Building up the block

[Formulaboy95]

Alright, I have a powerdyne BD-550A supercharger that is just sitting around taunting me to install. I bought it off of a good friend awhile back, and thought all I would need is the install kit for the formula. I called powerdyne, and spoke to someone for about 2 seconds, and he told me it would not work with my car. So, I am thinking of selling it. Supposed to be for a 96-98 2v mustang.
I am kinda looking towards a Nitrous setup, because I would like some extra hp for a special and very rare occasion. Either way, Nitrous or SC, I have heard take their toll on ringlands and the pistons - under heavy use. So, what should I do to beef up the block, with a possible SC in the future? Cost is kinda an issue, but so is quality. What should I be looking at, forged pistons, etc....

[Injuneer]

Depends how far you want to go. The stock bottom end can handle 500HP.... beyond that, particularly with a blower or nitrous you are going to want to beef things up. A 4.5psi or maybe even a 6psi blower, or a 125-150HP shot of nitrous isn't going to be a problem on a stock bottom end..... WITH PROPER TUNING.

Big problem is, you need to decide which power adder you want before you buy the pistons. For a blower setup, you will want to drop the CR to 9.0:1. With nitrous, particularly with a big shot of juice, you want a higher CR.... 10.5 - 12:1 can be OK, and you want the pistons to be "nitrous" specific... a little more beef on the crown, drop the ring pack down a bit to thicken the top land and get the top ring out of the inferno, and bigger ring end gaps to handle the higher temeperatures.

My thoughts are for anything up to 500HP, the stock parts will probably work fine. If you decide to use aftermarket parts, you are still talking a cast crank, reworked PM rods and even hypereutectic piston. Keith Black pushes their hypers even for nitrous.

As the HP starts to climb... you need to start at the top and work your way down. Replace the hypers with forged pistons. Replace the rods with forged, and finally, above 600HP or so go to a forged 4340 crank. At that level its probably a good idea to get a factory 4-bolt LT1 block, or have your 2-bolt LT1 block converted to splayed 4-bolt.

The LT1 block itself is amazingly strong, having been proven on a couple of buildups in the 1,100-1,200HP range... and those were blower motors, meaning that the actual crank HP was even higher, when you allow for the power taken off the front of the crank to drive the blower.