Other than the obvious ("Don't deal with a hack"), there are some bits of info from my SC build up.
1. Not many people REALLY know what to do. The industry is full of people that want to help, but can't and those that can, but won't. Tough thing to get over, but be prepared.
2. Skepticism. "I want to supercharge my 3.0L." Reply: "Yeah, so does every other 3.0L owner!” Another fact of life, be prepared to meet it head on, have pictures and be knowledgeable.
3. Superchargers, daily driving and 87 octane can work. I did it for over 10,000 miles, and finally ventilated a head gasket. Point is, don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do it. The key is reasonable timing, low engine temps and low boost numbers. Mess those up, and you will have a grenade on your hands.
4. High boost is high dollars. There is no cheap way to do it, it is going to cost. High power means more stress, more stress means higher strength, higher strength means research, research isn’t cheap!
5. Spend some good money on a timing controller, intercooling and/or water vapor/methanol injection. You will be very glad you did. The only reason I was able to flog my 3.0L as hard as I did was the MSD-6BTM. Without the boost retard timing, it would have gone out in the first week for sure.
6. 155,000 miles is not the time to slap on a supercharger. Sounds funny huh? I did it mainly to prove a point, but some people will do it because they don’t see why they shouldn’t. In all the test runs and high mile trips, I had one part fail, the original factory Ford head gasket. Not bad…
7. Don’t forget, boost is relative. Your boost numbers may be higher, but you can produce less power. Each set up is different, atmospheric changes, altitude, exhaust; too many things play in to the boost game. Just use it as a reference for YOUR set up, and it won’t get confusing.
8. Don’t let anyone talk you out of it! It is so worth the effort!

This is some great info Boss, and this is where the new Whipple kit really took over. Prodrive/Badillo has done the engine tuning and took the base ford program and modified it to work with boost using the Whipple. From 100hr dyno testing they never vented one head gasket, but of course this engine had very low miles, not over 150,000 ;). Even so they tore it down when they were complete and found little to no wear on the engine as far as abnormal wear goes.

Case in point the 3.0 is a strong engine, you can do as boss did and build a custom setup as long as you do the research. And like he says ITS NOT CHEAP. Or you can either buy a Whipple if you have an 02' or newer. If you have an 01 or earlier Apten is in developement of the kit for you. I'm working closly with them to aid in this. Please don't PM me and ask if this will work on your truck, call or email www.Apten-us.com and ask him how long it will be before anything new comes across for the early 3.0.

Once you go boost you'll never go back!

Later Doug904.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by BOSS 3.0
[B]
4. High boost is high dollars. There is no cheap way to do it, it is going to cost. High power means more stress, more stress means higher strength, higher strength means research, research isn’t cheap!


Boss3.0...

Speed cost money, how fast do you want to go?

I just sumed up everything you typed in one sentence. Anybody who has ever went fast before should be perfectly aware that there are risk and the fact that it does cost! For those who learned alot from your thread, those guys have a WHOLE LOT MORE to learn.

Here is another good one.
Don't play with fire if you don't want to get burned. (different subject, same idea)

Chris:king:and Redrage:burnout:

Originally posted by redrage
Speed cost money, how fast do you want to go?


you mean
speed cost money, how fast to you want to spend?

No, I worded it that way for a reason.
Many people don't realize that when you start getting into performance modifications, there are some side effects.

1. Reliability decreases. This engine is designed to function for MANY miles (200K+) AS BUILT. As soon as you start interefering with that, reliability decreses. Regardless of how well the replacement parts are designed, you run the risk of stripping threads, reusing fasteners, dropping parts/debris in the engine, overtorquing fasteners, using a touch too much gasket goo that breaks off and clogs an oil passage and so on.

2. Increased performance means higher trips up the tach. With an engine that revs at 4,000 rpms max (typical street engine) the cylinder wear is increased 50% for each time the engine is rev'ed to 6,000. Think of it this way, the rings and cylinder walls are designed to have only so many "trips" on them (250,000 miles @ 2,000 rpm = 41 BILLION round trips on each ring!), if you go faster, those round trip occur sooner (83K miles @ 6,000 rpm!!!). And remember, the factory valvesprings start to degrade at 5,800 rpms. Each trip over that makes them float a little sooner each time. Oh sure, you may be able to run at 6,300 rpms for a while, but you will start noticing a drop each time you try that later...