Trade up or modify??
 

Alright, just looking for some opinions on my dilemma. My options are to continue modding my car & go with a Pray heads/cam, drop-in setup or simply sell it, use that money plus what I was going to spend on mods & get a ZLE. My car is paid for & I’m thinking I’d need to finance around $10K if I upgrade to a slightly used ZLE.

The problem is I’m too picky & the Pray setup is going to cost around $14K because of my pickiness. That’s with his ported MSD, 95mm TB, 174 degree T-stat, ATI U/D pulley, stage 3 cam, ported stock heads with better lifters, valves & springs than comes with his basic setup plus his drop-in kit. I’m not sure if drop-ins are necessary on an N/A build but I’d feel better about everything holding up in the long term. Just to be clear, I’m not complaining about Pray’s price at all & that setup without the drop-ins & more expensive valvetrain is very fair at around $8K.

Upside to building mine is no car payment & it should be faster than a stock ZLE. Downside is it’s still only worth what any other SS is worth.

To me, that's a no brainer. I would trade up, at least I could get some of that money back when I sold the ZLE.

$14K to upgrade a car worth mid to high $30's does not sound like a good idea to me, but I am someone that is never going to be content with one car forever so I always keep in mind that I will be selling/trading that car eventually.

I just made the switch from a 2018 SS 1LE (sold privately) and bought a 2017 ZL1. Its an all around better car and I don't feel the need to have to go to the ZLE. Only thing I felt the need to buy was a ZLE wing from Anderson Composites. I can't wait for that to come in and I will be done with mods for a long time.

Thanks for the reply & that’s what I’m worried about. If I do all this then I’ve pretty much committed myself to keeping this for a long time.

Upgrade to the ZLE! It’s a no brainer to me.��

Exactly. The ZL1 in either form is such a wonderful car, you wont be disappointed and you will have much more value in it down the line when the next bad ass car comes around.

I agree with the people above me. As I’ve gotten older, I learned I can’t deal with the fact that I don’t get any of my money back for mods when I sell my modified car anymore. Another thing I’ve learned is like my **** to just work. I’m tired of working out the kinks on modified cars. With a stock car, I know it will have oem reliability and I can beat on it all day because the engineers spent many hours making sure what they put out can take the punishment. Also, If you don’t keep your cars forever it again makes more financial sense to just upgrade to higher trim. At least that way, when you go to sell your car you get some of the upgrade cost back.

I definitely don’t have to have a ZLE but I’m about to start doing road courses occasionally & figured if I’m upgrading I’d get the best track car.

One word... upgrade

And I have one available right down the road from you.....

If road course racing is going to be on your priority list then I would definitely upgrade to a ZLE before I did Heads/Cam on a SS 1LE. Especially if you are going to spend a lot of money on things that are not needed like drop-in pistons and rods.

The SBE LT1 will handle more power then you will be able to make NA. The tight ring gaps are the only reason why some have ran into trouble with boost. It's not a strength issue it's a matter of high cylinder pressure and temps(especially on 93 pump gas) causing the rings to butt. You could take the pistons out, re-gap the rings and probably make as much power reliably as most of these "drop-in" kits that are likely "marginally better" in terms of strength. But most think because they see the term "forged" it's inherently better.

Gen 3 5.3 engines have made 1200hp and survived with re-gapped rings. I would say your chances of dropping a stock exhaust valve is far greater then hurting the bottom end on a NA application.

So yea I would definitely go ZLE.

If you can upgrade for only $10K more, that’s a no brainer.

It’s costing me over $30k to make the jump & I did it.

If you plan on tracking go ZLE. If it's a street car go ZL1

The price difference of either options buys a LOT of tires, pads, and driving instruction. The instruction will make you faster and more capable than HP.