Supercharger for 5.3

Sierra5.3 · February 16, 2003

Im looking into getting a supercharger for my 5.3. How do the engines react to the added pressure made by the supercharger? Any mods needed for the supercharger(pistons, cams,etc...). Im looking into a roots type like Whipple, but I dont think that whipple offers an intercooler. ANy suggestions? Ive also been looking a Magna charger because they offer an intercooler and claim 63% gain in Hp.

bstewart · February 17, 2003

I have Whipples on both my H2 and '94 454 Suburban and the performance is awesome! Overheating has never been a problem with either one and I live where it gets close to 120 in the summer. The one on my Suburban was installed at about 50k miles and I have put another 50k on it with the Whipple and have never had a problem.

Sierra5.3 · February 17, 2003

Ive been looking at Whipple, but they dont offer an intercooler. Magna charger does but it costs around 5k with the intercooler. Is the intercooler worth having? thanks

bstewart · February 17, 2003

Generaly the big blocks are the ones that need the intercooler. Whipple does have an intercooler for the 8.1 but not for the smaller engines. As I previously mentioned, I have never had any problems associated with needing an intercooler such as detonation, overheating, etc.

elboberino · February 18, 2003

The February 2003 issue of Sport Truck has a huge article about the new Magna Charger supercharger with intercooler. Here are a few tid-bits from that article:

The water-to-air intercooler is used to drop the temperature of the compressed air coming out of the rotors to just above outside ambient. The intercooler has it's own coolant source. Magna Charger provides a resivoir, continuous duty pump, and radiator, sor it's not affected by the truck's main cooling system. The radiator installs behind the grill and bolts to and existing bar on the core support. The Resivoir mount into a factory hole on the other side of the core support next to the battery. The continuous duty pump is wired to the battery for power and the turn on relay is tapped into the factory fuel pump wire. Once it is all together, it's fulled with standard anti-freeze.

For some added safety, Magna Charger put the air inlet temperature sensor on the boost side so it will read the temp after the intercooler. That way, if for some reason you lose the intercooler, the computer will pull timing and you'll still be able to drive.

Here is what it was installed onto a 5.3L V-8 that put out a base line of 237 hp and 270 lb-ft of torque...We saw a gain of 132 hp and 126 lb-ft of torque -- not bad for one component.

If you do the math, the max power was 369.2 @5,250 rpm and the max torque was 397.2 @ 4,250 rpm. The Radix System (which is the name of this new blower) also comes with a SuperChips computer similar to the HPP3 which reconfigures the timing and fuel delivery specifically for a supercharged engine along with improving shift point, increasing line pressure and torque converter long-up strategies, and so on....

If I ever win the lottery, yeah, this is what I'm getting!

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