Project Monaro has come along way since our humble 220kw beginnings, this phase sees us rocket from 340kw where the engine was last issue, to 450kw, bolting on some forced induction. This would have to be the ultimate bolt on for a gen3 taking the standard engine , and turning into a tyre shredding monster. When planning this project we looked at all forms of supercharging, from chemical supercharging such as nitrous oxide, to turbo's and centrifugal supercharging, none of these was going to meet our aim of being street legal and having instant torque on demand. A positive displacement supercharger fulfilled all these requirements, from giving us instant boost response at 1000rpm to being fully streetable and ultimately licensable. Unlike turbo’s or centrifugal superchargers that slowly build boost until achieving high boost at high rpm, we are able to make good boost at 1000rpm with full boost by 3000rpm and maintain that all the way to redline by careful matching of the supercharger to the engine. Being the Starr Performance agent in WA and doing all the Australia wide mapping of these kits, our decision was swayed to use the new Whipple supercharger that has been developed for the LS1.

This kit incorporates an air to water cooler inside the manifold and a heat exchanger in front of the radiator to cool the dense charge of air in the engine, as well as our own PCM controlled water injection system that we have developed for this particular Starr supercharger, using the original computer. We have also incorporated 2 bar engine mapping into the factory PCM, to enable us to have full control of fuel and spark, whilst maintaining true knock sensing capabilities with both high and low octane spark tables. The aim of the intensive engine mapping, is to meet full emissions and drivability without sacrificing any of the factory features and hopefully returning as good a fuel economy as original (A recent road trip to Merriden returned a better than standard fuel consumption of 12.4L/100km on the highway and is averaging 14.5L/100km city cycle)

Fitting of the kit involves no cutting, or modifications to the vehicle, and has been designed to look and drive like an OEM installation. Fitting the kit provided a few challenges as this is the first automatic positive displacement supercharger kit to be fitted in Australia. Development included reprogramming the computer to make the automatic transmission function correctly, part of which included upgrading the transmission further from what we had done in previous issues, with an upgraded input shaft and drum in an attempt to harness the horsepower. At this stage of the calibration development we are only running a mild tune while waiting for the gearbox.

At the cars first outing at Motorvation it reeled off back to back 450hp reading on the dyno with the operator struggling to maintain traction on the rollers. Next issue we will have had the car at the track and will have finished engine calibration, with lots of accompanying graphs. On the street the car has become a monster with the ability to tonk around town like a stocky or fry the tyres in any gear it desires.

Click here for part 6