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Where the hell are the aftermarket Superchargers right now...

6K views 25 replies 14 participants last post by  LatinVenom 
#1 ·
If Mallet can make a V8 conversion where the hell are the aftermarket Superchargers right now. I would buy one if I could find one but no luck. None of the big supercharger guys have anything out even though I think the first one out the door will get alot of business from current owners. I saw the Sema pics of the RK Sport but nothing has reached production by any aftermarket Manufacturer. :cuss:
 
#2 ·
Well, Rocks, welcome to the Forum. I see today was your first post. You never started an Arrived Thread, so let me be the first to congratulate you. :party:

Now we need some data, for the records you understand. Where do you live? What is your VIN? We already know it is Deep. What date was it delivered?

Obviously, you don't have to answer these questions, but if you don't mind sharing, inquiring minds would like to know. We also like to share in your joy of receiving your beautiful Solstice!

.
 
#3 ·
Rocksman said:
If Mallet can make a V8 conversion where the hell are the aftermarket Superchargers right now. I would buy one if I could find one but no luck. None of the big supercharger guys have anything out even though I think the first one out the door will get alot of business from current owners. I saw the Sema pics of the RK Sport but nothing has reached production by any aftermarket Manufacturer. :cuss:
The SC from RKSport is suppose to be available early 2006.
 
#4 ·
How did RK Sport get +65hp from 5psi? That seems like a hell of a lot for just 5 psi! Does this mean that the 2.4 has tones of potential? Makes me wonder why it only puts out 177hp stock.
 
#5 ·
SlipSlider said:
How did RK Sport get +65hp from 5psi? That seems like a hell of a lot for just 5 psi! Does this mean that the 2.4 has tones of potential? Makes me wonder why it only puts out 177hp stock.
You also need to take into account the headers and exhaust setup, plus tuning.
 
#7 · (Edited)
SlipSlider said:
This "tuning" you talk about... how is that done? Would any garage with a dyno be able to do this? Do I just walk in and say "Hey, Tune my car?"
NO, it is not that easy, we are talking about the on board computers in the car, this is the reason for the aftermarket companies to try to get help from GM in order to make these Mods work properly.
 
#8 ·
Rocksman said:
If Mallet can make a V8 conversion where the hell are the aftermarket Superchargers right now. I would buy one if I could find one but no luck. None of the big supercharger guys have anything out even though I think the first one out the door will get alot of business from current owners. I saw the Sema pics of the RK Sport but nothing has reached production by any aftermarket Manufacturer. :cuss:
I'm not sure I'd rush to capture a current market of say two or three thousand vehicles out there now and only a fraction of the owners wanting a supercharger.
 
#9 ·
Rocksman said:
If Mallet can make a V8 conversion where the hell are the aftermarket Superchargers right now. I would buy one if I could find one but no luck. None of the big supercharger guys have anything out even though I think the first one out the door will get alot of business from current owners. I saw the Sema pics of the RK Sport but nothing has reached production by any aftermarket Manufacturer. :cuss:
Because the Mallett conversion used an engine that was already tuned and setup to run at it's power level. All they had to do was fit it in the chassis. A Supercharger kit requires massive amounts of R&D time and tuning to get it running properly. The 2.4L VVT ECOTEC is a very high compression ratio engine, so it's not like you can jsut throw a blower on it and expect it to work off the batt without tuning and quality assuring. It doesn't help that there are no extremely good computer replacement systems for the engine as well.
 
#10 ·
RK Sport S/C

Rocksman said:
If Mallet can make a V8 conversion where the hell are the aftermarket Superchargers right now. I would buy one if I could find one but no luck. None of the big supercharger guys have anything out even though I think the first one out the door will get alot of business from current owners. I saw the Sema pics of the RK Sport but nothing has reached production by any aftermarket Manufacturer. :cuss:
We have had out Solstice a total of 4 weeks including the week it was at SEMA. We pulled all of what you saw at the show in 3 weeks!

The super charger, brakets, instructions, real world testing etc still needs to be done. With our knowledge of the Ecotec engine the tuning part will be some what easy. The production manufacturing is what will take the longest.

RC
 
#11 ·
Rocksman said:
If Mallet can make a V8 conversion where the hell are the aftermarket Superchargers right now. I would buy one if I could find one but no luck. None of the big supercharger guys have anything out even though I think the first one out the door will get alot of business from current owners. I saw the Sema pics of the RK Sport but nothing has reached production by any aftermarket Manufacturer. :cuss:

Because Mallet is a professional company that can invest tens of thousands of dollars into their system and proffesionally install it inhouse.

The car has only been out for a couple months. It takes time to develope an aftermarket SC that you can buy and have a 3rd party person just bolt it on for you. It isn't as simple as grabbing one off a shelf, tweaking a few things on it, selling it and strapping it on.

There are many factors of the engine, like VVT, that make the job all the more challenging. You sound pissed off :( that nobody has built one yet, but what you don't understand is that your asking a company to squeeze maybe 1000 man hrs of work into an available 200 man hr period. (Please don't pick my analogy apart. You know who you are). And when you try to work with such a schedule everyone of those man hrs cost you, the manufacturer, twice as much capital.
Remember also that only about maybe 2000 people actually own a Solstice so far, and most have no intentions of tweaking it.

Basically what I am saying, in simple terms, is that supply and demand has not deamed it worthy for an aftermarket company to drop everything and design a bolt-on supercharger built for one specific automobile, ready for distribution 2 months after the car hit the market. An automobile that many of the aftermarket companies might not even have in their possesion yet, because they are waiting in line for theirs like the rest of us.

