Look past the rows of highly-modified cars, wild driving demos and weak American beer, the annual SEMA Show is actually about cool new products to make your car go faster!

2022 has been no exception, with Aussie brands leading the charge.

Haltech chose SEMA as the place to debut their new Nexus R3 VCU. The R3 is the little brother of the much-vaunted Nexus R5. Both Nexus models act as power distribution module, a data logger, a wideband controller and an ECU all-in-one.

The R3 retains NSP (Nexus Software Programmer) functionality, including torque management, closed loop boost control, nitrous control and auto trans control. It also includes an in-built Wi-Fi module and antenna.

Where the R3 differs from its big brother is in its reduced features to achieve a more-affordable price point. For example, where the R5 has dual wideband controllers, the R3 has one. Instead of 12 ignition outputs, the R3 has eight and so on. Check out the Haltech website for more details.

The R3 will be on sale first-quarter of 2023, with pricing to be revealed early next year.

Turbosmart took home two SEMA new product awards this year, winning Best Performance-Racing Product for their OPR Turbocharger Oil Pressure Regulator and Best Engineered Product for 2022 for their Pneumatic StraightGate50 External Wastegate.

The Pneumatic StraightGate50 is essentially a pneumatic version of the revolutionary electronic butterly StraightGate50, which won both both Best Performance and Racing Product and Best Engineered Product at SEMA 2021.

“The butterfly style straight gate design means you don’t have to turn the gas 90-degrees, so it is much more efficent,” says Turbosmart’s Chris Milne.

“It is a more elegant solution and provides a much bigger tuning window, than a traditional poppet-style wastegate.”

“The existing OPR oil pressure regulator solved a lot of problems for people, but was a pain to install in some cases, due to having to plumb a return line back to the sump. So our engineers came up with the idea of a making a true inline returnless oil pressure regulator. It includes a built-in, serviceable oil filter.”

The third Turbosmart release was the a modular system for vacuum reference and sensor distribution. “The system is a modular kit like LEGO,” says Chris. “It allows you to mount your sensors away from things that will kill them like heat and vibration. And do it in a really neat and tidy way if you like things to be matchy-matchy like we do!”

The crew from Harrop unveiled their new 3.1-litre, three-lobe TVS3100 blower range, based on the new Eaton X3100 internals. To begin with, the TVS3100 will be available for the Ford 7.3-litre Godzilla, as well as GM’s LS and LT range.

“Eaton test data shows 30 percent more airflow than the 2650,” says Harrop’s Jake Di Pietro. “And it offers 17 percent larger displacement and 11 percent more efficiency at 18,000 rpm and 14.7psi.

“And being a three lobe blower, it will be louder, with more whine!”

Sounds good to us!