Best way to gain around 100hp and it's cost, or just go Zo6?

[ynkedad]

Let me begin by saying, I didn't realize that i'd ever want more than 400hp.
Now, after having had a taste of 400hp, I just want to go FASTER.

Today I was talking to my wife about mods and More hp for my 2005 automatic (4 speed), C6 w/the Z51 pkg. My wife then blew me away when she eluded to getting a Zo6 . Hmmmmmmmmmm.

The problems I have with that are,
1) I've only had this Vette for a few short months, so I'd get raped on selling or trading mine in.
2) Why not just do hp mods to the one I have, rather than spend that kind of $ on a zo6.

So I visited the corveteforum and read a thread that contained this post from a guy in California:

I DO A COMPLETE 100HP KIT(HEADS, CAM , EXHAUST TUNE)
AND ALL PARTS AND FLUIDS AND ALL LABORS AND B/S INCLUDED
FOR 5K
BUT THATS JUST ME.....
AND THEN YOU STILL KEEP YOUR GM WARRANTY..
BUT WHO WANTS THAT ANYWAY? RIGHT...

UDRIVESLOW
------------------------
Anyone know of anywhere in Fl where 100 + hp can be achieved for around this (5k), or a better price?
Is it worth doing the mods or would I be better off (cost wise) with a Zo6?

Just looking for you all to play devil advocates, or to give your opinions on better Ideas for hp gains.
Thanks,

~Ray

[Rich Z]

Well, I guess you need to figure out just how you want to GET to that 100 hp+ level. You can rebuild your own engine with new performance goodies, pull your motor and drop in one already built, or go the forced induction route that just bolts onto your current motor.

Bear in mind that there may be blood letting involved. Smoking tires is literally money up in smoke. Clutches are designed to handle a limited amount of power being applied to them. And the same goes for the transmission and read end. So just adding power may not be the end of your spending money. The best advice I heard from someone was when they made the comment that if you need to scrimp and scrape to just get the money up for the power adder, then don't do it. Because the after effects with things breaking will certainly break your piggy bank.

Now as to the Z06, I assume you are talking about going to the C6 version. Yep, that would certainly fill the bill, and you would likely bypass some of the concerns I mentioned about just adding power to your own ride. But all things considered, you would still be spending a LOT of money for that 100 additional horse power. Probably much more so with the C6 than by building up your current ride. Figure out the price you would have to pay for a C6 Z06 even with yours in trade and that will give you a rough idea of what you have to play with in upgrading your current car. Don't forget the finance charges, either, because they STILL have to come out of your pocket, even if spread over 5 years or more.

But good luck in coming to a decision. Just spend as much time as you can reading about options before making a decision so you THOROUGLY understand what you are getting into. I just recently got STS twin turbos installed on my car, and at this point, I'm not really sure it was the best way for me to go. Maybe there WAS no "best" way at all....... Just have to decide what compromises and drawbacks were best to live with along the way...

[ynkedad]

What kind of hp/tq increases did you get/notice from the twin turbo's? Cost?

[Gannet]

Probably any of the better shops in Florida can do around that deal.

But RichZ brings up excellent points.

If you are content to keep your power gains moderate, and you don't thrash your car excessively, ancillary expenses like driveline upgrades/breakage may be avoided. Based on what I've learned so far (as I'm going through the same education process as you, only with a C5) is that somewhere around 100 rwhp gain may be about the upper limit between "no worries, mate", and the type of expenditures RichZ mentions.

There are four basic approaches:

Head/Cam car (H/C)
Big engine (427 or more)
Supercharger
Turbos

Each has advantages and disadvantages, and each makes sense at some budget/power points and not others. For each, there are various stages of tune from near-stock driveability to race car.

As a very rough guidline, here are the sort of numbers I have been gathering:

"Full" head/cam car, $8-10k in motor work, 100-150 (maybe 200) rwhp gain
Big engine (which usually implies full H/C with it) $14-22k, 200-300 rwhp gain
Supercharger, $8.5-10k (stock engine), 150-200 rwhp gain
Turbos, $10-12k (stock engine), 150-250 rwhp gain
More is available for more $$$, max-effort "street" engines are now around 1000 rwhp.

