Am I an idiot for wanting to boost a high compression 318?

flyfish said
Having had a warmed up 318 in my Barracuda when I lived in Colorado (over 20 years ago)....I can tell you that you are probably no where close to 320hp right now. If you think I'm wrong, take it to Bandimere Speedway and see what it runs.....if it runs 14's or better then I'm wrong. My guess is the number is probably closer to 200hp at elevation.

My little 318 did make it into the 13's with help from a little blue friend....way back when....

My 360 with ported Edelbrocks, .525" lift/222*@.050" hyd roller cam, RPM intake and shorty headers made 286 HP at the wheels on a chassis dyno at around 5000' elevation in Loveland, CO. So yeah 320 HP at the crank in Denver, ehhh idk about that...

The bored .060"-over part jumped out at me as a risk factor. My short block is a junkyard pullout high-mileage 5.9L Magnum with stock bores, pistons, rings with new rod bearings. I plan to put a Procharger on it some day but it has 9:1 static comp and Cometic MLS gaskets so it's already prepped for light boost, say 8-12 psi.

@TT5.9mag is right, times have changed a lot in the boosted engines world, high compression can and does work fine with boost if you know what you're doing. If using a turbo, making sure the hot-side plumbing flows well to keep the pressure ratio as close to 1:1 is key, if the hot-side pressure is higher you get hot exhaust gases pushed back into the chambers every cycle pre-heating the mixture which is why old-school (1980s) turbo engines had to be super low-compression to run safely on boost. Superchargers are simpler in that regard, just need to keep the charge air temps as cool as possible but also free-flowing exhaust with minimal backpressure.

When I briefly worked at a racing engines/hot rod shop I watched a 6.0 iron-block LS with over 11:1 compression and a big-*** turbo make multiple chassis dyno runs at I want to say 20 psi boost. However it was running E85 and the guys managing it were experienced pros. And it definitely had intercooling or at least water/meth injection.