Quote:
Originally Posted by Joelskidelahoya
Appreciate it s346k. 1st time I’ve heard bout that as an option. (Stock air box mod). It seems e85 n more airflow is the best bang for your buck. 1k to 1500k vs 3 to 4K FBO. All for a few 20 ish horsepower. Wouldn’t a better throttle body make it more snapping more so than dyno hp. I had bad luck with a ported TB on my gen 2 CTSV.
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Ported TB’s have always been a pain in every tuners neck. Few are worth doing in terms of $/hp, but the throttle response is usually a nice seat of the pants upgrade. I have said before, the LT2 IM + LT5 95mm TB w/adapter has got to be the best budget upgrades you can get and damn sexy on top of it all. You can get the whole slew for less than $500. The next best in aftermarket will cost you over $2k for a IM+TB combo. The $/hp comparison isn’t even close, hands down the LT2 smashes the aftermarket alternatives. As far as hassle, yes there is some prep work and potentially some sacrifices to be made depending how you want to present the LT2. Prep kit from Phastek is only $45 and about 30m-1hr of your time. If you want to run the IM cover it’ll cost $120 more and there are some hood clearance issues to address. Minor inconvenience for a lot of sexy. The 95mm TB is going to feel good everywhere and snappy compared to stock, even though the IM is only feeding 87mm in port, the 95mm is going to utilize it better. The 87mm TB doesn’t use its full port because you lose area to the blade and rod, so the 95mm is actually more appropriate for a 87mm inlet than a 87mm TB is.
As far as Cold Air Intakes, they are just engine bay beautification until you get toward the end of heads/cam combos and start reaching for max effort. The OE intake and box will not show restriction til you really ramp up the air flow capacity of the engine and start spinning beyond 7,000. If you had a 90’s Camaro, a CAI was an upgrade, but since then factory equipment and filter media are leaps and bounds improved. Same for cats. The primary cats will support NA peak just fine, if you could adapt them for LT’s they would still probably perform just fine. I do recommend secondary cat delete if you are looking for a sound upgrade. It is subtle, but more pronounced with an aftermarket muffler. $/hp there is nothing to be had from it, even tuned. So it’s personal preference, just like mufflers, no $/hp there either.
Nice thing about LT2+LT5 upgrades, when you are ready for heads/cam you will already be set to take advantage of more flow and RPM.