Yacht Master

The real question is, what are the OEM superchargers worth?
I think the early adopters here will get the best deal, selling their OEM supercharger.
It's all about the delta.

gaspam

haha my thoughts exaclty... the spread between new s/c purchase and old s/c sale is the true cost i cant get a good idea if what working e55 s/c would sell for as not too many on ebay

AKnight55

Pretty sure they go for around a grand.

CharlyE500

Nice set up but the 63 platform SC cost $15K........ I don't think for 55k would be much cheaper.

KLR CLS

I think they can keep this around 5-6Kish. It's not as much engineering or parts cost on a car that is already SC'ed. Re-use all the stock drive and parts where you can. Stock IC lines and core. you just really need the blower, the elbow casting and the lower IC casting. Everything else you already have. The same type of kit for mustangs can be had for 3K. Double that for the mercedes tax, and you are probably not far off.

Weistec if your listening I would buy this at >5K tomorrow...

CharlyE500

I remember a member try to sell 55 supercharge for $1500 in the classify section so need to invest at least $5k.

Johncy2000

I would buy this immediately at 5K. I will sell my supercharger for 1200 as soon as I get it off.

adianaty

I think we should start an over under pool on the pricing. I'll start it with a guess of $9999. Mainly because if they go lower than that it will devalue the 63 version which has got to be where they will be making their bread and butter in the near term.

CharlyE500

+1 about $10k + installation.

Johncy2000

I'm thinking more along the lines of 6500-7500 actually.

adianaty

One could only hope but I wouldn't sell your throttle body betting on that price.

IMO - Keep it until after they announce my friend so that you are not burned out of a good deal on an 82mm setup...

GregMB

I'm hopeful that Weistec has been as thoughtful about the E55 market as they have about the design itself... clearly, a $15,000 supercharger "swap" kit for a used E55 that routinely sells now for maybe $25 - 30K is a total fail.

Admittedly the dyno graphs on their website for the E63 show massive gains over stock, but that is to be expected when adding a SC to a normally aspirated car. The power increase for the E55 is likely to be a lot less dramatic.... though I'd love to be proven wrong on that one.

It's all speculation without some pricing and/or power numbers..... but their own post indicates that they "get it" about being affordable and competitively priced.

Unfortunately at this moment, there appear to be a number of aftermarket "power adder" initiatives being developed on this forum (Evo's TMC, smaller SC pulley, cold air intake, low-cost airbox / python tubes, etc) and it doesn't appear that any of those mods are going to be compatible with this one.

Additionally, the guys who have already dumped several thousand dollars into traditional Stage 1, 2 or 3 power packages may already be "in too deep" and won't be able to justify spending this kind of money for an incremental improvement in HP over what they already have.

It's possible that most of the common upgrades will also work with this new setup: (headers, larger TBs, cooling mods), but there will probably be significant restrictions on the crank pulley sizes that will be supported, and based on how the TB attaches on this new design... anything intake or airbox related is probably going to get scrapped to get this system installed.

Just a few random thoughts to consider....



-G

gaspam

i seriously doubt these are going to be under $10K.. considering vortech's s/c pricing on BMW's is 10-14K and there is huge demand , kinda predicates what other manufatures are seeing as sweet spot pricing (to where enough people will buy and still maintain healthy margins) ... just go around and shop S/Cs for other german cars and pretty much all over 10K except for maybe a few older e39 M3 kits that come with no cooling....

gaspam

turbo kits for audi B5 S4's go from $7k to $20K an most audi b5 s4's sell for about $5-10K .. same thing for e39 bmw m3's going for $13-15k while vortech stage 2 s/c kits cost $10K and see a plenty of guys doing it, so i dont think cost of the product relative to the car stops gear heads from buying them... look at honda civics as prime example

GregMB

Are those retrofits for N/A cars, or swaps that already have a supercharged engine? To me, that's a big difference.... a guy with a normally aspirated engine that can suddenly get an extra 144WHP and 167WTQ (Weistec's dyno data for the E63 kit) will be drooling. He'll never get there with conventional tuning methods (exhaust, tuning, etc).... so a $10,000 or $15,000 S/C kit is the only option.

