[LT1ornothing]

All comes down to how much you are willing to pay per horsepower. In my case, I'll find a 2650 blower on sale at some point and put in on myself on a bone stock LT1. Works out to just under $40 per horsepower for 170ish whp gain.

Some people are happy throwing tons of cash for minimal gains and enjoy the little changes here and there, different strokes for different folks.

[BlackbeastSS2]

I get it different mods for different folks. The best bang for the buck is putting a supercharger on a stock SS. The NA guys like me like the sound of a cam like I had in my 2016 SS. That sound would put a smile on my face.

Nothing wrong with bolt-ons and if done right like pray does they make good gains.

Different is good. Everyone doing the same thing would be boring.

[cellsafemode]

this thread isn't about doing things for your own fun.

It's about the practicality of modding the car.

And there are two simple measurements involved with what makes it practical.

% of total power and cost per hp. (edit, well 3 things, total cost is a factor too....but the thread kind of sets that at 5000ish as the limit)

I think the vast majority of enthusiasts would be on board in saying that at 400rhwp, you're not going to notice 1-5% +- performance. That comes out to 4-20 hp. Any mods that fall within this range when tested on a dyno are suspect because dyno's aren't that accurate and cars aren't that finely controlled of a test subject and its not hard for them to vary a couple percent even when not making any changes at all.

I think we can all agree as well that a 1-5% difference in performance is going to be well within the realm of noise when on the road experiencing it. The wind, dynamic weight of the car on a particular day, the temperature of the tires and the road will all have a significant impact when you're looking at + or - 1-5% performance. In other words, you're unlikely to be very sensitive to those variations because you feel them _all_ the time.

So high cost in this range of performance difference is considered impractical. And while, yes, to some money doesn't really mean much .... we could probably safely assume that for 90 to 95% of the ownerbase, spending 100 bucks per hp in this range is too much. That's 1000 for 10hp.

Now once you want to increase a certain amount, your only options are expensive mods like forced induction or e85 / nitrous (the cheapest option). Cheaper boltons dont add up beyond a certain amount and for the current v8 camaro, evidence is mounting that that amount is low. Like maybe 5-10% over stock. If you want more than that you have to start going FI or alternative fuel route.

Prices per hp skyrocket of course, but there are no other options to get these numbers over stock. So what becomes practical has a different scale.

Then it becomes how much total can you spend practically, vs how much per hp are you getting for that amount.

Since if 5000 bucks is not in the realm of options, how much hp per dollar it gets you is irrelevant. But if you're going to buy a lot of little things that add up to a 5000 dollar FI kit, how smart does it look if you end up with 1/10th of the performance gains for the same cost?


Again, we're talking about performance intentions, not subjective things like sound or looks. If your goal is performance, there are ways to objectively say one option is better than another or one option is a waste of money vs another.

The OP's posters may indeed have a bad tune, but a bad tune isn't going to turn that 5000 dollars worth of parts into anything close to 50hp ..much less 170.

[Nightfall ss1le]

That $5K wasn’t just for horsepower numbers either and no you probably won’t feel 5, 10 maybe even 20 HP difference but you’ll certainly feel 70-80 & that doesn’t even cost $5K if you don’t buy the most expensive parts. Even at 70 HP for the $4K I’m spending is $57/HP. Not as good as a supercharger for HP per dollar but it’s a far cry from what you’re saying. You seriously need to do some research before making these claims about a car you don’t even own. Again, if it’s not worth it to you then to each their own but there’s ample evidence of how much you can gain from bolt-ons & what it costs.

[KingLT1]

When I was NA I did the following mods.

Pray ported IM/TB- 550.00
SMG flex sensor- 160.00
CA primary cat delete pipes- 250.00
Rotofab dry- 350.00
Base tune from Pray finished by myself- 300.00 including the credits
Nitto 305/35/20 555r Drag radials- 650.00

I went from 12.4 in the 1/4 mile bone stock to 11.5 with these mods above and I dropped almost a full second off my 1/4 mile time for $2,260.00. Going from 4.4 0-60 to 3.5 is a significant difference from the butt dyno.

So like I said in my first post, the Car in OP wasn't tuned right(too rich) and the dyno wasn't really apples to apples comparison because the tires and converter were changed and that will skew the results some. Either way who cares what the numbers are on the dyno... what it picks up at the track or street is what matters.

The bottom line is these cars respond very well to light bolt-ons and is the most cost effective way to go hp/dollar if you chose carefully. E3 spark plugs and coil packs is a total waste of ****ing money.

[cellsafemode]

Originally Posted by Nightfall ss1le

That $5K wasn’t just for horsepower numbers either and no you probably won’t feel 5, 10 maybe even 20 HP difference but you’ll certainly feel 70-80 & that doesn’t even cost $5K if you don’t buy the most expensive parts. Even at 70 HP for the $4K I’m spending is $57/HP. Not as good as a supercharger for HP per dollar but it’s a far cry from what you’re saying. You seriously need to do some research before making these claims about a car you don’t even own. Again, if it’s not worth it to you then to each their own but there’s ample evidence of how much you can gain from bolt-ons & what it costs.

