Getting advice from the pros....

Just starting the process of evaluating power adders. I have a 2013 Base coupe with stock LS3, A6, headers and mid pipe, no cats (Florida) and stock NPP in back. Car has about 75k miles, so not "fresh". Stock wheels and Michelin tires. Never been raced. Had a recent dyno with the stock exhaust (before headers and mid-pipe) which yielded 380 wheel HP. Its probably closer to 390-400 now.

My eventual goal with this car is occasional track days, but most importantly a reliable driver. Key word reliable. My hope is you guys can give your thoughts on the best power combo on my car, given my goals, and whether it is just straight cam, straight supercharger, or some combination will yield the best results. Budget is not a serious consideration at this stage until I narrow the field.

Thanks in advance!! bock

 

“An occasional track day”, what kind of track? 1/4 mile sure you could use a bit more power, if a road course prolly serve you better to test the water before needing hp gains. Hth

 

Supercharge it. Should get you 550-600rwhp with just a basic centri kit and be fairly reliable, and a lot of fun. I'm a little over 700rwhp on my GS with an ECS kit/cam/meth, and it's crazy fast for a street car.

 

Much more interested in your thoughts on power adders, but I am talking about road racing track days. I have 15 years experience driving both a 69 Camaro, and a race prepped 96 Camaro (440 RWP) in Porsche Club, Corvette Club and F-Body track days and SCCA Time trials which require a license. No intention of drag racing the car. And to be sure, this is preliminary research. The Corvette is a new animal to me. And I just added the headers and mid-pipe last week. thanks.

 

What's your budget?

 

A naturally aspirated engine can make very good power, have reliability and predictable power that will help with consistent lap times.

 

ECS, A&A, Magnuson Heartbeat, Edelbrock E-force are all excellent options for adding a ****-ton of reliable power. Centrifugal superchargers (ECS, A&A) are less suseptible to heat soak and produce more power on the top end and tend to have more power potential (they are similar to turbos). Positive displacement superchargers (Heartbeat/E-force) have a lot of bottom end, low-rpm torque and can heat soak faster. You really can't go wrong with any of these.

I have a 599 HP E-force on my 2011 LS3 Grand Sport. It is 520 wheel hp and wheel torque (which is right at 600 at the flywheel). Car is on the stock cam and running very mild 7.5 psi boost. Only other mod are headers. Still has a ton of potential as I can go to a smaller pulley for more boost and add a supercharge cam and/or add meth injection.

I don't think there is any one best option just a bunch of great options depending on what your goals are.

For me the instant bottom end torque is just too much fun.

My impression is the E-force and Magnuson blowers are considered more reliable but I'm not 100% sure of that.

 

So far supercharge is winning.

I'm not immediately comfortable with that but it is only due to lack of experience with supercharging. I'm willing to learn. 500 plus at the wheels has a very good ring to it, especially in a Base coupe. I'm always a little leery of big HP gains cuz it usually means bigger everything else...radiator, oil coolers, etc.

Anybody willing to tell about internal engine modes like a cam and/or headwork option?

Someone asked about budget. I'm wide open to start off. I will spend the $$ on a great option.

 

It's hard to beat the ECS or A&A kit for bang for your buck these days. They come in at a very affordable price. They make gobs of power and are very easy to upgrade if you decide to turn things up. We've done plenty of builds with these kits and rarely run into any issues. Sure you can turn up the boost to unsafe levels and break stuff but if you keep them at 10 psi or under you can have a very safe 550-600rwhp. We can make north of 500rwhp with a nice heads/cam set up but then you're talking a big stall and while that makes for a fun track car it does make it harder to daily drive. With the blower you can pair it with a small blower cam that won't effect the driability as much. Give us a call and we can run through some options.

 

500 at the wheels is not at all hard to do n/a. You'll need cylinder head work to get there with a mild cam. You can do it on the stock cylinder heads too, but you'll need a rowdy cam to do so. That type of cam I wouldn't even consider for a street/track Vette. It wouldn't be any fun on the street once the novelty wears off.

Do a search. I've got a thread on how I did mine that's currently up on this page. Others have spent more and made more. Mamo cylinder heads are pretty much the gold standard. You'll find lots of stuff with his name on it that just works and works well. His stuff was beyond my budget though. I ended up using TxSpeed and had them port my stock LS3 heads for $750.

If you really want to kick *** on a road course, there's always the stroker option. LS3 with a 4" throw crank gets you 416 cubic inches. Get more hp and more tq from the bottom to the top of the rpm band. You'll need some really good cylinder heads (Mamo) to really bring it all together.

A mildly boosted stock LS3 with headers and cooling upgrades could work too. I'd lean more towards a Magnuson Heartbeat TVS2300 because that is what I am familiar with. The "heat soak" thing is way overblown. Especially on a mild boost road course rig. It's more of a problem at the drag strip where you spend lots of time with the engine on and not moving. With little air flow, yeah, they're going to warm up. A centri rig will do the same. On a road course, you're always moving and have excellent air flow through the heat exchanger and radiator. Different deal.

