Supercharged Big Block for best Big Block Race Engines

« How to Stroke Big Block Chevy Engine and more Q&A 1970’s Fords 427 Big block are Ford Big Block Dragracing Engines »

Supercharged Big Block for best Big Block Race Engines

April

1st

admin

There is nothing new about the idea of big block race engines. Chevy big block race motors have been around for years, and hit their official high when special engines with alloy blocks were built for CanAm racing. These 396 cu in big block race motors developed up to 525 bhp in the early days.

Later, with the addition of very high lift cams and fuel injection, the power output was pushed up to 600 bhp, which was pretty good for a stock engine. In those days, the engines were not reliable enough for anyone to race supercharged big block units.

big block race engines

These engines had aluminum cylinder blocks and heads, and after that GM marketed a whole range of parts for tuning big block engines including the aluminum cylinder blocks. These days, aluminum cylinder blocks are readily available – at a price.

You can also get plenty of parts from independent tuners, including all the internals, so you can get quite a lot of power from any of the Gen IV big block Chevy engines, which make great big block race engines. However, if you want to build a supercharged big block engine, you would do better with a cast iron block.

The great thing about the big block engine is that there were so many variants you can combine different crankshafts, connecting rods and pistons to make the capacity and get the stroke:bore ratio you want, which is ideal when building big block race engines.

Top quality components needed for big block race engines

Forged pistons are recommended for high performance big block race motors, whether they are naturally aspirated or a supercharged big block unit. Of course, you need a large throughput intake manifold, a freeflow exhaust manifold and high-lift cams. Also, you need to get the major components crack detected, to make sure they will last.

big block race motors

There are also plenty of supercharger kits to create supercharged big block race and street engines. You just set the boost to what you want – street or race. The Roots blower is best for street use as it gives plenty of power and torque low down, whereas the centrifugal blowers can give more boost but over a narrower range – like older turbochargers.

To give some idea of the power you can get from a supercharged big block consider these figures. With a centrifugal supercharger, you can increase the power output by approximately 100-200 bhp, which is a huge amount. Imagine, a 396 producing 1,000 bhp! That is some supercharged chevy 572 big block, and it has 34 psi boost, whereas you would have about 15 psi to get up to 90 per cent increase in power. Needless to say, you need to make a lot of changes to your big block race engines toget this sort of power, even for dragsters.

With Roots blowers, the boost is usually set to about 14-15 psi. This can produce 750 bhp from a supercharged 427, or about 1,000 bhp from a supercharged chevy 572 big block. Mind you a supercharged chevy 572 big block is a very big and heavy engine, and not the best of big block race engines. You would have a job to get that power onto the road and to keep the transmission intact – even on a race track.