Supercharger kits released for Commodore, HSV.
Thursday 17th October 2013
Author: Sam Hall
Source: Sydney Morning Herald, http://smh.drive.com.au/motor-news/supe ... 2vost.html

Australian hot rod shop Walkinshaw Performance has released potent supercharger kits for the new VF Commodore and Gen-F HSV ranges.

Priced at $18,990 installed, the new W457 and W497 kits promise monumental power gains using force fed induction. But the company isn’t saying what benefits the kits will equate to in real-world performance.

The W457 package for the 6.0-litre V8 SS Commodore is claimed to deliver 457kW at 5600rpm and 780Nm at 3700rpm, a significant 197kW/253Nm increase on Holden’s standard automatic version.

The corresponding W497 package allegedly boosts the 6.2-litre HSV’s engine figures to 497kW at 5560rpm and 955Nm at 3690rpm – up between 157kW-180kW in power and 385Nm-405Nm in torque over the Gen-F HSV range.

Unlike the new HSV GTS – which has undergone extensive engineering work and is fitted with unique gearbox and differential components - Walkinshaw’s blower kit is more of a bolt-on version, without significant changes to the surrounding infrastructure. It also misses out on the cooling system employed by HSV to reduce driveline temperatures brought about by a supercharger.

Walkinshaw Performance national business development manager Andrew Riley defended the brand’s method of applying superchargers without adjusting the surrounding infrastructure, as done by HSV.

“We’ve been doing supercharging for a while now with the VE series Commodore and we’ve never had any problems with those,” he said. “It’s just one of those things where we’ve just learned from experience in the past and from what we’ve done.

“I guess for HSV, they have to fit superchargers to GM’s standards, but we have a little bit more leeway playing in the aftermarket sector.

“We back our stuff with driveline warranty for the balance of new cars and the number of warranty issues we’ve had are negligible.”

Riley admitted Walkinshaw had reached a peak in terms of extracting any more power from Holden or HSV’s range of engines. Drive recently sampled the hot rod shop's naturally-aspirated performance pack on the SS Commodore.

“You’re talking a fair increase in power from stock and with forced induction, you’re going to notice a fairly linear power delivery from down low,” he said of the supercharger kit.

“To get that sort of horsepower, we’ve needed to change the headers and the exhaust system. We’re basically at the limits; you wouldn’t want to push these cars any harder than that. That’s where the engineering of the car is at.”

Based in Melbourne, Walkinshaw Performance sourced nearly all of the components for the W457 and W497 kits from Australia, with the exception of the US-built supercharger.

The kits include a supercharger, large high flow injectors, Eaton Twin Vortices 2300 Series (TVS) Gen VI rotors, water to air intercooler package, custom moulded heater hoses, cast aluminium coil covers, injection moulded cold air intake package, heavy duty serpentine belt drive system, 12-inch long intake runners, custom moulded intercooler hoses, self-contained oil system and full stainless steel exhaust system including ceramic coated headers and high flow catalytic converters.

Each Walkinshaw Performance kit comes with a full dyno tune, certificate of authenticity and vehicle identification and full drive line warranty for the balance of the manufacturer’s new vehicle warranty (for eligible vehicles).

Its to much money.Money to power gain ratio its to much for me.