Matt47FL

Dont post much here but I do read a lot and over use the search function for any and every question I can come up with. I figured others would like to know the results of this set up and a good unbiased opinion so I decided to post this.....


I bought an 09 Z06 2LZ with 25k miles back in August it had full exhaust (ARH, catless X, and Borla Atak) and a vararam. I have not had a fast car in a few years so it was nice to get back in one. First opinion of the car.... fast, fun to drive, great bang for your buck but of course I wanted to have the valve guide issue fixed and also wanted to add a cam for a little more power. After a lot of research I decided to go with a the Race Proven Motorsports Head/cam package which uses their B3 cam and Advanced Induction heads along with a Mamo ported MSD, NW102 and they strongly recommended injectors with this set up so they supplied 60lb injectors.

I chose RPM because they have a done this same set up to a lot of these cars, they all seem to make great power and the performance seems to back up the dyno numbers they produce. From all the reading I did I determined that the tune is a big determining factor in how the cars drives after a decent size cam is installed and I figured no one had more experience tuning a car with the RPM B3 Cam than RPM. I also checked around with several local shops in my area (Charlotte, NC) and RPM was competitively priced or cheaper and they responded promptly to all the calls/emails I made before, during, and after the car was finished. Good customer service goes a long way with me.

I trailered the car to their shop in Delaware and was happy to see that the shop was full of C6 and C7 corvettes along with a few newer Camaros and several CTS-V's, The shop was much bigger than I expected and I felt totally comfortable leaving my car there while it was waiting in line to get the work done.

The car baselined 494 RWHP and 465 RWTQ with the full exhaust and vararam, after all of the work was done st was 611RWHP and 530 RWTQ. Honestly I was hoping to see 620 or more whp but Im not l going to lose any sleep over 9 hp. I am very happy to have a N/A car making over 600 whp. My first impression after driving the car was holy **** this thing sounds mean AF and is much faster than it was before. Very impressed with the performance and the sound is insane! 117 WHP and 65 TQ increase is enough to make anyone smile

I have never owned a car with a non stock cam and I will say it does not drive as nice as it did with the stock cam but I fully expected that. The cam is not as big as others available but its much more aggressive than stock. After driving the car a few hundred miles I have learned to drive the car pretty smooth with the cam. Driving the car around in first gear at low speed is easy and as long as you are gentle with the accelerator its 90% as smooth as stock, there is some mild surging in the 1500-1800 rpm range in all the gears and there is also a ridiculous amount of drone coming from my exhaust at the same rpm so its pretty easy to drive around the surging and the drone, you can still cruise around but a lower gear makes it smoother and eliminates most all of the surging that you feel. 5th gear is really better for highway driving unless you are nearing 70mph. If you are casually driving the car it seems a bit rich to me under 2500 rpm and seems to really be operating a little smoother above that rpm. I believe its a little rich and lower rpm to improve the driving quality with the cam but I could be totally wrong.


So after all of that...

would I do it again? Yes

would I go back to RPM? Yes

Do I wish the car drove like stock again? Yes

Is the extra power worth the mild decrease in drivability? definitely

Would I want to daily drive the car with its current set up? No, but that decision has more to do with the exhaust being too loud that the cam.


I just had a set of 345/19 nitto dr's installed today and that made a massive improvement over the crap invo tires that were on the car. Second gear pulls are no problem on a good road and first gear is much better but still spins some. I plan on taking the car to the track soon if they open up any more and see how it does in the 1/4 mile. I would love to see a 10.5 but I don't know if thats possible with the 19" Dr's and the stock clutch but there is only one way to find out.

I hope this info helps a few people out that are on the fence on where to take their car and what mods to pick.


Matt

winker2112

Good review. Can't go wrong with Race Proven Motorsports. I've used them for both my c6z and zr1. Fran is the man, and I trust him because he's also out there racing his z06 and his zr1, so he knows what works. And Bills customer service is top notch, and he can pretty much get you anything you want for your car. These guys are a great example of how a performance shop should run. They know the product, their prices are more than fair, and they support their customers on and off the clock. This is why I travel from NY to deal with them.

