Glenndingo

Hi guys, I recently purchased an 01 ZED 06 as my wife(canada) likes to call it.

Bone stock down to the CAGS still being enabled. I will go down the road to modding, and I do have a good idea of the parts combo I want to use, but the only thing I can be sure of is I want a bump in power/performance. I'll grab a CAI whenever, and it will facilitate the upcoming "larger mods"

I have narrowed it down to one of three mods to possibly do within the next six months:

Long Tubes+Full Exhaust

3.73 or 3.90 gears

Cam+supporting valvetrain only(will select cam based on future plans, not trying to get max power from just cam)

Will do a tune with either LT/Exh or Cam+supporting.

If you had it to do over again, which would you start with?

EDIT: And why?

jonnyc

if you're planning more engine mods down the road i would do the LT's first.if you plan to keep the motor mostly stock i would look at doing gears.imo doing cam without LT's is kind of a waste.

pewter99

no matter what you do LT headers and exhaust is a no brainer

grantv

Congrats on the Z from a fellow Canadian (Kelowna BC). Only performance mods I've done are; TSP headers with Magnaflow cats and X into Ti's, K&N intake, shortened the factory shifter. The exhaust really woke the car up, best mod IMO.
Re sound, I think the factory mufflers are a tiny bit quiet lower down, but sound great with the headers above 2500-3000.
Have fun!

~Josh

I'd go straight for a supercharger.

A&A has a great kit right around $5k which is what all the other stuff will cost if not much more. The power bump from the blower can't be topped by any combination you could possibly put together at double the price.

TGO

I'd do LT's as well. The 01's were mostly choked from the factory. The 405hp of the 02+ has little to do with the cam like most people on this forum would have you believe.

MVR 155

This will hands down get you the most power but in order to get the full potential out of it you will be looking at supporting mods like LT headers, definitely a clutch and if you want it to actually put the power down you are going to need a sticky tire. Big power and sticky tires are rough on driveline parts...... you see where this is going.

Best bet is to decide what your end goal is with your car before you start modding.

Glenndingo

Yeah, this is about what I expected, a good set of headers and maybe an exhaust to go with it...so I talked to some guys about getting said headers and the shipping is just outrageous here (I'm in Hawaii for another year or so).

I'll probably have to wait to get back to the mainland to do big stuff to the car D:

On the other hand, I thought about the super/turbo charger route...aaaand I just want a really nice N/A build...

My GTO laid down 425 @ the wheels with cam/intake/headers and I would like to see similar results out of the LS6 in a 3000# car. Definitely would feel like Forrest did the first time with Jenny.

Spaceme1117

I just put on the Texas Speed headers and catted x-pipe on my Z and they are great. Just as good quality as any of the other name brand headers. Looks like shipping to Hawaii is about $200 for them plus $1000 for the system. The Texas speed headers don't have rear O2 sensor bungs or provisions for the AIR system but these really aren't necessary as it looks like Hawaii doesn't do smog testing.

The only thing is the Texas Speed headers are not American made if that is important to you.

One thing to remember also is that the Z is about 600 lbs lighter than your GTO.

Glenndingo

Oh yeah no I know that...lol that's why I want to feel that power in a much lighter car.

I also will more than likely be in California next so... :/

grantv

425 with said mods is an easy target.
Forrest, Jenny??

Glenndingo

When Jenny let Forrest Gump touch her chest the first time.

zeevette

CA. doesn't allow LTs, just so you know. There, it's a game of where you live, and finding a friendly inspection station. It's also where A&A is. (Oxnard) Unless you are doing the work yourself, a LT/full exhaust, cam, supporting valvetrain mods + eventual clutch is more than the cost of a SC kit. Of course, you'll still need the clutch, and I would recommend a trans brace as well. I've never raced my car, but the clutch became useless the first time I tried to shift at redline after my heads/cam/exhaust, and my diff twisted into scrap on a hard shift from 2-3 gear the first time I got into my SC.

grantv

Well... congrats again on the Z. Keeping the Olds?
(as for the movie; saw it once 20+ years ago, don't recall much about it after all that time)

Glenndingo

That's a different guy with a red Z lol...I had a 69 Camaro SS for a time but it's gone now. Definitely keeping the olds, and the specific scene I'm referring to is Forrest finished way too early.

grantv

LOL, oh boy. I think I'm losing my mind.

TGO

My 01 put down 403rwhp with headers, fast, tb, intake and tune. Stock exhaust. No cats. I feel that a cam is really the only thing missing...but at the same time this car is pretty ******' fast as it is. I don't have any complaints about it's performance.

I never had my LS2 GTO dyno'd but I had headers, ported intake, tune, CAI and a full exhaust. I expect it was somewhere around 400rwhp.

The Z06 is so much faster.

bikeriderga

You can easily get to that level of HP with Headers, Cam, Tune, and a good CAI, like the Vararam.

dbs1vette

My Z16 feels kinda fast at 525rwhp and 3260lbs with driver. Just a cai, long tubes and a tune...and that crummy 416.

bikeriderga

That 416 fuel must be something special to produce those numbers!