You’d have to be from another planet not to realise that the supercharger has been the single biggest phenomenon to hit the Commodore scene in recent years.

All over the country, blowers of varying description are being stuffed under Commodore bonnets in the quest for instant horsepower.

Of course we would never ridicule the benefits of a properly installed blower and appropriately tuned engine, but it often seems that superchargers have almost done away with traditional engine building.

Not so, not so. What you’re looking at here is a ‘98 model VS GTS with a dyno proven 407.5Hp at the rear wheels.

Ponder those figures for a moment.

That’s 407 rear wheel ponies - or very damn near to 500Hp at the flywheel - with no forced induction and no nitrous either !

The culprits responsible for this despicable act are Darryl Abbott and Shane Carson at BRE Performance, in Perth.

More is never enough
Bob, the owner of this GTS, had enjoyed the benefits of what could be called a Stage 1 engine build by BRE for about a year, but we all know how it goes…

That horsepower bug is an incurable disease and having quickly become bored with stage 1 and a ‘mere’ 337 rear wheel ponies, Bob was soon banging on BRE’s front door begging Darrryl and Shane to perform even more serious acts of lunacy to his motor.

The big change this time around is the move to a tuffrided and cross drilled Crankshaft Rebuilders Group A crankshaft and Dave Benett heads.

The crank has replaced the car’s original Harrop stroker item, although the stroke of 3.48" is the same.

With a mild re-bore to 4.030", the capacity tops out at 5.8 litres, or 355ci in the old money.

Nothing radical there really, except that the Crankshaft Rebuilders crank is much stronger and is actually used by many of the Group A touring car teams.

The block that the crank sits in has been fully prepared by Mark and Gary Chapman, with a conversion to Harrop four-bolt main caps.

From the crank, shot peened A9l Group A conrods run up to JE custom forged race pistons, wrapped in Perfect Circle plasma moly fileback rings.

As you’d expect, the Dave Bennett Dash 9 alloy heads mate to the block with the help of O-ringing, ½" ARP studs and a copper head gasket.

Suitably ported and flowed to 640Hp, the heads (thanks again to those Chapman brothers) have been filled with some really exotic valve gear. Including custom made Manley stainless valves (2.08" in / 1.60" ex), Crane triple roller valve springs, Crane titanium valve retainers, and Yella Terra platinum shaft mount race roller rockers.

Working directly with the cam are Crow custom moly pushrods and Crane roller lifters.

After a bit of persuasion, Shane Carson conceded that the cam offers a maximum of 297 degrees of duration and 600 thou’ of lift.

In the interests of reliability, BRE steered clear of driving the cam by gears and are instead using a Crane double row timing chain.

Some things you just can’t hide
So much for the stuff that’s out of sight, because when you lift the bonnet of Bob’s car, one item immediately smacks you in the face - that group A twin throttle body intake manifold.

It’s amazing that this one item is now well over ten years of age and while there has been an incredible amount of technological development in that time, the VN Group A manifold is still able to deliver the goods.

This particular one has been welded and extensively modified in the runner and ram tube areas for enhanced air flow.

The manifold also looks a million bucks and although we feel sorry for whoever had to sit in a corner of BRE’s workshop with a bag of rags and a can of Brasso, the end result speaks for itself!

Fuel is added to the equation by eight Bosch 363 injectors, although the fuel system really starts in the boot.

Here, avgas is pumped by the VS GTS original pump, acting as a primer into a boot mounted 2-litre swirl pot.

This keeps a Bosch Motorsport 600Hp pump happy and from there it’s onwards to those big squirters.

Outright control for the whole package, meanwhile, comes down to MoTeC’s sequential electronics.

On the exhaust side of things, Genie 1 ¾" primaries, custom secondaries and BRE’s own twin 3" mandrel bent twin system add significantly to the whole deal.

BRE have actually put a lot of development into exhaust systems in recent times. Shane says that if you look at a photo of Craig Lowndes’ car upside down during that crash, you’ll get an idea of how the merging works on Bob’s car.

It was also said that the odd flame was seen spitting out the back end when the car was being tuned on the dyno!

To date, the original T5 gearbox that Bob’s car came with has stood up to all the abuse, but a 10 ½" competition Chevy clutch and lightened steel Group A flywheel have been added to the plot.

Similarly, the original tailshaft is still on board, but out back now the original diff’ housing plays host to 3.9 ratio gears and a mini spool.

Stopping & handling? No problem!
The VS GTS came with decent brakes in the form of Corvette two-spots, but there’s no denying that ventilated and slotted Harrop discs (343mm front / 330mm rear) with Harrop four spot grabbers upped the ante even further.

There’s no denying either that the brakes and highly polished original 17" rims add to the visual feast.

The rims wear 255/40 ZR17 Bridgestone 540 air bags, which are actually the control tyre for Street Car Racing at WA’s Barbagallo Raceway.

Apparently, with brand new Bridgestone 255/40 X 17 SO2 rubber, the car would simply paint two black lines on the road all the way into fourth gear.

Thankfully, Steve Harvey, the Bridgestone Motorsport distributor in Perth, came up with the idea of using the 540s ......although the black lines can still be laid !

BRE’s suspension development is a little different to the drag racing fraternity, as BRE are more oriented towards circuit racing.

So to help with cornering and braking, this GTS has been equipped with custom Bilstein coil overs up front and a similar arrangement out back.

The idea at the rear has been to use a coil over in its original position, but with enough stiffness to control the inherent axle hop of an IRS Commodore.

Fully adjustable Whiteline sway bars at both ends, along with urethane bushes, add to the enhanced suspension and the car also sits 35mm closer to mother earth.

Into the cabin now and, well, why would anyone want to go messing around with all that luxury ?

Certainly not Bob, although there has been the addition of three extra gauges in the centre console for additional feedback.

When all is said and done though, this car’s performance is truly unique.

Looking good, feeling good
Lowering is just one way to make a car look good, but the exterior stance of this GTS has certainly been further enhanced by some additional bodywork.

The crew at BRE wouldn’t reveal their sources, but apparently the front Group A spoiler and Group A rear wing are genuine carbon fibre HRT items.

IThere are plenty of Commodores out there with forced induction pushing ridiculous boost pressures and yet producing nowhere near the horsepower of this beastie.

Darryl said in fact, that if the car was put onto some of the more ‘prominent’ dynos in Perth, it would probably read as high as 480Hp at the back wheels.

Not that we want to delve into that debate, except to say that the engine was built and calculated to produce 600Hp at the flywheel.

Why ?  Well - why not !