Over here on the GM side of the US big three, we benefit big time from the factory offering large displacement engines, making it easy for us at-home builders to make easy power with 6.0-liter or 6.2-liter LS V8s backed by vast aftermarket support. If you are looking to make the next leap in performance, boost is an easy choice. But aftermarket supercharger kits can easily break the budget. This is where ICT Billet steps in with their latest Hellcat supercharger to LS kits to put the larger and easier-to-find Hellcat supercharger on your engine build.

The Hello Kitty Opposition

Odds are, we don’t have to tell you about the Hellcat. These are the Mopar muscle cars that have been packing 6.2-liter HEMIs under the hood with a massive 80-pound supercharger on top, pumping out 707-horsepower or more since 2015. While all of us in the GM camp like to poke fun at these overweight straight-line monsters, you can’t deny how easily accessible it has been for the Mopar guys to get their hands on that level of power.

This Hellcat supercharger and LS combo is one of the first to use ICT Billet’s kits.

There are two different-sized superchargers you can get your hands on. The most common is the IHI 2.4-liter supercharger found in 2015–2023 Challenger and Charger Hellcats, 2018–2021 Jeep Trackhawks, 2021 and 2023–present Durango Hellcats, and the 2021–2024 Ram 1500 TRX trucks. While much more valuable, desired, and rare, there is also the IHI 2.7-liter supercharger that can be found on 2018 Challenger Demons, 2019-2023 Challenger Hellcat Redeyes, and 2021-2023 Charger Hellcat Redeyes.

What Is IHI?

IHI Turbo America was founded in 1980 as the Warner-Ishi Corporation, a joint venture between IHI Corporation (formerly known as Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries), Borg Warner Automotive, and a licensee of IHI turbocharger technology. Headquartered in Shelbyville, Illinois, IHI Turbo America designs and manufactures parts for marine and other heavy industries, and is known in the performance world for making turbochargers and superchargers for manufacturers like Ford, GM, Chrysler, Renault, Fiat, Mercedes-Benz, and others.

This Hellcat supercharger equipped LS lies between the fenders of a classic C10 pickup that is sure to turn some heads with some loud blower whine and brutal torque.

Out With The Old, In With The New

For years, if you were looking to piece together a second-hand supercharger for your LS project to save a few bucks compared to a nice and new off-the-shelf supercharger kit from one of the name-brand manufacturers, you scoured eBay and social media marketplaces for a used TVS1900 supercharger off the LSA-powered 5th-gen Camaro ZL1 or 2nd-gen CTS-V.

Our Hellcat supercharger adapter kit brings the unmistakable whine of a Hellcat blower to the proven LS platform. The 2.4L Hellcat units move more air than the smaller 1.9L LSA, yet they’re far easier on the wallet. —Allison, ICT Billet—

The reason you could snag one of these superchargers second-hand so easily, and for a steal, is because of a defective coupler in the snout of the blower that rattled. GM issued a recall that required the replacement of the entire supercharger assembly instead of a simple repair. This may sound like a costly and inefficient warranty process, but it was good news for us as we could get a low-mileage supercharger capable of about 800 horsepower on the right engine build for cheap.

But, as time has gone on, the used market for these superchargers has dried up, which means the once sub-$1,000 dollar TVS1900 has turned into a few grand ordeal. We know that prices have gone up on just about everything in the past few years, but this change hurt the budget LS crowd. This is where ICT Billet’s Hellcat supercharger to LS kits step in to give us a little relief and a lot more power potential.

With ICT Billet’s Hellcat supercharger to LS kits, the massive IHI blower fits onto an LS with ease.

Billet To The Rescue

ICT Billet has dipped their toes into the supercharger adapter kit pool a few times already, with kits to put the Gen V LT4 supercharger on cathedral-port and rectangular-port LS engines and LSA blower on cathedral-port LS adapters, so it was only natural for them to progress to cross-adapt other blowers to the world’s most popular pushrod performance V8.

