Lethal Performance’s C5 Turbo Kit is Insanity at its Finest

^[1]We’ve seen some pretty crazy turbo builds out there, but this C5 Vette’s turbo kit by Lethal Performance ^[2] is just insane. 

If you’re not too familiar with Lethal Performance, they are a shop based out of San Antonio, Texas, that specializes in installing performance parts of all kinds, fabrication, and dyno-tuning. From Corvettes, to Mustangs, to Vipers, they can take on any build and extract massive amounts of power while maintaining reliability and drivability.

This LS3-powered C5 Corvette Z06 is owned by silvzo6 ^[3] on CorvetteForum ^[4] and has recently gone under the knife for a little forced-induction makeover with intentions of 1,100 rear wheel horsepower. Previously, the car was equipped with an ECS Novi 2000 supercharger kit making over 920 to the tires, but more horsepower is always welcomed with open arms.

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This is the Precision 8891 turbo sitting next to a smaller Precision 76mm turbo with a can of coke for size comparison.

To start this build off right, Lethal Performance obtained a Precision 8891 turbo to base the kit around. The first parts of the kit to be fabricated were the headers, and they are sleek. The headers needed to be compact because of the mounting location of the turbo under the hood, unlike many Corvette turbo kits that have rear mounted turbos. 

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With the headers done and fitting perfectly, the turbo manifold was fabricated and the downpipe was mocked up to see how everything was going to fit. We talked about the headers being a compact design earlier, and as you can see in the picture, the downpipe – five inches in diameter to be exact – was nicely tucked right next to the header to exit under the car. The Precision 8891’s mounting location is also something we’re not used to seeing. Usually, there is a radiator and a large intake box in front of the motor, but not on this build. Lethal Performance scrapped the factory radiator and fitted a rather large radiator with SPAL ^[11] fans to ensure that there will always be air flowing through it.

^[12]One cool part of the build that we just had to talk about is the intercooler location. Lethal Performance mounted it directly behind the front bumper and took out the license plate insert so it would get the proper air flow it needs. With the intercooler mounted right behind the bumper, it allows for the radiator to be mounted right behind it, leaving plenty of room for the turbo, manifold, and wastegate.

The wastegate setup is pretty awesome as well – the custom manifold that Lethal Performance fabricated has a V-band mount right below the turbo for the 60mm Tial wastegate to dump exhaust directly out of the system. Lethal Performance also made a dump tube with a rad angle cut that lines up almost perfectly with the bottom of the subframe so there is no unnecessary piping hanging below the lowest point of the car. ^[13]Lethal Performance recently got silvzo6’s car running and ran it on the dyno to get some numbers – it put down 1,101 horsepower and 1,063 pound-feet of torque at 19 PSI – right where they wanted it. With TX2K14 right around the corner, we are excited to see how silvz06’s car does in the roll-racing category, since he will not be running the standing mile. Mad props to the crew over at Lethal Performance for building a unique single turbo kit for the C5 Corvette and good luck to silvz06 in the roll-races! Also, check out the build thread ^[14] of silvz06’s beast for more updates!