- Intercooled supercharger for '97 to '03 C5 and Z06 Corvettes available.
- Supercharger installed performance can be 437 rwhp at 6,000 rpm and 409 lb ft of torque at 3,500 rpm.
Nobody's going to argue that a Corvette is one of the best bang for the buck performance American sports cars on the road today. Going fast performance and looking good certainly has its appeal. But even the 300 or so rear wheel horsepower provided by a factory LS1 engine starts to get a little humdrum after a while, now it's time for a supercharger and its performance to enter the picture. Manufacturers have come to market with an intercooled supercharger for '97 to '03 C5 and Z06 Corvettes. Performance tests of one of these new units with a test vehicle, a bone-stock '01 C5 with 26,000 miles on the odometer, was immediately pulled onto the chassis dyno and made a series of baseline pulls, the best of which netted 296.4 rear wheel horsepower at 5,750 rpm and 292 lb ft at 5,000 rpm. That's not bad, performance wise, but lets see what the supercharger brings to the table. The intercooled supercharger kit comes with absolutely everything you'll need to complete the supercharger installation. The whole job can probably be done in a weekend, provided you have a competent helper and a good supply of suitable beverages.The supercharger kit, in some cases comes with an additional package that includes a stepped drill bit, a reamer, a drilling jig, and a new GM balancer bolt.
The performance of the first supercharger pull was 437 hp and 409 ft lbs of torque, a short cool down period was followed with a session on the computer allowing for the supercharger, tweaking the A/F ratio closer to the desired 12 to 1. The second pull got the performance of the car closer to an 11.7 to 1 A/F ratio netted 437.2 rwhp at 6,000 rpm and 424.7 lb ft of torque at 3,500 rpm.
Another couple of tweaks and the final supercharger pull netted 443 rwhp at 6,000 rpm and 416.9 lb ft at 3,250 rpm. That's 146.6 rwhp and 124.1 lb ft of twist with a supercharger over stock.
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