cobalt123
Platinum Member
Here is the most current data as of June 16, 2008:
There are 2 retail turbo kits available for the 2005-06 Cobalt 2.2L (L61)
Alpine developments kit can be bought at retail and is completely user installable. It uses a piggyback tune.
Garrett's Alpha kit can also be bought at retail and is completely user installable. It uses a flash tune.
The 2007 model year has switched to the E37 ECM. The above kits won't work on it or later models.
HP Tuners hates us. That's just the way it is, so get used to it. They don't support any 2.2L ecotec. They support just about every other Ecotec, just not ours. I have no idea why.
Trifecta can do "through-the-mail" tuning of the E16 for both manuals and automatics. That's about all we have right now, but it's better then nothing.
SCT Flash is supporting the E16 as part of the Garrett kit. But they don't support it in their "Advantage 3" tuner software. They are probably under contract with Garrett not to include it.
Hahn Race Craft has recently released their full turbo kit for the LSJ engines. It can be made to physically fit and work with the L61 engines, but you will still need a tune. If you can get the kit on, and get Trifecta to make a tune for you, you would probably have the best system possible for the car right now. But it will be expensive (the boat I'm in, ofcourse!)
Below is body of my original post before these kits became available. I thought it made more sense to leave it here and annotate it rather then just remove it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are turbo charged Cobalts in the world. But almost none of them are street legal cars. They are mostly race cars. The Streetable Cobalts I have seen are still using piggyback tuning, which would not pass emmisions.
There are turbo charged street legal L61's in the world. But they are J-bodies which use a different computer.
There are other prototype cars, like the Hahn Racecraft JIN tuner transformation Cobalt. But none are a retail sale kit yet.
There are GMPP supercharger kits for the Ecotec, but they are for the J-bodies, which have a completely different ECM.
Other companies I know of that will have kits for our cars upon successful tuning software are Hahn Race Craft, Banks, STS, and Tag Racecraft. I'll add others as I hear of them.
Hahn has been working a kit for over two years now. They had limited success on the JIN tuner transformation Cobalt using just an FMU, but had no ignition tuning ability. They have since tried other options, but are having a problem with the E16's PE (power enrichment). Without the ability to reflash, they haven't defeated that issue. Here is the link.
STS claims to be getting tuning support from Nelson Performance. I have spoken with Nelson Performance and they can only support the LSJ and LE5. They have no support for the L61. There are pictures of an L61 equipped with the kit later in this thread, but Nelson knows nothing of it. I haven't heard back from STS about where that car is.
Garrett showed their kit at the 2006 SEMA show. It was an engine mock-up only. Here is the thread link.. Since then, they have updated their web site with the kit information.
Haven't heard anything from Banks.
Tag Racecrafts kit is for the LSJ. However, they claim it will work on any model ecotec. It is said to be in development.
There are 2 retail turbo kits available for the 2005-06 Cobalt 2.2L (L61)
Alpine developments kit can be bought at retail and is completely user installable. It uses a piggyback tune.
Garrett's Alpha kit can also be bought at retail and is completely user installable. It uses a flash tune.
The 2007 model year has switched to the E37 ECM. The above kits won't work on it or later models.
HP Tuners hates us. That's just the way it is, so get used to it. They don't support any 2.2L ecotec. They support just about every other Ecotec, just not ours. I have no idea why.
Trifecta can do "through-the-mail" tuning of the E16 for both manuals and automatics. That's about all we have right now, but it's better then nothing.
SCT Flash is supporting the E16 as part of the Garrett kit. But they don't support it in their "Advantage 3" tuner software. They are probably under contract with Garrett not to include it.
Hahn Race Craft has recently released their full turbo kit for the LSJ engines. It can be made to physically fit and work with the L61 engines, but you will still need a tune. If you can get the kit on, and get Trifecta to make a tune for you, you would probably have the best system possible for the car right now. But it will be expensive (the boat I'm in, ofcourse!)
Below is body of my original post before these kits became available. I thought it made more sense to leave it here and annotate it rather then just remove it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are turbo charged Cobalts in the world. But almost none of them are street legal cars. They are mostly race cars. The Streetable Cobalts I have seen are still using piggyback tuning, which would not pass emmisions.
There are turbo charged street legal L61's in the world. But they are J-bodies which use a different computer.
There are other prototype cars, like the Hahn Racecraft JIN tuner transformation Cobalt. But none are a retail sale kit yet.
There are GMPP supercharger kits for the Ecotec, but they are for the J-bodies, which have a completely different ECM.
Other companies I know of that will have kits for our cars upon successful tuning software are Hahn Race Craft, Banks, STS, and Tag Racecraft. I'll add others as I hear of them.
Hahn has been working a kit for over two years now. They had limited success on the JIN tuner transformation Cobalt using just an FMU, but had no ignition tuning ability. They have since tried other options, but are having a problem with the E16's PE (power enrichment). Without the ability to reflash, they haven't defeated that issue. Here is the link.
STS claims to be getting tuning support from Nelson Performance. I have spoken with Nelson Performance and they can only support the LSJ and LE5. They have no support for the L61. There are pictures of an L61 equipped with the kit later in this thread, but Nelson knows nothing of it. I haven't heard back from STS about where that car is.
Garrett showed their kit at the 2006 SEMA show. It was an engine mock-up only. Here is the thread link.. Since then, they have updated their web site with the kit information.
Haven't heard anything from Banks.
Tag Racecrafts kit is for the LSJ. However, they claim it will work on any model ecotec. It is said to be in development.