I never said your only options was either 20 hp at 5000 like the OP's article or 170hp for 5000 like a a supercharger. Nor did i outline every possible option, just referencing the standard easy yet not so cheap bolton options the article used and what most people do and easy comparisons (FI is fairly price normalized regardless of engine)

There are obviously options in between and plenty of options with much less total cost that involve fuel changes (nitrous, e85, etc) that are well in between those areas. But since the article avoided fuel changes as an option for their bolton setup, i went with that.


And when it comes to what's practical, I wouldn't flag a difference of 10-15 bucks per hp as a cutoff when you're talking 40-50 while looking at the > 50hp increase range.

I would flag 100 dollars per hp while looking at the < 50hp range. I think most people would consider that impractical.

[Nightfall ss1le]

I agree $100 per HP would be impractical but that article was a really poor representation of what you can do for significantly less money.

[Nightfall ss1le]

Originally Posted by KingLT1

When I was NA I did the following mods.

Pray ported IM/TB- 550.00
SMG flex sensor- 160.00
CA primary cat delete pipes- 250.00
Rotofab dry- 350.00
Base tune from Pray finished by myself- 300.00 including the credits
Nitto 305/35/20 555r Drag radials- 650.00

I went from 12.4 in the 1/4 mile bone stock to 11.5 with these mods above and I dropped almost a full second off my 1/4 mile time for $2,260.00. Going from 4.4 0-60 to 3.5 is a significant difference from the butt dyno.

So like I said in my first post, the Car in OP wasn't tuned right(too rich) and the dyno wasn't really apples to apples comparison because the tires and converter were changed and that will skew the results some. Either way who cares what the numbers are on the dyno... what it picks up at the track or street is what matters.

The bottom line is these cars respond very well to light bolt-ons and is the most cost effective way to go hp/dollar if you chose carefully. E3 spark plugs and coil packs is a total waste of ****ing money.

Those are some impressive gains for that money! My car is going to Pray to install the headers & TB/IM and for a dyno tune so it’s costing me more. Also went with DSX flex fuel just because I thought it looked cleaner so even I could’ve save almost $200 there as well.

[cellsafemode]

a tune and and cat delete isn't cheap and will net you around 10hp. We'll call it 500 bucks. An intake isn't going to add much if anything to that but it could easily add another 350-400 bucks. .... that's how you quickly get into impractical land with boltons.

E85 however all by itself is roughly 700 (sensor + tune and related hardware) but will net you about 30 hp alone. Add cat delete and you're pushing 40 over stock. Throw an intake on and maybe 45-50 since you would certainly be consuming more air than stock. So we'll call it an even 1100 for 45-50hp, or low 20 dollar range per hp. Not impractical at all. You'd only see your money's worth when running e85 ...but it's an option without diving into nitrous, and probably the only practical option in this hp range without going nitrous.

[KingLT1]

E85 didn't cost me anything extra being I did most of the tuning myself. I get that it isn't really apples to apples but I am just stating what can be done if you are fairly capable of doing things on your own.

The mods all work together to produce the gains. Yes a CAI doesn't do much on a stock car alone, but it makes a lot more difference on a Car that has other mods that increase flow in and out of the engine. CAI also does not show big gains on the dyno because you don't have the same air flow going into the CAI on a Dyno as you would when going WOT down the track or street. Pray has documented and posted all the info needed to make these cars perform.

Let's just go off of standard price for the average consumer who relies on a tuner.

Pray ported IM/TB- 550.00
DSX Flex fuel- 400.00
E85 tune- 650.00
TSP headers- 750.00
Rotofab- 350.00
Budget drag pack- 12-1400.00

That is all you need to have a bottom 11 high 10 second car. Which is 1.5 seconds quicker then a Stock SS for 3500.00 if you do the labor. That is still a solid gain for the investment. I don't bench race Dynos so it doesn't matter to me if the car only shows a 50hp gain. Dynos never won any races on the track or street.

[s346k]

Originally Posted by KingLT1

Budget drag pack- 12-1400.00

so we're including used parts now? otherwise you need to add another $1k for tires.

[KingLT1]

Originally Posted by s346k

so we're including used parts now? otherwise you need to add another $1k for tires.

For a pair of 17 x 10 rears with DR's? You don't need skinnies on the front to run those times I mentioned. Actually it can still and has been done on factory 20's with a 305/35/20 at the right track in the right conditions. It's beside the point anyway.

[s346k]

a "drag pack" now only consists of rear wheels & tires?

we are hashing out cost:performance, i think it's only fair to be specific.

[Fraxum]

Someone should send them Prays Facebook page to help them out. But also tell them peak gains on the dyno are not the whole story. A Rotofab Dry will get you 5 HP Peak and some nice sounds. LTs will get you 15 RWHP, but also wakes up the curve. A nice gain. But in exchange you ruin the exhaust sound.

But you can get some nice gains with a bigger TB and a ported stock IM and keep the stock sound. But it will get a little louder. I have had the ported MSD before. But it moves the gains up in RPM. A good plan for a FBO car but other than it looks cool a bad move on the street.