The higher you go in the power gain with each package, the more temperamental it is likely to get. And remember that when you get over about 100 rwhp gain, if you "use it" a lot, things are liable to start breaking at any time. Not saying they will, plenty of guys get lucky (these are basically very stout cars) but they can and do break and you should be prepared for that. Price out a transmission rebuild, new clutch, differential rebuild, etc.

Here's a suggestion, which is what I've decided to do myself: do it in smaller stages. That way you can spread out the cost and/or decide to stop at the point where any further increase is just too much money or too much compromise in the daily enjoyment of the car.

Typical stages:

1) Cold air induction (CAI) and exhaust. CAI would be something like a Callaway Honker. Exhaust would be headers and a new catback. CAI would be $3-600 installed, and headers w/catback would be $2-3.5k installed. Some guys split that up by making the very first mod a catback (I did). Altogether this should be worth 40 or so rwhp. Add another $500 and 10-15 rwhp for a dyno tune if you're so inclined.

2) Cam & "kit". $1600-3200 installed, depending on how fancy you get and any other upgrades you do (oil pump, etc.) A C6 mostly comes with the upgrades C5 guys tend to do. Power gain here is highly dependent on how radical of a cam you choose. Anywhere from 20-80 rwhp. The 20 hp one will drive just like stock, only better. The 80 hp one will be a nasty beast "race car" deal. Add another $500 for the dyno tune, which is required at this stage.

3) Heads, $1400-3500 installed, again "depending". 20-50 rwhp gain. A lot of guys combine steps 2 and 3. It saves money on labor, you don't have to buy the valve springs twice, and the cam and heads can be selected as a matched set. But of course it's more cash up front.

At this point you're at or past the "fully reliable" limits of the stock powertrain and you have to start budgeting powertrain upgrades along with any further performance upgrades. This is how guys can get $25-30k sunk in mods on blower/turbo cars without trying too hard.

If you know you want over 500 rwhp (which is a whole heaping ton of power, way more than a C6-Z06) it can be cheaper to start with a forced induction (FI, blower/turbo) setup right from the get-go.

Shops with a good rep in Florida include AntiVenom, RevXtreme, Next Level Performance (Mike Norris), and Horsepower Sales. I have visited the first three and felt they each had their strong and weak points, but I would probably let any of them work on my car.

That's the quick version of what I've learned from others, so far, fwiw. I emphasize that this is based on research, not personal experience. Get lots of qualified advice (which will sometimes conflict) and choose your poisin. Welcome to the addiction!

[Gannet]

Hmmm, I see I didn't really answer the question in your original title.

First, if the idea is to get to the same power as a C6 Z06, then you need 100 crankshaft HP, or about 85 rear-wheel hp. Most guys on forums &tc quote their gains in rwhp because most of us can get our cars on chassis dynos, but very few of us have our engines pulled to run them on engine dynos.

If it were me (and it is, on my car, 'cause I'm in the same boat as you), I'd be inclined to do the CAI, headers, catback, cam, and dyno tune. If you choose a mild or moderate cam this may be a little under your 85 hp number, but not by much. If you're willing to put up with the driveability compormises of a more radical or "racier" cam, then it could be considerably more than that. Yes, for the expenditure of $5-6k you can have a car with a fair amount more power than a stock C6 Z06.

So why do this instead of heads? Because this way you leave your factory engine internals and gasket seal alone. In my experience on past cars, an unopened stock engine seems to last longer and cause less trouble than one that's been "messed with". Just a generalization. Let's face it, very few shops really have the right equipment to go inside your engine properly (clean room, etc.)

If you decide this much power is "enough", great, you're done, and you can easily return the engine to stock should you get tired of it or want to sell (keep all the parts!). If you want more, you're all set to get the most benefit out of a set of nice heads.

