Killer Bee II Conversion Package

by: Hib Halverson

Description: An aftermarket air filter assembly (aka “air box”, “intake kit”, “air induction system”, “ram air kit” or whatever) is often one of the first mods a many Corvette DIYs choose. On various vehicles, including Corvettes, I’ve had: K&N Fuel Injection Performance Kits, AIRAID Air Boxes, Vararam Ram Air Systems, Whisperlids and Granatelli Motorsports intake kits. I’ve never had one which didn’t improve performance, but I’ve, also, never had one which offered a large improvement–until now. <br/ ><br/ > For a few years, on my C5 Z06, I’ve had both an aftermarket air filter assembly and an aftermarket MAF sensor, both from Granatelli Motorsports, and expectedly, they provided a modest performance increase of 4.5-hp at the rear wheels, SAE-corrected. At the time, I was satisfied with that. <br/ ><br/ > Several months ago, I was talking to my friends at Katech Engines, Inc about what intake kits they used on their customer cdars. and they put me in touch with Jim Hall who owns Halltech, a maker of induction parts for Corvettes. Halltech is also the home of the “ULZ700”, a fully-streetable, 2770-lb, 715-hp, C6 Z06. Some have taken to calling Hall’s C6Z the “Snakeskinner II”. The car a showcase for lightweighting C6 Z06es with carbon fiber parts. It even has CF wheels! <br/ ><br/ > While Jim Hall sells a number of Corvette performance enhancements and exterior customizing products, his bread and butter are C5/C6 Corvette air boxes. Haltech sells a C5 product called the “Killer Bee II Conversion Package”. It includes the C5 Killer Bee II Cold Air Induction System, which is adapted from a intake system Hall designed for the C6Z06. It accepts an LS3/7/9 ”probe style” Hitachi MAF sensor the user supplies and comes with a Halltech wire harness adapter to connect the C5 engine harness to the C6 MAF sensor.   <br/ ><br/ > The idea of using the LS7 MAF Sensor in an air filter assembly that parallels the later, C6 Z06 and ZR1 OE design, appealed to me. The “KBII” has been used on 427 C5s making 600 at the wheels and, according to Hall, can ultimately support air flow for 950-hp, so maybe it’s overkill for my “puny” 430-hp LS6, but I still wanted to give it a try. <br/ ><br/ > I ordered an LS7 MAF sensor (PN 15865791) from GM parts vendor, Tom Henry Racing. Once I had the sensor in hand, the KBII installation was duck soup. I removed the Granatelli Motorsports parts, installed the Halltech silicone hose connection, the Halltech air bridge and filter then installed the new MAF sensor and connected the adapter harness between the existing engine harness and the new sensor.<br/ ><br/ > Because of the MAF sensor upgrade, you must reflash the ECM with a new MAF table. Trust me on this. I tried to use the LS6 MAF cal and the engine would barely run. Halltech supplies data for a couple of different MAF tables one can use as a starting point which you can install and fine tune to your specific engine set up using HPTuners or similar software app. <br/ ><br/ > I’ll gladly share my MAF table cal with anyone. Our engine was a stock LS6 with a Crane Cams package of 1.8:1 rockers, dual springs and titanium retainers, Denso IT22 plugs, MSD plug wires, RC Engineering 310-cc/min. injectors and a Corsa X-pipe. If you’re engine is similarly modified and you’re going to use the Killer Bee II, email me at finspeed@netmotive.net and I’ll send you the MAF data. <br/ ><br/ > With the Halltech Killer Bee II in place, I took the car to the Westech Performance Group in Mira Loma, California to use their Superflow Autodyn chassis dyno to validate the installation. It was a warm day and, not wanting any knock retard to skew the dyno results, while Eric, Westech’s dyno technician, strapped the car down; I poured enough Rockett Brand 100 unleaded racing gasoline in the tank to make 93-octane. Then, I made five runs on the Westech Autodyn. <br/ ><br/ > The results were surprising. The car averaged 380.1-hp at the rear wheels SAE-corrected which works out to just under 450-hp at the flywheel. The addition of the Killer Bee II paid off in a 11.1-hp SAE improvement over the Granatelli parts and a 14-hp improvement over the stock air filter assembly–that’s more than three times the improvement we saw with the Granatelli Motorsports MAF sensor and air induction. <br/ ><br/ > In short, the Killer Bee II is, well...killer. It’s the best C5 air box on the market.