Superchargers and Dirt???? Myth or Fact??

Considering installing a supercharger on my truck. Truck will be used quite a bit off road and have heard rumors of issues with trucks equipped with supercharges having failures due to dusty conditions. Myth of Fact? Any info would be great. Thanks

most of the supercharger failures I've seen have been belt failures. now, turbo's, that's an interesting discussion.

Lets not forget its still FORCED induction, anything forced seems bad to me imo

I have not had any issues with my roush supercharger and i offroad a fair amount. i do have a prefilter sock on it. like ducati said about the belts...i have had the belts come apart. This is all east coast stuff so im not sure how that would differ from west coast, but all and all i have not had major issues with it.

There is nothing wrong with Forced Induction when setup and tuned properly even in off road conditions. If you are running in extremely dusty conditions then install a pre-filter over the supplied air filter.

This concern for off-roading with being SC has been beaten the death.

I'm guessing these guys think a NA engine can ingest dirt more or handle it better than a forced air engine.

Just don't suck up any dirt and you'll be fine. Like mentioned above, stick a pre-filtler/cleaner ahead of your filter. Some restriction in flow would be a fair compromise for the peace of mind of not sucking any dirt.

Bulletnjm said:

Lets not forget its still FORCED induction, anything forced seems bad to me imo

Click to expand...

Lol wut... You know that N/A engines and boosted engines both suck in air at a tremendous rate? Especially at WOT. Don't believe, go ask the hole in my motor when I went through a puddle at WOT.

Now now, nothing bad about forced induction...

It all comes down to filtration. Any forced induction, supercharger or turbo, will be "sucking" harder though the intake than a naturally aspirated setup. Engines are basically glorified air pumps that mixes in some flamible substance to continue the pumping motion. Even naturally aspirated motors still suck air through the intake on its own.

So naturally, the harder it sucks, the more chance of particles forcing they're way through the filter media. Put in a cheap filter, no bueno. Put in a high quality filter, your good. BUT, you will have to change filters more often with forced induction because they will suck more air over the same time period than a naturally aspirated engine.

Again, the key is good filtration (besides good tuning).

In the end, proper maintenance on forced induction will go a long way. Were running a twin turbo LS1 pumping 750hp on our buggy and have logged more than 1500 hours in the sand, and have had no engine failures to speak of. Our transmission on the other hand....

Ok, i get it superchargers are great. I just prefer N/A power sorry.

Bulletnjm said:

Ok, i get it superchargers are great. I just prefer N/A power sorry.

Click to expand...

I'm more of a turbo guy but that's just me... N/A is cool and all, until you wanna actually go fast.