I regret it sometimes.. It was fun to run mid low 12's on a realitively simple cam, stg 1 heads type of thing..

It gets too serous when the lowest boost pully you have puts down 455rwhp. And a bit discouraging when theres no hope in running the highest boost pulley you have because you can't keep it on the track.

It gets to serous also when you really need a roll cage and all the safety equipent and you expect pop rear ends and tear up trannies and clutches every once in a while.

 

no regrets here as far as mods.....but i do regret the tune.

 

I should have stopped at 500 whp...I had a lot of fun with my car at that level and I drove it more.

 

I have a highly modified 390 ci 95 ZR-1 from LPE. it was done right and puts down 505 with the street chip or 517 with the race chip.

still very streetable but VERY expensive (thank god I didn't pay LPEs tab).

I don't regret the mods, but feel that unless you do some serious suspension work or run around on drag radials all the time going much above 500 rwhp becomes more problem than it's worth.

I actually probably enjoy the 400 rwhp ZR-1 I used to have because it was easier to hook up and drive and had the stock cams and a glass smooth idle.

the LT5 with the big cams really stinks up the joint and I am always wiping down the back of the car due to carbon specs.

but when you are hooked up and laying into it, the power is very seductive.

 

 

I regret it.

 

Cool question... I have NO REGRETS!

I bought my 1987 bone stock years ago and now she has over 210,000 miles on the clock! Motor and tranny have been rebuilt at 170,000 & 190,000 miles respectively. Neither motor or tranny failed - but they were getting tired. I still take her to the track occaissionally. Check out MY CORVETTE PHOTOS

 

No regrets, life is short and sometimes we do things at a particular point in life that we can never re-create later at a time when we can actually afford to do this stupid thing. Like taking a perfectly great car and making it stupid fast. So, to all of us out there...

 

It's a disease. This is what the dictionary says :

A pathological condition (no shiet)of a part, organ, ( yeah that organ above the shoulders) or system of an organism resulting from various causes, such as infection, (yeah like a speed infection) genetic defect,(yeah but I hear it skips a generation) or environmental stress, (Yeah only if the cops catch ya) and characterized by an identifiable group of signs or symptoms. (yeah, everybody in the group has the same disease)

 

I've had second thoughts sometimes, but never any real regret. It alsways seems that when i mod it I end up under the gun to get it finished and I HATE that. Have to finish the N20 install before tomorrow night because the track is going to be open. Have to finsh the ignition install in the next 3 hours t make it to dyno day. That kind of stuff. When I have time to do the mods the way I think they should be done it is much more satisfying, and a lot less stressful.

I just finished about a 200 hour build on a custom twin turbo 91 Mustang GT with a friend of mine. At about 150 hours we both had kinda decided it wasn't going to be worth it, no matter how fast it went. The first time he dropped the hammer and the turbo's spooled up it was instantly worth it. Every hour, every cut and scratch, every midnight trip to the gas station for beer, all of it. Finally seeing and feeling the results of so much hard work is VERY rewarding. We took his car to an F-body club dyno day awhile back and made the 2nd highest HP out of 40 F-bodies. It was probably in the top 10 for the most rewarding/satisfying things I've ever experienced.

So I guess I kinda fall in the middle. Sometimes I regret things during the process, but when it all finally comes together, the regret's usually go away.

 

This is going to come off amazing to most of you... But, yes, I do regret what I have done to my car. My 1990 Vette was as fully-loaded as you could get without selecting RPO "ZR1". I bought it with 41k miles on it from its original owner in 1995; it had a recurrent problem with stalling that NOBODY could figure out. Typical TPI, it had a vacuum leak; fixed vacuum leak and that little ZF6 coupe ran 13.80's stock. Did a heads/cam/SuperRam on it and went bottom 12's on street tires, high 11's on slicks, and 10.80's on a 150 shot of N2O. Squirted too big of a shot too many times and killed a piston which simultaneously took out the block. Built a long rod 355" with a Vortech; kicked the hell out of the local street racers for about 4 months til one of them bought my combination, complete. Then built a 383 with a blower, same thing happened. Then a n/a 396" motor with a big cam, the single plane EFI I build, and hella-compression. "Fairly" streetable it would run 10.8's at 128 with full slicks and uncorked. That was the combination I put the bottle on and went 9.90's with... Got tired of how brutal it was and how loud it was and removed the solid roller and the single plane and installed a nice hyd. roller and a MiniRam with an NOS 5151 plate system. Car became more drivable but wasn't nearly as fast. I broke a valvespring in it (actually COMP broke a valvespring, it just happened in my car) and decided to leak it while I was replacing the springs. Two (2-dammit) cylinders had 12% leak and I pulled it out and apart; something I didn't really NEED to do...