Mordeth

Very nice review Matt and congrats on the car. She sounds like a beast. RPM does top notch work.

ratomicZ06

Congrats, bet it sounds awesome, albeit drone.

You mentioned clutch..... yep, w that power and drs and a drag strip..... just lost mine w less power than you. Let it cool between passes, my mistake.
Bet it rips! Thanks for taking time to share

nuke61

Nice review, and congrats on the new power!

When you say it's too loud for a daily, does it seem louder now, or is it that you're more into the fun pedal than before? My guess is that a cam and head work would not make the car louder than it was, since it already had a full exhaust.

jayyyw

Great review! Have fun with the car. I'd be looking into a new clutch and a set of 17" wheels and I prefer the MT Street S/S tires. They seemed to hook up better from a 1st gear roll than my Street R tires.

A cam will change the tone of the exhaust, so definitely possible to have drone now, with a cam. I went from a BTR 3 to a TSP 4.2 and my idle note got a little quieter.

JShort

Matt,
Great choice on the AI/B-3 combo. I have the same setup in my 09Z and it's an amazing how much power/fun you can have with the right N/A setup. Dyno numbers are all over the place. My car has been on multiple dynos and the numbers all vary between 595-620rwhp. I've been extremely happy with the setup and having a driveable N/A car that traps 140mph in the 1/4 is fun!

Great write-up and review as well. As a consolation, I also have a slight issue with an odd surge (almost bucking) dynamic during light load conditions with 1-4% TPS condition between 1500-1850rpm). Tuning hasn't been able to get rid of it and I'm now turning to some of the hardware; specifically, the throttle body. I've had dozens of highly modified engine combinations over the years and am acclimated to engines with larger cams. But, this specific condition seems a little odd in my car and might not be cam-related at all. I have a ported stock throttle body that came on the car when I purchased it and for all I know it could be a backyard port job that might be the culprit. I'm not sure if that is similar to what you are experiencing, but some mild surging is to be expected with any cam of moderate size. I wouldn't call the B-3 a large cam, but it's definitely not small.

H/C will make the car somewhat louder (with the same exhaust) since the engine is moving more air in general; however, it's easy to quiet it down with different mufflers. I chose to stay with the stock mufflers on my car since I hate drone (and overly-loud cars in general). You might want to look at putting a stock (or ZR1) axle back and mufflers on it with the NPP option. Open it up with the mild-to-wild switch and it will make plenty of noise. Close it and enjoy a quiet car. You won't lose any power by going back to the stock mufflers. Well, maybe 1rwhp

Matt47FL

I bought my car in Ohio and drove almost 700 miles back home to SC and I can honestly say the ARH with the Borla Atak is miserable on the interstate. I believe that was my first post on the forum, Inquiring on how to quieten the car down. I do have the stock mufflers and I will be installing them this weekend I hope.

To answer the question..Yes I do think the car is a little louder now than before but the H/C/I are not what caused the drone its 100% the exhaust combo. Like I said above, the mild surging is something you can learn to drive around, little higher shift points, one gear lower when cruising around etc etc thats the kind of things that make the car drive almost like stock. You will figure it out quickly after driving it.

Matt47FL

I believe these driving conditions are just a small compromise for the great increase in power. I let my dad drive the car and he didn't even notice the slight surging until he had driven for about 5 miles. I talked to several shops about cam selection and the general consensus that I gathered was any cam with more than 240 intake duration or lower than 112 LSA was going to have some surge. This cam is not much more than 240 and the LSA is a little higher than a lot of other cams that will push you over the 600 whp mark. Not trying to make a big deal about how the car drives because I am very happy with it. I really couldn't find any threads that went in to detail about how a car drove with a specific cam so I wanted to do that with the RPM B3 cam. I think its a great cam that makes excellent power considering the size. I dont think there is a more drivable cam available that yields over 600 whp consistently with all the supporting mods.

nuke61

I understand about the droning. I have a B&B Fusion that I took off my car (trying to sell it) because there was simply too much droning for me after going LTs. My brother thinks I should have left it on, and I probably would have if it was just me, but it was a bit too much for my wife. Now I have a modded Z06 exhaust.