Welcome to the forum ;)
 
#12 ·
We actually talk about this quite often.

The high compression motor and lack of perfect computer tuning have turned most people off to adding a forced induction kit.

The conclusion that we usually come to is that it makes more sense to just wait for GM's turbo Solstice. Just let GM do all the hard work and deliver a turn key solution that will be waiting for you at your local dealer next year.

For those of us that want to get our hands dirty the V8 conversion seems to be a much bigger bang for the buck compared to spending $6,000 for 65 measly horsepower.
 
#14 · (Edited)
toddwcarpenter said:
That really doesn't stop most of the other enthusiast with four cylider powerplants. It will be a few months, but plenty of FI options should be available for this car.
I highly doubt it considering the current amount of support for Ecotec powered vehicles. This isn't a Civic that already has a huge amount of aftermarket support. There's a few GM sponsored superchargers out there but thats about it.

I went through this debate when I worked at STS too and the conclusion we came to is that it just doesn't make sense. There aren't enough Solstices, the average Soltice buyer is going to be in his late 30s to early 40s, lack of solid turn-key tuning for the 2.4L, amd biggest of all is GM producing a turbo version ready to go from the dealer. It's like making a turbo kit for the V6 Fbody, why make a kit when a V8 is available? Why make an aftermarket kit when GM will offer a turbo version from the factory? Those companies that were looking at turbo kits for the Solstice are changing their plans and will be developing upgrades for the GXP rather then the base 2.4L.

Remember, first comes demand then comes supply. 50 Solstice owners asking for turbo kits isn't going to get any type of a company like HKS or Greddy to begin to produce products for the Soltice.
 
#15 ·
Racecrafter said:
We have had out Solstice a total of 4 weeks including the week it was at SEMA. We pulled all of what you saw at the show in 3 weeks!

The super charger, brakets, instructions, real world testing etc still needs to be done. With our knowledge of the Ecotec engine the tuning part will be some what easy. The production manufacturing is what will take the longest.

RC
Good to know, thanks for the information, Hope you'll keep us "posted"! ;)
 
#16 ·
For those of us that want to get our hands dirty the V8 conversion seems to be a much bigger bang for the buck compared to spending $6,000 for 65 measly horsepower.
Supercharger kits for the Ecotec in development run around $2500 if
memory serves. GM has a build it yourself tutorial and the possibilities
go way beyond a 65 HP gain. Top end (non-legal) for the motor is around
1400 HP. 300 HP is easily gotten-I think they recommend forged pistons at
that level. At the 250 HP level, no changes are required, as I recall.
Apparently the supercharger kits have not yet been released by GM. They make the idea of putting a V-8 in the car a rather silly waste of money. As I recall, the V-8 conversions are very expensive.
 
#18 · (Edited)
bradyb said:
amd biggest of all is GM producing a turbo version ready to go from the dealer.
I'll wager that there will be plenty of aftermarket Soltices that will shame the factory effort.

bradyb said:
I highly doubt it considering the current amount of support for Ecotec powered vehicles. This isn't a Civic that already has a huge amount of aftermarket support. There's a few GM sponsored superchargers out there but thats about it.
For the 2001-2005 Miata, there are turbo and SC kits available from Flyin Miata. Turbo and Supercharger kits from BR Performance. Turbo kits from Racing Mazda. Supercharger kits from Jackson Racing. Kenne Bell, and Vortech SC's have also been fitted. That's just here in the US. I'll conceed that the Miata has a bigger base of customers but between these venders, there are more than a dozen different kits available. In addition, Corky Bell was already looking for a new 06 MX-5 for a new FI kit. Flyin Miata and BR Performance have also said they will be building kits for the new MX-5.

I say this because that means there are at least three different vendors in the US that are developing a FI kit for a car that will sell less units (here in the US) than the Solstice. STS may not see a market for the Solstice, but someone will.
 
#19 ·
ATI (Procharger) SC seem to be in agreement with STS, I was told by their management it had no interest in developing one for the Solstice at this time, however he did say call back in the spring summer of 2006, will just have to wait and see, it is just to early in the live cycle of this car to know for sure.
 
#21 ·
At the begining of this thread I talked about the RKSport SC, also one of the folks from RKSport made comments as to what their intentions are for the future of this SC setup.
 
#22 ·
LatinVenom said:
At the begining of this thread I talked about the RKSport SC, also one of the folks from RKSport made comments as to what their intentions are for the future of this SC setup.
:blush: yup, sorry. I went to search b/c I had recalled that someone had commented on RKSport and SC.

Imagine how embarassed when I found my search led.... BACK TO THIS VERY THREAD... :lol:
 
#23 ·
I almost did not post my answer because I did not want to sound like I was trying to correct you SM, I have to much respect for you and your contributions to this forum.
 
#24 ·
I don't think it will happen but I really hope it will. I would love to have a couple supercharger and turbo kits to choose from.

For those companies who are looking at doing it I would wish them the best of luck.

For those people who are looking at buying a kit, be careful that you are buying a proven product and that you have feedback from a lot of current owners, just because it's Paxton, Procharger, GM, etc doesn't meen it's perfect. I've seen a lot of blown motors and a lot of terrible installations. It is a lot of fun but you better be prepared to pay for what will break. Those blown motors have come from the best install shops in the country too so make sure you can afford what ever will happen.
 
#26 ·
Thanks, I will check with them and see what they have to say.
 
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