A lot of shops offer head/cam packages in part because many customers already have the exhaust and CAI done. If you're in that situation and you want a big step up in power, a H/C makes a lot of sense. But doing everything at once on a stock car is a lot of money (around $8k) and it's also a huge change in the amount of power. Maybe better to go a little slower and get used to it.

That's what I'm going to do, CAI and headers first (already have the catback), then come back and do a cam. Right now I'm just doing more research as to exactly what parts I want to use. Lots of options. I'm hoping to meet more local owners of modified Vettes and pick their brains as to what has worked/not worked for them.

Anyway, just IMO. Good luck!

[CHASZ51]

For my Mods i only plan, headers, CAI, catback and gears. That should get me near LS2 power levels. Gears won't gain any power , but will add some snap on take off. And a tune is a must!

[Rich Z]

Originally Posted by ynkedad

What kind of hp/tq increases did you get/notice from the twin turbo's? Cost?

Well, here's a dyno chart after AntiVenom installed the twins:



A couple of things are noteworthy here.

(1) The STS twin turbos replace the mufflers. As such, the noise within the car has gotten MUCH louder. Maybe more than I really like. Which may be more than YOU really like as well. I've taken a video so I can let everyone hear the exhaust, but I haven't massaged it to put on this site yet..

(2) Going the smaller steps first, in my case, may have been a mistake. Headers ALWAYS seem like a good idea for a performance mod, but in my case, it may have been detrimental when combined with the STS rear mounted turbos. Notice on the graph that the REAL power increase doesn't hit until around 4,000 rpm. In some ways this is OK, as you generally are reving up the motor when you really need the power to be there. But (and this is a BIG but), the one time so far I really "got on it" I was in third and passed a couple of cars. You could really feel the turbo squirrels running in the cages and my Z just pressed me back into the seat. However, when I shifter to fourth, it just felt like all the pep had evaporated. I didn't make note of rpms or anything else, so this is not very scientific, I'm afraid. But looking at the power graph, if you are hitting 5500 rpm or so in third, and shifting to fourth puts you around 3,000 rpm, there should be a noticeable decrease in power on hand because the turbos stopped pumping as hard. So in effect, in order to get the most out of those turbos, I really need to keep the revs up into the power band, which in my case, is honestly maybe a bit higher than I would like it. I think having more boost hitting earlier (like around 3,000 rpm) would be MUCH better. When I was looking over all the info for the STS kits, that is what I thought I would be getting. Yeah, my car CAN put 500 horsepower down at the rear wheels. But I have to be at 6500 rpm to get it. How often and how long, realistically, will anyone WANT to do that?

Anyway, this brings up other issues to consider. BIG cams (and other power mods) can give big power, but they may be in the very uppermost RPM range limit of your engine, and lower end could suffer somewhat. So in that respect, you may not only have to decide how much power you want, and how you want to achieve it, but also WHERE in the RPM range it is really going to be and what is BEST for you. If you want power you can USE, it has to be where it is most useful to you.

[9T8Vette]

Richz those numbers looks sweet to me .But do make a point that some mods we do may help us in the 1 area and hurt us in another .They says if you put a larger intake and throttle body you can lose low end torque.I think that's one example of lose and gain. I am still a rookie when comes to these hi tech motors.You can say i old school.

[Rich Z]

Originally Posted by 9T8Vette

Richz those numbers looks sweet to me .But do make a point that some mods we do may help us in the 1 area and hurt us in another .They says if you put a larger intake and throttle body you can lose low end torque.I think that's one example of lose and gain. I am still a rookie when comes to these hi tech motors.You can say i old school.

Yeah, me too...... I remember when doing a tuneup meant buying plugs, points, and a condenser. Most technical part about it was gapping the spark plugs correctly. Now, you basically need to be a rocket scientist, and even then, many of them are just experimenting on your car while they learn. Kind of like doctors having a "practice". Heck, I want someone who KNOWS what they are doing, not just "practicing"!

[ynkedad]

Awesome

I really appreciate you guys taking the time, to educate me with your responses.

Lots of Awesome ideas and detailed information.

Again, WOW!

Thanks fellas,

~Ray