With the centrifugal blower and the right calibration, this ProCharged C8 Corvette is both quick and manageable on the street.
While the C8 Corvette proved to be a challenging car to modify at first thanks to its encrypted ECU, the aftermarket – as it always does – eventually prevailed, and now, owners have a plethora of performance upgrades to choose from. That includes plenty of boost options in the form of turbochargers and superchargers, with ProCharger becoming one of the first to offer a centrifugal blower for the mid-engine sports car. In this recent video from Late Model Racecraft, the well-known Houston, Texas-based shop shows off a pretty sweet ProCharged C8 Corvette build, giving us a peek at why this such a fantastic combination.
LMR offers three different performance packages for the newest Corvette at the moment – a pair of turbocharged options, as well as this one, which is dubbed the ProCharger Stage 2 Performance Package. It’s the more docile option designed to add around 250 crank horsepower while also maintaining reliability and drivability, making it perfect for those of us that actually like to drive our cars on the street, not just the track.
As the name might imply, LMR’s ProCharged C8 Corvette package includes the company’s P-1X head unit that pushes out 7.5 psi of boost and includes an air-to-water intercooler, a CNC billet intake manifold, helical gears, and a host of black components to give it a nice look. From there, LMR adds a stainless steel catback exhaust (or titanium for an additional cost), as well as its own engine management calibration, dyno tune, and DCT transmission controller to enhance performance.
The results of those efforts speak for themselves in this car’s dyno session, with max wheel horsepower coming in at just a hair under 620, along with 532 pound-feet of torque. Those are gains of 184 horsepower and 101 pound-feet over stock – impressive totals, indeed. More importantly, it does this on pump gas, and unlike many mysterious boosted C8s out there, it also runs and drives like OEM, which is a non-negotiable for most of us.
As LMR points out, these relatively simple upgrades transform what was an already-fast sports car into more of a supercar, one that just keeps pulling throughout the rev range. With a good tire out back, these cars also reportedly hook up just fine, and it sounds amazing in the process, thanks in part to this one’s American Racing headers and titanium exhaust, making it the perfect all-round driver in our humble opinion.
Keyword: ProCharged C8 Corvette Churns Out Impressive Power on the Dyno