When the brochure was going together there was a great deal of speculation about what our supercharger kit would do on the Jerry Magnuson owned ’29, V8 roadster pickup. Well it turns out the supercharger did plenty and we’ve got the proof. But in our haste to produce the brochure and make sure we had inventory on the shelf, the little truck didn’t make it to the Magnuson Mustang Chassis Dyno as planned. In the meantime, a nearly bone-stock ’32 Ford pick up was found—practically in our back yard. So over a period of months we outfitted the flat head V8 with one of our kits. The results speak quite loudly.

To begin with the only piece of non-stock hardware on the ’32 truck was a pair of cast iron Fenton headers. Keep in mind, that torque jerks you off the starting line. In this case, maximum torque came at 1750 rpm and was recorded to be 140.8 ft-lbs.Continuing to compare apples to apples; with the supercharger kit installed maximum torque came at 2500 rpm and was nearly flat for the next 1000 rpm. A top reading of 208 ft-lbs shows the value of the supercharger in a stock, streetable drivetrain.

We finally slowed down enough to get the Magnuson ‘29AV8 on the Dyno.. Although this was not a stocker, the engine here was a cut below what us old timers used to call “3/4 race”. The engine started life as a ’53 Mercury. It was bored, carried a 4-inch stroke and was fitted with a mild cam and a set of Offenhauser heads. Some porting had been done and the final touch was a set of fabricated steel headers.

With this combination of hardware and the supercharger kit torque went to 249 ft-lbs at 2750 rpm and pulled hard to about 4000 rpm. Even with stock gearing that means moving away from the curb in a hurry! Because torque does the work; we don’t put a lot of stock in horsepower figures around here, but we can tell you that in both vehicles the supercharger kit more than doubled the horsepower. In the case of the ’29,V8, horsepower went to 168 at 4000 rpm.

7 MONTHS LATER....