have to be looking at over 5 grand just for the blower specific bits, wouldn't you? That doesn't count valves, cam/lifters, rings, bearings, water pump, oil pump, ignition...ARP hardware would add even more. BUT, I'm spending a small fortune on a 409, so what do I know?! Hell, I paid $350 for a set of valve covers, and was damn happy to do it. Brad
I was watching that manifold on ebay, amazing considering a brand new intake from hampton blowers is 1100. And as far as pistons go, they would have to be custom made forged low comp. also not cheap. then the cam.....etc,etc,etc. Nothing that money can't fix i guess. Thanks for the input. Tim
I disagree, the stock forged rods are plenty strong, as is the whole bottom end of a Nailhead. But then by the time you got the manifold, pistons, blower, etc., etc., what's the cost of some rods....
Yeah, stoner had one and 38chevy454 bought it and later sold it here in the cl***ifieds. It was in a 63-65 Riv. I believe PAE built the motor, but I recall 38 chevy454 telling me that he wasn't all that impressed by the machine work and whatnot. I'm pretty sure it wasn't running, but was supposed to make 500 or 550 hp or something. You might do a search & see if you can find the thread from a few years ago about it. Try "supercharged riviera". Here's a link for PAE. They modified an SP400 for my Riv & I was very pleased with it. - http://www.paeenterprises.com/ Good luck.
yup, that's my car now. i've been slowly collecting parts to do it over the right way. it's been kind of a back burner project. one of these years i might actually get it back together. the ****** PAE built for it burnt up too.
I run mine with a pretty stock bottom end. It has a set of Mickey Thompson pistons but the rods and crank are stock. I had it balanced so now its internally balanaced instead of externally.
Glad it stayed "in the family" (so to speak). So the ****** **** the bed huh??? Wow. That makes me a little worried. So far mine has functioned flawlessly. Of course, mine is also behind what is essentially an undercarbureted stock motor. 500 horses would probably make a bit of a difference.
I stayed out of this one, figuring Ray could fill in the details, but yes I did buy Stoner's old car after the engine was hurt. It had a Procharger centrifugal supercharger on a 401. The engine got a plugged oil p***age on one head and starved the top end for oil. Completly ruined the vlaves and guides and rocker ***y. I had PAE rebuild both heads, and a bit more porting work, to the tune of $1100. Put it back together and then had toruble with it due to way excess vapor in the exhaust. Ray bought the car from me with a huge steam cloud when running, due to the broken casting which Ray identified, I just thought it had a bad blown head gasket since I did not do anything to the short block. Turns out the casting broke due to bad porting by PAE (too thin of metal remaining). Overall I would not want to have PAE do any more work for me. Join V8Buick.com and you can get lots of good details on nailhead engines.
i didn't really give any details cause it sounds like detroit rivi is looking to go roots blown, not much of what i'm doing applies, ie. i'm working on an intercooled centrifugal setup, i can cheat a few things that can't be done on a roots blower setup. i don't think the ****** had enough miles with the blower to hurt it, and as far as i know the car never had any tires that hooked. i drove it for maybe two years nearly every day with a stock motor before the ****** **** the bed. i don't know what the problem with it was, just replaced it with a stocker i had laying around. just out of principle i'll be looking for someone else to do the ****** when the time comes.
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