Now where am I?? I started building a 434" with 23* heads and was going to keep my stick in it and it was going to largely remain a "street" car. JGR gave me a set of SB2.2 heads and since I couldn't use ANYTHING in my 434 I was building (other than the block and rods) I just sold the whole damn thing to a member on here. Now, I've got a 936 hp 440" SB2.2 small block that's set to go in there... You know, 13.00:1 compression, 284 @ .050 duration and .770" lift camshaft... Monster... Not all that streetable.

Oh yeah...And I CUT the car to pieces. No ZF, but a t-brake, full-manual TH400 with a 5500 stall converter. Full cage (all the way out the firewall to the shock mounts), no A/C, heater, ABS, power steering or brakes... Tore the dash out; installing Auto Meter guages throughout... All this on a pristine 80k mile loaded car...

The BEST combination I ever had in the car for all-around performance was the stock short block with heads/cam/SR. You could beat damn near anything with it and I still drove it EVERY-Friggin-DAY!!!! Yeah, I fuc&%ed up a really nice car. My new favorite saying is that I should've cut up my wife's 150k mile turd-box '85 and left mine the hell ALONE!!!
-Jeb

 

Jeb,

As much access as you have to things.. just quit bull****tin and build a low compression 355, build a turbo kit for it, run a T76GTS tune it stout, and crank the boost to about 16-18 pounds and be done with it.. small cam, nice idle, very streetable and power at the dial of a ****. I too have been through your path and went to the absolute extreme with solid roller cams, huge heads.. choppy idle (understatement) car was still streetable, but then ya drive in a supra that idles like stock, quite easy to drive in traffic.. great mileage, and then hammer down on it, and loose your mind with the power and speed.. I have decided i don't care about trap times anymore.. just trap speeds.. the times seem to be what breaks things..lol run some drag radials, soft launch and enjoy feeling what F14's on a carrier feel when launching.. that constant pull as the torque curve reaches for the sky and keeps building.. pull the next gear and do it all again.. all the while driving home from the track with your AC on and listening painlessly to the bose stereo.. best of all worlds unless your a huge fan of pulling the wheels of the ground.. in that case.. just change it up a little and go with a two step.. drag the tires of the ground through the short mark and scadattle on down the rest of the 1320!

Chris

 

Yup.
Boost on demands when you want is.

Bruce

 

That may be...But my 1400 hp nitrous fed SB2.2 will still kick the **** out of a Supra, and make much sexier noises doing it. Don't get me wrong, I'm all over turbos; I've got a Mustang in my shop right now I'm doing a big single on (it did have leetle twins on it). They are without a doubt the best single power-adder you can have; in addition to Vettes don't forget that I came from the Turbo Buick ranks too... I'm actually considering a big 101 single in the next couple of years on my SB2 motor... Mmm...Let's see, heads that flow over 400 cfm and a big-*** hairdryer; sounds good to me!!!

My point though was not that I wanted something different; but that I regret cutting up a very nice street car. I'm pleased with the direction my car is going (as a racecar) but I do regret that I ruined a street car in the process. Of course, I'm kinda like Rod Saboury (of early NMCA fame); I'll cut up a friggin' '63 Split Window to make it what I want... (I just put my nomex on for that comment)
-Jeb

 

I gotcha man... I know what ya mean... and yeah your right.. nitrous fed is cool too.. building one of those as well.. figure I'll dable with the gas a little bit.. hell why not.. have a motor built to take it..lol

Chris

 

I just had my 92 vette inspected at a "SMOG ONLY" facility and was a total wreck after the inspection. I had not installed the after market blower kit, and I'm glad I didn't. State of California, and other states as well are sticking to their guns on checking for any visual alterations/mods on vehicles now-a-days. By the way...my vette did pass, but it put me into a coma the futur horse power add on's industry will be faced with, and the consumer. Horepower vs. clean air?

 

That's why you carefully select the mods you want after research. '50-state smog legal' is the phrase you're looking for. :P

And there is NO pollution penalty for a properly tuned high HP vehicle. (Had you researched, you'd know this.)