ICT Billet’s Hellcat supercharger to LS kits come complete with the gaskets, hardware, and adaptors that you need, like the throttle body adaptor, MAP sensor adaptor, and the conversion hub and pulley for the supercharger snout.

The Hellcat superchargers feature a completely different intake mounting pattern for the cylinder heads when compared to an LS, as well as different throttle body bolt patterns, belt spacing, and map sensor connections. But this is where ICT Billet comes in to solve these problems, so we can make use of these larger and cheaper superchargers.

Like fitting a square peg in a cathedral hole, making these adapters wasn’t easy. Pictured here are the Hellcat blower to cathedral-port LS head adapters.

The intake adapters in this kit are CNC-machined from a solid piece of 6061 aluminum. This adaptation is no easy task and requires some ingenious engineering to make everything fit and work just right. The intake flange angle on the cylinder heads, the intake mounting bolt pattern, intake port shape, and intake port spacing are completely different between the LS and the Gen III HEMI. ICT Billet offers their kits with adapters for either cathedral-port or rectangular-port LS engines.

ICT Billet’s throttle body adapter not only converts the snout to mount a four-bolt LS throttle body, but clocks it out of the way of the supercharger main body.

The throttle body difference is another task ICT Billet was able to solve for their kit. To the naked eye, it looks like the four-bolt mounting pattern is the same between the HEMI and LS, or at least close enough to work, but we are not that lucky. ICT Billet was able to solve this with a simple adapter that allows you to mount a 92mm four-bolt LS throttle body to the IHI HEMI supercharger snout and clocks it at an angle so the throttle body’s motor housing doesn’t interfere with the supercharger body.

The stock fuel rails on the Hellcat superchargers are large enough to supply all the fuel you need, and the stock Hellcat injectors are rated at 57 lbs/hr at 60 psi, which is enough to support about 800 horsepower on pump gas. If you are looking for bigger injectors, the aftermarket offers plenty of choices to fit your needs. Another nice feature of the Hellcat injectors is that they use the same connector as LS3 and LSA injectors. ICT Billet also offers a MAP sensor adapter with the Hellcat supercharger to LS kits, which keeps wiring simple.

Outside of the billet adapters, the biggest challenge with Hellcat supercharger to LS kits is the belt spacing. It’s one thing to fit the IHI blower to the LS heads, but getting the belt spacing to line up is a whole different ball game. Instead of making one-off, application-specific accessory drive kits for the Hellcat supercharger to LS kits, ICT Billet includes a billet conversion hub for the blower snout and a 3.00-inch 8-rib billet pulley with the kit.

This conversion hub and pulley allows you to run an LSA-style accessory drive on your LS and it will line up with the Hellcat supercharger. Parts for the LSA accessory drive are still readily available, and complete accessory drive kits and parts for different swap applications are available from ICT Billet, so you can Frankenstein your Hellcat-boosted LS into any platform you can think of. If you are looking for a different pulley size for more power, a quick call to ICT Billet can sort you out with whatever size you have in mind.

You have to pay to play, as they say. And the price to pay is hood clearance. The Hellcat supercharger is not low-profile and will need some creative hood modifications if installed into cars and smaller applications.

Ready For The Big Show

Like all of ICT Billet’s products, these adapters are made in-house at its Wichita, Kansas, facility from U.S.-sourced metal and materials. This not only ensures a quality part where they can maintain quality control from start to finish, but it also keeps jobs where it matters most, right here in America.

Our kit aligns the Hellcat pulley with the factory LSA beltline, making installation straightforward using a LSA front engine accessory drive. More boost, less cost, and a new way to keep the LS game exciting. —Allison, ICT Billet—

The Hellcat supercharged engines were made in higher numbers for a longer period of time, which means they are easier to find and for a good price when compared to factory GM LS superchargers. And with 2.4 liters, or possibly 2.7 liters if you can find one, the power potential for your next big-power LS build can reach four-digits without breaking the bank with ICT Billet’s Hellcat supercharger to LS kits.