Am new to the forum and just ordered '07 C6 my (first vett). Have been reading a lot about mods - some expensive - some not. Some say, headers and cam - others say go to a charger and skip headers, etc.

So the question is - dollar for dollar - what are the top 3 mods? Just want to make sure $$ is spent wisely...at least as far as depreciating assets go.

I don't need to be the fasted car out there...(insurance can't handle it), but want the car to run as aggressive as it looks

 

Depends completely on your goals, under 500rwhp heads/cam is cheapest, over turbo or S/C is best bang for the buck. For reliablity and lack of warr issues, bolt ons...

 

For a FAST & RELIABLE Vette my choices would be:

1 - Headers with catted midpipe
2 - Air Intake
3 - Tune

I would find a used catback to make the car sound mean although it does not add much performance.

The combo above is good for 380rwhp+

Howard

 

My opinion on the matter is this... 1, never skip headers, always do headers first. Why? Because they're going to support no matter what you do in the future to increase power. Consider the purpose behind almost every modification out there known for increasing power... It involves increasing the air going into the motor. So when you increase the air going into the motor, that means more air will be going out... Skip the headers, and all you have created is a bottle neck...

My person recommendation for most of my customers is to start out by getting as much as you can out of your car on motor... Be it a nice set of headers, good cam, ported heads, and all the other little tricks like cat back exhaust, cold air induction, underdrive pulley, 160 thermostat, and port the throttle body. This combined package will add a SOLID 100-150 hp to your motor. Something you're definitely going to notice, and when you pull up to a light, people are going to notice too that your car has some more cahoonas than most the other C6's they've seen on the road

Then what you do, when this isn't enough... after you get used to having 500+ fwhp... You add a supercharger, turbo, or nitrous. Then you "really" have yourself a ride...

Lastly what you do, once you blow up your stock bottom end from making an insanely ridiculous amount of hp, you have me build a low compression 402 for you

Just some things to consider. Have fun with it! If you need any help with anything just give me a call and I'll be happy to help you with parts and what not. Maybe build the car for you if you want to send it to Houston.

Chuck @ HPE
281-448-1300

 

I've gone the CAI/heads/cam/headers/gears route on my C5.

After living it, I'm going CAI, headers and gears on my C6. In my opinion gears added the most bang for the buck in the city driving, made a huge difference without the downside of a cam car (dying while cold or hot in traffic, stink, bad mileage). Not sure if anyone is making the gears for the 07 though - DTE posted a while back and I don't remember if they said they did have them or just 05 gears at this time. There's also a good thread going about gears now with some performance specs.

 

Headers $1,200
Intake $350
Cam/springs/push rods $800
Ported intake $200

If you can do the install yourself you can have 80-120 HP for about $2,500...Thats what I did
Labor is the killer....

 

Prices above are parts only.

I've been looking at Cam & heads - total pkg about $3k