Magnuson TVS2300 Hot Rod LS3 supercharger kit — truck/Camaro drive

What the Hot Rod kit is, and what it is not

Magnuson’s vehicle-specific systems are built around one car: the brackets, the drive and the calibration all assume a particular engine in a particular bay. The Hot Rod manifold is the opposite — it is the TVS2300 and its intercooler on a universal rectangular-port casting, meant for an engine you are building rather than a car you are modifying.

That is why it is the right answer for a swap and the wrong answer for someone who wants a bolt-on afternoon. Nothing about it is calibrated, cooled or pulleyed for your combination until somebody does that work. We sell it because the work afterwards is the work we do.

How it makes boost without ruining the car

The TVS2300 is a roots-type blower with four-lobe, high-helix rotors carrying 160 degrees of twist — Eaton’s sixth-generation rotor pack, the same family used on the Corvette ZR1, the CTS-V and the GT500. Magnuson’s case for it is lower drive power and cooler discharge temperatures than older roots designs, and like any roots blower it makes its boost low in the rev range rather than waiting for it.

The intercooler is liquid-to-air and built into the supercharger, so charge air is cooled after compression and before it reaches the ports. With one of Magnuson’s universal cooling systems they quote intake air typically 20 to 40 °F over ambient. The bypass valve opens on vacuum at idle and light load and lets the rotors free-spin; Magnuson puts the cost of turning them there at under a third of a horsepower, which is why a blown car can still drive and drink close to the way it did before.

What it will make

Magnuson publishes 6 psi on a 3.9-inch pulley on a 6.0-litre LS, worth roughly 120 horsepower and 120 lb-ft at the wheels. Those are Magnuson’s figures on Magnuson’s combination, not a promise about yours — displacement, heads, camshaft, fuel and the pulley you end up on all move it, in both directions.

The blower itself will support up to 800 horsepower on an engine built to take it. That ceiling is a statement about the supercharger, not about your short block. More boost on a stock-bottom-end LS3 is how a stock bottom end ends.

A starting file is not a calibration

The kit arrives with no tune at all — not a bad one, none. Fuelling, spark, torque management and boost behaviour for your engine have to be developed, and on a blown engine that is not a refinement step. It is the difference between a supercharger and a repair bill.

We calibrate Magnuson-blown engines on our hub dyno with knock, intake air temperature and lambda watched on every pass, and you leave with the sheet. That is priced separately at $1,899.99 and includes the DEFI RTD4 so later revisions do not need another appointment.

• Injectors and fuel supply sized for the boost you are running
• A heat-exchanger circuit for the intercooler — pump, core and lines
• The drive pulley — not in the box, and the size is what sets your boost
• Shop labour at $265/hr if we are fitting it, quoted against your car