What’s the risk for supercharging a camaro ss (6th gen, LT1)
 

Hey guys, i just bought a 2018 camaro 2ss 6 speed manual and it feels really slow even after i broke it in. It just doesn’t have the punch i was expecting. My question is what is the chance of engine failure if i get it supercharged? What brand Supercharger should i go with? Please give me some info, thanks.

I felt that exact same way when I floored mine for the first time @ 1,500 miles.
I ended up going with Edelbrock's E-force supercharger kit on mine, which is near identical to the Magnuson SC kit. They both use the 2300 series rotor pack. Both of them will offer a 3 year 36k mile powertrain warranty for free as long as you have an ASE certified mechanic to the install and run their tune, and keep the rest of the car stock from the cats north. As long as you stay under say 580-600 whp, and don't do any 1/2 mile or longer WOT pulls on a regular basis, with a good safe tune you should have nothing to worry about.

I had my SC kit put on at 7,000 miles, and the car now has 28,500 miles on it with not a lick of trouble. Still running the Edelbrock tune and the rest of the car is stock save for the killer chiller.

Hey Dave, just curious as to how your car feels now. Did the Edelbrock supercharger transform the experience? Does it keep pulling all the way to redline? How is it driving normal? Any MPG decrease?

Thanks!

I went ProCharger at 8,900 miles. Granted I’m only at 15,800 now.

Night and day difference. But my mileage has decreased....the blower whine is addictive. But it made Hot Rod’s Power Tour last year without a hiccup. I would definitely go the same route. And once it’s back from the tuner, should be right about or just north of 600 to the tire. And I drag race it just about every other weekend over the summer.

Dave and I have the same kit.

When I was shopping for my car, i drove the 6 spd camaro first and was underwhelmed by the performance on the test drive. Just for shits and giggles, i drove the A8 and was blown away at how much faster it felt.

Putting the edelbrock kit on my A8 upped that 10x. The car is a ****ing freight train that never stops pulling. So yes, it pulls all the way to redline, and is worth every penny.

My MPG on the freeway went from about 28, to 26. My average MPG per tank went from 20 to 18. For a car with 600+ hp, the gas mileage is incredible.

If I had to do it again, the only thing I'd do is go maggie over the edelbrock kit. The fact that the maggie kit includes an overflow tank, and that the IAT sensor is mounted in a more realistic location means that it handles hotter days better than the eforce kit.

Thanks guys, appreciate the help.

They are pretty safe as long as you don't go overboard like me :D

Anytime you force more fuel and air into the cylinder there is a risk. However with todays superchargers and a good tune you can go thousands of miles without any issues. I put 30,000 miles on my G8GT some years back with a Magnuson 1900. I currently have a the Magnuson Heartbeat and when you consider I've put 130 plus runs on it a WOT and another 1000 miles last year and believe me from the time I do the burnout in the water box I punish it from there to the end of the 1/4 mile every time and now I'm making over 700 rwhp I'm gonna punish it all year again with probably over another 130 runs. Just buy a magnuson and have a lot of fun.

This is the key!

I have not seen any problems with any of the Superchargers with the supplied canned manufacture tunes, which is why they are willing to give you a warranty. This is the best route if you have engine reliability concerns and want the added HP. Problems seem to come if you push the HP past 700whp, or long pulls or a custom tune that leans it out to much.

I will be firing up my Whipple tomorrow with the canned tune for the first time. Plan on turning it up from there but no runs over a 1/4, conservative custom tune and the HP at 700 whp max unless I decide to go forged down the road.

If you just want a nice bump in power but don't plan on going very far the LT4 supercharger kit from Weapon X is pretty nice at it's price point. 4500.00 gets you everything you need. The Eaton 1700 makes a boatload of torque. base setup makes 550whp/600wtq. however if you want to grow later you could have the 1700 ported for increased efficiency, but going with something like Maggie 2300 is a better option if you want to make more then 600whp, but then you open a whole other can of worms with the fuel system no matter which supercharger you go with.

I echo your sentiments EXACTLY!

THIS

Go into it with your eyes open, as some people's cars run and run, and some of them break. There is no guarantee with hot rodding. Yes you could buy a kit with a warranty and HOPE they honor it if it breaks, but the fact is, they might not do so.

As far as what brand of supercharger you might want, I'd suggest doing a LOT of research on them before plunking any money down. Most of the reviews on this site are positive but I'll let you in on another fact, which is, they do not always work as advertised. The reason I think you should be aware of this possibility (sub-par performance) is because, when you spend thousands of dollars for a supercharger kit, you justifiably expect to get a 'wow' feeling when you floor the throttle. I know there was at least one person on the forum who's posted low power with a blower (Edelbrock I think it was?), and I'll mention now that I've also had that experience with an ECS/Paxton/Vortech kit. To clarify, when I'm saying low power on an LT1 here, I mean under 500hp supercharged, when the kits are advertised at 550~580hp. So 10% or more below advertised, I am not nit-picking here, I'm talking large discrepancies. The same shop that dyno tested my car also tested an ECS-equipped C7 LT1 which was under 500hp, so I was certainly not alone with the poor performance I got. Same shop again, got over 600hp with a Whipple on a 6th gen Camaro LT1 (with long tube headers). That last example is to show it's not a case of 'heartbreaker' dyno going on, it's a case of poor gains from the ECS supercharger. My SS was 395/482 stock vs ECS supercharged, and the C7 was 403 stock and 490s ECS supercharged. The ECS site showed the Gen6 Camaro LT1 as 398/550 stock vs ECS supercharged. So the ECS kit is supposed to gain around 38% in hp and our cars only got around a 22~23% gain. I ended up removing the kit from my car, disgusted for sure. BTW I must mention that tech support from ECS was ZERO while I was installing the kit. They failed to call me back or email me back at all when I asked a couple of questions. I did call Vortech (due to already-mentioned total lack of tech support from ECS) and asked them what these cog pulleys (tooth counts) should do for boost, and they told me 7 to 7 and a half pounds. I saw as much as 153.5kpa on my MAP sensor (at shift point) while I had the kit on, which is in the ballpark. So while the boost was a little less than the 8psi that the ECS site seems to suggest the kit will make, it's not far enough off to really explain why it's down over 60hp from where it should be.

The engine seems to run ok back in normally-aspirated form so it probably was not significantly damaged by the supercharger. Have installed a catch can and not getting much oil in there, whereas if the ring lands were broken then I'd expect a significant amount of blowby. When the supercharger did so poorly I had to wonder if it had hurt the engine, but that does not seem to be the case.

Obviously problems can occur with any brand, like I said, do a lot of research, and still, there's no real guarantee that you will get the advertised results, or have no problems, if you do buy one. The reason I'm saying you should be patient and research is because I had only seen good reviews of ECS before I bought my kit. Now in the real world, ECS kits are 0 for 2 on LT1s that I've seen with my own eyes as far as performing even close to advertised, and the customer support that I (didn't) receive could only be considered shamefully bad. Obviously, the truth about other brands could be different than most internet chatter says as well.

Makes you wonder what in the world went wrong. That same Novi 1500 head unit made 800 wheel on a 5th Gen 1LE with a cam headers and fuel+meth so its was not a lack of air from the blower. The customer support is what it is and is shitty ro hear this.