Kenne Bell Supercharger Upgrade - Storm Warning

Until this point, Kenne Bell had produced 2.8H kits for most mod motor applications and left the beloved Gen 2 Lightning trucks off its production list. Wiker knew he had to make a conversion kit for the Lightning after witnessing the 2.8H's awesome power on the shop's in-house Shelby GT500. "I worked with Jim Bell to get this kit put together and it is available exclusively through JLP," noted Wiker. Bell worked on a base plate to mount the blower to the existing Lightning lower manifold. JLP designed and produced the spacers and adapter plates required to fit the massive unit on top of the engine.

While the Kenne Bell staff worked in California on the blower, Wiker worked on the "bolt-on" accessories for the 2.8H, namely a new JLP PowerFlow inlet plenum and cold-air kit. The PowerFlow inlet plenum bolts to the back of the supercharger, and wraps around the side of the engine to where the throttle body is mounted. It was designed to accept the monster Kenne Bell Mammoth twin-bore throttle body (75mm holes) and offer little restriction for the sucking capabilities of the 2.8H. Removing restrictions in front of twin-screw blowers is an effective way to pick up horsepower. In-house testing on a customer's Lightning with a 2.6H blower showed the JLP staff that its PowerFlow inlet system is worth 62 rwhp over a cast factory one. A little known fact: The JLP PowerFlow inlet is the only aftermarket inlet that Kenne Bell will allow under its blower warranty program. JLP also designed a new cold-air inlet for its Air Induction kit in order to fit the larger throttle body.

A 2.8H blower is not meant for a mild Lightning with stock internals. This blower has the ability to spit the stock pistons, rods, and crank through the side of the block. Luckily for us, there are plenty of Lightnings out there with built engines. Dave London, a longtime JLP customer and former MM&FF Lightning Shootout participant, dropped off his truck for an upgrade from a Kenne Bell 2.6H huffer to the more powerful 2.8H combo, and we stopped in to cover it. London's Lightning features a 355ci JLP stroker engine, JLP 'R' Two-Valve heads and cams, the aforementioned 2.6H pumping 25 psi of boost, and essentially everything else out of the JLP catalog. This street machine cracked off 655 rwhp and 748 rwtq during the baseline pulls. The timing was set at 20 degrees and, as Wiker put it, "I don't mess with pump gas on trucks like this-we run them solely on VP C16."