supercharge?

[towncar95]

besides puting in an sho engine, could these essex babies be supercharged or turboized? it would probally be easier to do right?

[v8_dave]

May make it just as peppy as a luxo barge Town Car. :p

[Steve Moran]

Supercharging with OEM Thunderchicken parts is out of the question anyway, I have the parts but the engine sits to close to the frame to fit a belt on without major mods plus the intake has the Thermostat is on the opposite end.
Turbo? I dunno, It seems to me there is a lack of room for that too but I guess I had not given it much thought.

[MichiganTeddyBear]

actually, there is a fair amount of room at the 'back' (left) side of the engine above the trans to run some duct, but it would still be pretty tight to get it all in there.

it would seem that the supercharging would be the way to go, but as previously determined, there just isn't the room for it, and the lower intake is wrong.. :(

[pro-five-oh]

4.2 or 4.4L stroker motor, ported heads/intake and a hotter cam.

[MichiganTeddyBear]

yup those will work!

[ketyokeinnor]

http://www.ststurbo.com/

with the space issues, one(or 2) of these might work. i've seen one installed on Truck Universe and they seemed pretty happy with the outcome(i don't remember the #'s).

[Dario]

Using SC stuff is not out of the question, if you remember the SC intake and blower on my engine a while back, it could be modded to the belts with modifications to the pulley and fill a gap not covered by the intake. If the SC intake and blower were mounted backwards, which would be a Direct bolt-on, it would just require a secondary shaft like some of the corvette kits.

the test fit showed it did not fit under the stock hood, and intercooler piping is dooable, but would have to be totally custom.

As far as a turbo goes there is little room if any up front. Short of cutting a hole in the passenger floorboard, you would already be looking at quite a bit of piping. The easiest way to do it is a rear turbo like above. Piping runs all the way to and from would be straight and simpler than fooling around up front.

However, there is no way the conti tranny could hold up to much more power, it would require a total swap which just complicates things...

Nonetheless, always keep an open mind on these cars, anything that has been done to any ford 3.8 can be done to our engine. (the same goes for non-engine SHO parts!)

[pro-five-oh]

Good information all around. The supercharger and the STS turbo will be complex, but doable. I'm all about encouraging creativity. :)

Getting a bad-ass stroker motor is the easier way to do it. You can probably make one yourself with a 4.2L Freestar (minivan) short block, ported/milled Conti heads from your machine local shop, 1.7 roller rockers (Mustang), custom cam (Mustang).

If the stroker motor still doesn't cut it, spray it with a 75 shot of Nitrous and you'll never get tired of it. And you'll be nice and broke after doing all this, upgrading the tranny, and burning tires like mad.

[DustyLBottoms]

Sorry I'm late to the conversation!

As dario noted above the Supercharger is certainly doable - there is at least one member of the Taurus Forums who has done it - though it did require custom piping.

I would agree with Pro however, after spending a lot of time researching the matter that a 4.2-4.4 stroker would be very cost effective. Plus you have hundreds of mustangs guys who've gone there before you to pave the way. (And like the SC above, there is one guy that I know of on the Taurus forum that has done this to his 3.8)

Check out the boards - read the "engine tech" sections.

http://www.v6power.net/

Also, check out what Tom Morona can build for you. I've had a couple of e-mail conversations with him, he's ready to go with my stroker when I can stroke-up the money. ;)

http://www.moranav6racing.com/category.html?CategoryID=16

Good luck!

ps. Also read the sticky at the top of this board for a little more info!

[Tinner105]

There's a few differences in the na and the supercharged 3.8's.
The supercharged are lower compression engines and they came with forged cranks also. When they first came out in 89 the had cast cranks and they snapped a few of those until they changed them mid 89. I think you might have a problem blowing head gaskets on the cars, like we do even with the low compression, plus most guys over spin the SC's as well.
There is a guy at SCCOA.com goes by the handle of mannysc who inverted a supercharger on a SC which eliminates the intercooler piping/ and actual intercooler location. But it not as efficient. And if you going to use a supercharger from a TBird SC get one from a 94/95 in has a rectangular port in the rear, the 89-93 is an oval inlet port. It has coated rotors and about 25 more HP.
I have two 90 Tbird SC's right now and have been modding them for a while, and I'm a member of SCCOA. They are really fun to drive too, and the haul azz. At SCCOA there's a links page you can find places that sell Superchargers etc like Magnum Powers.
Here's a couple pics
The one picking the wheel off the ground is Coy Miller he had the fastest SC for a while, but there's a couple guys faster.
Were in the 10's now and close to 140mph in the 1/4 mile
Not bad for a 3.8 two ton car huh.

tony