Frans96ss

A great honest review, thank you Matt and thank you for your business we are glad to help

We agree about the loudness of the car and even made a comment in our video about how loud it was due to the borla mufflers. This is typically why a lot of our customers just stick with the stock muffler setup it tends not to drone as much or be as loud.

9:25 into the episode.

But we are glad you are enjoying it!

Here are a few pictures we took right before you picked up.

newchevyman

I have a similar setup on my car. RPM heads/cam package with very similar bolt-ons, I chose their package for same reason too. Currently on a base tune because had engine out to do forged pistons and also wanted to break in new clutch.

I have to agree it drives well for a cam this size especially given tuner sent over a basic email tune to drive around on until it gets dynoed next week, no logging or anything yet. After he spends time on it in person certainly will drive even better. I've seen a couple negative posts on here about the driveability with this cam and I just haven't experienced any of it. It surges a little but very minimally. Great review, I bet you'll clear 620 once you put a twin disk in it.

JShort

You'll be very happy with it. The combination that Fran put together is outstanding. I'm actually surprised that more people on here are not running this H/C combo. Dyno numbers don't validate the actual performance of a vehicle. The AI/B-3 package consistently runs the track times/mph over and over on many different cars and DA conditions.

I hope that my comment about the condition (albeit minor) my car has with a specific driveability anomaly doesn't come across as a complaint that would deter someone from buying this package. It's a minor nuisance and I'm not convinced that it's in the cam design. My theory is that it's related to the airflow dynamics of my unknown hand ported throttle body at the critical "tip in" point.

I would purchase the AI/B-3 combo time and time again

cv67

Anytime youre running more air through a pipe its going to be louder enjoy what ya got. As you found theres no free lunch (but still worth it!)

Many guys go from making a stock car "loud" to putting a stockish exh on after mods to quiet it back down. Who lives on a WOT dyno?

newchevyman

This is very true. Once OP puts stock mufflers on he'll be much happier with the car overall. Avoiding drone is annoying no matter how used to it you are IMO

The

As others have said, stick with stock mufflers. I have the same package, minus the MSD / injectors, and with the valves closed I can just barely hear the exhaust. Not even close to any drone experienced. The only bad thing is that I can REALLY hear the LS7 ticking away with the valves closed when I'm between 1800 and 2300 RPMs. To the point where it's concerning. Can hear the ticking sound bouncing off high curbs and parked cars. +1 for RPM being an amazing shop. It was a great experience working with them and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Racingswh

Looking at when it makes power on the dyno chart (11:18 in the video) that car must be so much fun to drive.

Fantastic result and honest write up. Thanks for sharing!!

rabrooks

I have the same set up. it made 620 hp. I switched to the factory intake and got 599. I added the Katech red oil pump and the sac city corvette dumbbell for better oil pressure

The car is strictly a track day car. Track drivability is awesome. Idle sounds great.

I started with a dyno tune then went to a street tune to help with corner exit power. I too am very pleased

Matt47FL

I got the stock exhaust back on the car today and I am 100% happier with the car now. Drone is barely there, I can actually talk on the phone while driving now and can hear the radio! The original owner of my car had done the muffler mod to the stock exhaust and when it his 3500 rpms or I pull the fuse it has a great sound, going to get the m2w installed so I can listen to the idle when I want to.

JShort

Matt,
Thanks for the update! And I'm glad you really are happy with the sound now! I agree with you completely. I have the same setup on my car and love how enjoyable it is. Zero drone. The M2W makes it perfect.