Thinking about supercharging or turbocharging my 24 Stingray HTC. There is Callaway, Hennessey, Lingenfelter, Paragon, and others. Which is best? Does it void my warranty? Does it ruin my excellent gas mileage? Is it a stupid thing to do? How does it affect resale value. When I hear the word turbo I think lag. I don't want a DIY kit because when I use a wrench it makes my knuckles bloody. Just looking for a head start on research into this subject.

 

If warranty and resale (particularly trade-in) are concerns, then my suggestion would be to go with a supercharger kit from a "national brand" installed either by them or one of their certified installers. Callaway will likely have the easiest/best resale and most seamless warranty coverage; several of the big corvette dealers (like Ciocca) are authorized Callaway dealers.

I believe both Lingenfelter and Hennesey offer a limited supplemental warranty for any power train issues attributable to the supercharger kit and not covered by GM warranty. With the exception of Callaway, GM may deny powertrain warranty coverage if an issue is attributable to the supercharger kit. Superchargers are also more of a bolt on installation and thus the car may be returned to stock easier. I had a twin turbo C8 (ECS). It was a fast and fun car, but in hindsight I would have done a positive displacement super charger given my driving style and preferences. You will feel the extra torque of the supercharger all the time - including low rpm and part throttle. In my humble opinion, the twin turbo kits would be more fun on the street with smaller less laggy turbos even if that limited expandability. While these kits have much more upside (1000HP+), I think the superchargers are a better choice if you are building a stage one street car with HP goals in the 650-75HP (crank) range.

 

With concerns about warranty, resale and gas mileage, you sir are an ideal candidate for an E-Ray.

 

We are local to you and have done more forced induction C8's than anyone here and can give you real information. On the blower cars MPG will drop roughly 1-2 on the freeway, and 2-3 in the city and it's solely due to turning off DOD. In the turbo cars they drop the same on the freeway and roughly 1-2 in the city.

Turbo lag- our kit and any others that are quality setup's are all in by upper 2k rpm to low 3k. They are making positive pressure by 2100 rpm also. It's about as lag free as you could ever hope for. The procharger stuff you don't have any lag but also the low/mid tq isn't there like a turbo car or magnuson setup .The magnuson hits the hardest down low for sure but doesn't charge as hard up top as a turbo setup. But if on 91 octane no cam it's really splitting hairs. All the setups on 91 make high 500 wheel 580-600 wheel is what we typical see. Stock C8's on our dyno range a lot but the average is 425-435 wheel.

Even though you didn't ask about bolt on's if doing a bolt on w/ flex fuel setup (which we can do flex on these) they usually make another 40-50 wheel over stock.

Any setup your OEM powertrain warranty is gone, but that is the risk you take. The places that offer a warranty charge a lot more due to having to build in enough profit to offset it "if" something were to happen. Which I completely get doing.

If you would like to chat further feel free to message us and I would love to assist.