Pete's from Kochi supercharges Audi R8

Please, find me a person who owns an Audi R8 and then claims that the car is too slow to excite him; I have a psychiatrist friend looking for cash rich clients. It’s a supercar for crying out loud!

Nevertheless, the excitable folks at Pete’s Automotive, Kochi have spent a year designing and testing a new supercharger for the Audi R8 V8 which will seriously raise the spicy 420bhp to a tongue-burning, fire-breathing 560bhp. At the root of all this power is the roots-type Supercharger and the allied ECU modifications, made and tuned by California-based VF-Engineering. The bolt-on kit designed specifically for the R8 V8 provides a consistent boost pressure of 6-7 psi, for insane roll-on acceleration in the mid-to-top range. For supercharging an Audi R8 through Pete’s, you’ll need 19.8 lacs disposable cash and leave your beloved at the tuners for 3-4 days.

The accuracy of the system is reinstated through rigorous tests for driveability, smoothness and ECU fuel management. While the system has been developed by VF, the supercharger itself comes from Eaton in the form of the The VF supercharger system remains fully OBD2 compliant and is supported by a 1 year unlimited mileage warranty, but this warranty is on the supercharger system only and not the car’s engine.

The man responsible for this madness is Peter K. Chacko, Managing Director at Pete’s. Sensing an opportune market in upgrading performance of normal cars, he has been doing this since early 2005 hand in hand with PSI technologies, Belgium. His company now produces tuning boxes for almost everything around - right from the bread and butter Indica Vista to the likes to BMWs and Mercs. The installation of the tuning box takes about 20 mins, and is a clean job, according to Pete.

All this niceness does come at quite a steep price. A tuning box change will burn the hole of the size of Rs 30,000 (approx) in your pocket and you will be hard pressed to find an insurance company that will cover the modification.

Other stuff that you can get at Pete’s are heat-shields, filters and a funky little device called Indy-Cator which indicates the right gear for you to drive in case you wish to save fuel. Fuel saving tips and superchargers for supercars, from the same company. Is that versatility or what?