E55 guys already got LOTS of options to make big power, and there IS price competition out there on the E55 platform. The "money-no-object" guys aren't driving E55s anymore... they've moved on to a newer platform and will happily drop $10-15K on mods. In the larger AMG picture, I understand that I'm just a "bottom feeder" now. Vendors who still want to tap the E55 market successfully can't keep charging "baller" pricing for mods on this platform and expect to sell anything.


EDIT: Gaspam, missed your last post while I was trying to put my own ideas together... I think there are some significant differences between the E55 platform and the ones you listed. The "all in" price (car + mods) seems to be lower than the E55 which I think is significant, and the cost/HP-gained ratio for those guys makes it easier to justify spending big coin on a blower installation.


-G

gaspam

the audi b5 s4 is twin turbo from the factory so not n/a and lots of guys buy a $5K one and drop $15K .... me

for a new person to the e55 that doesnt have pulley, headers, TB, etc... a straight $12K single mod that gets them to 600+whp might be a bit more appealing than piecing together many mods to get to 500whp.

and i think with prices coming lower and lower on the e55 you will see a lot more people in their early 20s coming into them...

same thing happened in the audi world with the twin turbo s4's... no significant HP mods until about after it was 5 yrs old and then all the stage 3 kits came out nearly doubling stock hp and then after the b5 s4 model was like 7yrs old you started seeing all the GT and tial turbo kits coming out that tripled/quadrupled HP over stock...

its just the nature of the game, the older a car gets and the cheaper it gets, then the more mods come out for it because more of the types of guys like you and me that want to mod our cars, can afford them now

Yacht Master

Even 10 years ago a HPS or a Kleenman supercharger for a W210 E55 was over $12K you guys think this will be cheaper than same product 10 years ago?

gaspam

i definitely agree with you that for guys that have all the mods and already at 500whp then 10-15K for additional 100whp may not be worth it ... but for new people coming into the E55 platform stock at 400whp, then paying 10-15K for additional 200whp is pretty reasonable (assuming this 3.0 s/c puts out 600whp)

Johncy2000

Your right bro. I'm just so excited about this setup. We'll see how it plays out in January.

gaspam

+1 my point exactly... and doesnt really matter if car is built for n/a or not as the cost to build the s/c is the same... they just run less boost via ecu and bypass

i would love to see a $6500- $7500 3.0 s/c with intercoolers for the e55 but it aint happening, and if it does i will buy one instantly !

GregMB

You make a good point.

The E55 may be in a bit of a transitional period. It's still a tad too expensive for the youngest enthusiasts. You can still get a full-warranty and banks will still finance them (mostly) at the current asking prices...

Before much longer, there won't be any such thing as a 3rd party warranty... almost all of the cars out there will be have 80,000 - 100,000 miles on the odometer and the prices will be falling fast enough that people may not need financing to pick them up anymore (at least not 100% financing)....

-G

Roverron

I'm thinking the 7 to 9 K range.
If they are using their own supercharger they have the supply of parts just modding and few things like software and adapters to make it work.
As far as platform there are other 55's besides the E so a lot of people might be on board.
They know that it will be a hard sell if they go over 10K.
The 63 kit is a totally different beast N/A and new software to write or learn to write.
Our 55 software is known and there are many files out there for it. And examples of what to do and what not to do.

I just wish they would throw some numbers out there to stir the pot I'm not talking prices in the ballpark but maybe the parking lot.

gaspam

yeah once they not able to be warrantied and cant be financed the prices will be a soley cash market price and should be a decent drop in price for people coming into the E55, and a bad depreciation ding for those exiting....

the perfect storm for new high HP mod developement

Johncy2000

This thing is going to WHINE like a ***tch!!!!

AKnight55

Theres no way you can just strap this SC on and see 200 whp.. Your going to need extensive cooling and full exhaust to see these high gains..

I do see the point of being "in too deep", but many of these mods that many have already done, need to be done to support such a high hp engine...