School me on supercharging a 360

Map63Vette said
You had to run premium on 6.5:1 compression? That must have been some serious boost it was pushing. Not that I can say I really know much about them, but the whole underdrive / overdrive thing has a lot to do with just how much blower you need. I've also heard underdriving is good because it helps keep the air temp down. I was debating this myself as I was waffling between a 6-71 and an 8-71 blower. I could get the same boost from the 8-71 underdriven (with possibly less heat generated from boost than an overdriven 6-71), but I would have to way overdrive the 6-71 if I wanted big boost for a race setup. The big thing is just to check out a blower chart for whatever you go with and figure out what kind of ratio you need. You can really make about whatever you want work if you mess with it. Hopefully I'll have that shiny blower on top of my car next year =P.

We ran around 12PSI if I remember correctly, so premium gas was mandatory. We had no intercooler, as, at the time, they were fairly new technology, so I am sure the air temperature was a factor. Had we run an intercooler, we likely could have overdriven 8 or even 10%, or perhaps run on regular fuel at 5%. For your application, I believe an 8-71 will be a waste. It's all about using a blower to its full potential, especially with a roots blower. The more power that comes from the blower itself, the more efficient the engine will be, as long of course other things are taken into consideration such as the addition of an intercooler. Keeping air temps down, a 6-71 should be enough to boost all but the most serious big block combination.....if done correctly. But remember, I said from the onset i didn't have much blower experience. I'm no expert by any means. I've just dabbled in a few and had success with them, so i thought I'd throw it out there. It's really like anything else. If you use a little common sense, you can really make it work to your advantage.