In all honesty, it'll cost an arm and a leg. You might be better off buying something that came factory fitted with a super or turbocharger if thats what you want. Sure it can be done alright but doing the job properly can run into 5 figures no worries and doing it on the cheap will never cut it with a properly boosted engine. You might get a BOV and a little boost but it won't take much punishment nor even come close to outperforming the VLT's and Skylines of today.
There are the Castlemaine Rod Shop kits which go for around $1800 or so which is a 'on the cheap' option, they're just custom mounts, pulley, belts and what they call a SC14 Blower which came fitted to imported Toyotas such as the MR2 (These blowers can be had from the wreckers for as little as $200). Being such a small blower they run very little boost, even if you could combat detonation with a top notch fuel system, intercooler and a programmable ECU, it would still become ineffecient after 8-10psi. Slapping one on a stock ECOTEC would never run right, not in my opinion, it'd probably run lean and be a big drama for a small power gain.
The Factory Eaton Blower will not bolt on. Even with the Ecotec SC manifold/valley the heads are still different, as are the exhaust manifolds, injectors and fuel system including ECU and cam. Not to mention the lower compression ratio of the SC bottom end. If you want to go this way get a complete motor and take the conversion path, it's cheaper in the end and crate motors are available from the states. Again it'll be 5 figures once finished and tuned.
At very least you'd be looking at....
For supercharging: A blower preferably something capable of producing respectable boost that comes on low in the rev range. Custom Fabrication of Blower mounts, pulley/s and a belt $2000+
Or for Turbo: I'd suggest two smaller turbos to feed a V6, set-up properly a big single will work but it'll have tonnes of lag. In other words it won't make power down low and will tend to come on very strong and late. $2000+
Then for anything boosted theres the mandatory
- Fuel system inc injectors, fuel pressure regulators, fuel pumps. $600+
- Programmable Engine Management to allow real time tuning of the fuel and ignition maps etc $800+
- Intercooler, piping and/or a very very functional water/methonol injection setup $800+
Even then your still stuck with a factory standard bottom end running high compression. How long this will hold up is anyones guess. Regardless of what people say the V6 doesn't handle boost well. Most performance gurus seem to recommend a rebuild on anything with over 150,000klms before adding forced induction.
Another consideration is most vehicle mods should begin with brakes, suspension, gearbox and diff if your really serious about building a quick street car, and not just a glorified family hack. It's not much good having a quick car which doesn't stop for small children, struggles through a roundabout or leaves pieces of gearbox and diff on the road after a quick stab. Don't even think about a cam until you know whether the project is going to go further, different camshaft profiles give different results, hence suiting different applications. Guys out there hold that secret camshaft profile dearly for one reason, it's somewhere you can either make or lose power. Alot of the time the right cam becomes the difference between power and 'useable' power.
Sorry about the long post, it just seems to get asked alot and never answered . Maybe it'll help someone else and we can build on it or maybe it'll bore everyone to tears. As an end note the above is only my opinion and I don't mean to put anyone off any future plans or motoring dreams.
Cheers and G'luck
Jake.