Budget for a tranny cooler and engine oil cooler too. DeWitts has an excellent radiator with EOC and TOC built in.

 

We seem to have stalled...or maybe that is all the info I need.

Thanks oldmotorhead. My 96 Camaro race car is a stroker (383) with a whole lot of headwork. Quite familiar with that route.

Seems like the supercharge option is still in the lead based on what I want to do. Thanks everybody for the comments.

 

NA power for a long term reliable road course car, because it retains consistent power. You can go the build route - heads/cam/stroker, or take a look at drop-in crate engines, as some of them make pretty significant power.

A supercharger will heat soak and lose some amount of the additional power added; the hotter it gets, the more timing gets pulled. The Corvette radiator is a limiting factor, so plan to upgrade if you decide to go FI. Due to the added complexity they will be less reliable over the long haul than NA power. They are a blast on public roads, where you are typically only in boost for short amounts of time so that heat soak isn't a huge concern. I had a pullied down MP112 on a cammed/stalled 2002 Avalanche for 12 years and about 80k miles; it was utterly reliable during that time.

 

When you make more power, you make more heat. Doesn't matter how the power is made. Engine coolant is going to heat up. Engine oil is going to heat up. Transmission oil is going to heat up. Differential oil is going to heat up. If you don't have a way of shedding that extra heat, those components aren't going to last long. The more power you make, the more heat you have to shed.

I have a base 2013 coupe also. And considered having some fun on a road course. I got to thinking about what needed done to my Vette to make it quick and reliable. After considering what all needed to be done, I nixed the idea. It will probably see track time, but 10 or 11 seconds at a time going in a straight line.

If you want a reliable road course machine, trade your base coupe for a Grand Sport or a Z06. Either has a track ready suspension, wider tires, much beefier brakes (deceleration is just as important as acceleration on a road course), and heat exchangers for engine, diff, and tranny lube. Maybe upgrade the radiator and go have some fun when you start with a GS or Z. Sure, you can add all of that to your current C6, but it will be costly. You'll need new wheels to fit bigger brakes and you'll need a wide body kit to fit wider tires. It goes on and on.

 

Another alternative for an OEM Corvette for road racing would be to sell your current car and buy a C6 ZR1. You get a fully engineered package, and probably for less money than attempting to upgrade your current car. I see many priced in the mid-$50k's today.

 

When I was looking for my Vette I was torn between going with a z06 and doing a NA build or getting a grand sport and doing FI. I ended up buying a 2013 GS that now has kooks headers and mid pipe, a&a SC kit, and meth injection. I love it, it's a fun weekend car. It's on a nice safe tune and drives stock until you get after it. It put down 638whp. From my research most people said they would've stopped their build in the 650whp range. That's where it seemed the best mannered and most reliable. In that range I think an ls3 will live a long life. There are many stock ls3 living at much higher levels. I have to admit thought with c6 zr1 prices dropping I keep tossing around the idea!

 

A po'boy ZR1 is a Grand Sport with a Heartbeat blower and headers running flex fuel. Easily well over stock ZR1 power levels. My Grand Sport (with mag ride) came from the General with ZR1 sway bars under it. Over 650 rwhp with a mild cam and less than 10psi. Repeatable power all through the rpm band. Never a hint of heat soak and I ran it in some pretty tough conditions.

 

Beginning at the road course? Then you really don't need the additional headache thats going to be caused by a blower/turbo car. What you need is seat time. And the most reliable way to get that is leave the thing alone. Put an oil cooler on it, thicker radiator, whatever. Do some cooling mods.. but you can just use factory Z06 stuff. But the biggest thing is to just get out there and drive.

With my cam/exhaust LS2, if I'm really pushing it, its not hard to get it up to 270* oil temp which is where I back off. Imagine how much easier that would be if you're making 550-600rwhp? Not only do you have an intercooler blocking airflow to the oil coolers and radiator, but you're also making significantly more power, and therefore significantly more heat. If you really want more power for straightline stuff, nitrous the thing. That way, you can enjoy your drag strip runs, spray the house down, have a ton of fun... Then hit the road course, kill the kit and run all day long. It really is the best of both worlds.

 

For your occasional track days and more importantly a reliable driver— Supercharger.

 

Interesting discussion. I don't think you can beat N/A for road course, potentially if you have a *really* nice setup, S/C applications not designed for this..

 

I built a natural aspirated 416 LS3 with Mast LS7 heads and Mast intake with solid roller cam for my camaro back in the day that made over 600 to the wheels. Now I have a stock LS3 with a blower that makes 600 to the wheels. If I had to do it over again, I would put a blower on the camaro in a heartbeat. With that said, Force Induction is the best bang for the buck,IMO.