Project 996 Gets Supercharged

A long time ago I came across TPC superchargers and wonder what their deal was. They reappeared to me when I was at SEMA in 2005 and I saw the supercharger kit in person on a yellow 997. At one point I said I was totally satisfied with my 996 and I would not touch it. I got the bug and wanted more power. With the cost of Turbo 996’s still up there, I wanted another solution, I wanted to do something that most people don’t see, and I wanted to show what Vivid Racing is capable of doing in the Porsche world.

Making a call to Mike Levitas of TPC put Vivid Racing in motion with a project. Shortly there after a 996 Supercharger Kit appeared and the install process was ready to begin. The idea behind the kit is good. Using a roots style supercharger similar to OEM’s like Ford, gives for good consistant power. The liquid to air intercooler was engineered well and the overall packaging was on point. Enter Vivid Racing…

After doing some pulls on our Mustang dyno, our car made about 230 rear wheel horsepower. The supercharger kit was expected to add about a 100 horsepower. Diving into the car and removing components and installing the kit was definitely a TEDIOUS task. Like most aftermarket parts, there is always a little something you have to do, and that is why you pay to have it installed correctly J.

95% of the install went good. Their cooling system utilizes the factory 3rd radiator kit. We already had the 3rd radiator kit to keep the cars temps down since we are in AZ. So we utilized a PWR cooler which we side mounted as seen in our pictures. Now we have the ability of perfect engine cooling and supercharger cooling. Amongst some different tweaks we did on the install, the kit was finally shoe horned in. With a fresh oil change and some new spark plugs it was time to fire it up. We turned the key and were golden. Some revs of the engine told us that there was a supercharger that was ready to rip.

Moving the car to the dyno, it was time to get some power. The piggyback ECU that is available with the kits is pretuned for 93octane. Since we run 91 octane, we needed to retune the software. This is a basic fuel controller and is very easy to adjust. Having our diagnostics software datalogging and the other laptop making the adjustments, we changed fuel and tuned the car to make 330 rear wheel horsepower on 91 octane.

I have been personally running around in the car as a daily for a week now. Averaging about 88 degrees the car runs good. TPC has an upgrade piggyback ECU that offers much more control that we will switch to shortly. Once this is done we should have some new numbers. They are currently using this ECU on their 997 kit that is making well over 400 WHP. I have watched this whole process from start to finish so can answer any questions regarding the kit, fitment, performance, installation, and other costs.

Check out our install photos, promo video (for fun), and if you have any questions, fastest response is to shoot me a email at dan@vividracing.com.

Retail of the kit is around $10500. Call for special Vivid Racing price. 480-966-3040 x222

CLICK HERE FOR INSTALL PHOTOS
CLICK HERE FOR PROMO VIDEO
Buy TPC on VividRacing.com HERE