it’s been about 1 year since i bought my corvette and i’m already itching for more power. just seeing what other people have / recommend for a budget friendly ls2 build and what power is realistic. thank you!

forgot to mention it’s an automatic if anyone is wondering or that changes things

 

mild cam, long tube headers, intake, tune. call it good. should pick up 40WHP or so. Get an intake manifold for another 5-10. You could do a more aggressive camshaft, but then you'll need to swap out your converter for a higher stall unit. most companies "stage 1" or "stage 2" cams will be stock converter friendly.

 

End of the day, it boils down to 2 things
1 - What is your goal (ie spirited driving, mild manner street car, pure \raw power, etc)
2 - how much do you want to spend on what you want to do.

The sky is the limit on mods with these things. Not sure if this is your first foray into the sports car\muscle car world, but you can go down a rabbit hole real quick. The above options are great. You can also just get a blower and get the same HP for around the same price. Many options. Comes down to how fast do you want to spend.

 

What you just listed here is at least $5-6 K if you are not doing the work yourself. In my book that is not budget friendly. Of course what is budget friendly to some is not to others.
But, I think he is thinking more in terms of bolt ons. Not cracking the motor open.
For me, I am thinking of a motor and trans tune ( on a dyno ) and maybe an new air box. I know it won't give you 40 HP but it will be much more fun for street use.

 

What he said.

For spirited driving, a good converter, trans cooler, headers & mid-pipe, along with a good tune will go a long ways and the cars feels very peppy at that point. I loved my car when it was like that (ran 11.50s) but I went way down the rabbit hole chasing numbers at the track LOL.

 

Spent a lot of time investigating LS2 options a few years ago with a preference to staying NA.

Here's a summary of build went with including stages, results, cost (later in thread). Have done minor updates since (Tony Mamo TB and Improved Racing crank scraper / oil baffle kit). She runs great including low RPM manors with Spinmonster's cam (excellent spec IMO). Approximately 20K miles since final stage listed:

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...no-sheets.html

Beware, the mod bug is real! Very rewarding to get it like you want though.

 

Do you have a ported intake manifold?

 

Hey Spin, no… it’s an out of the box FAST 102.

 

That's 20hp on the table

 

Figure I have a little on the table between the FAST and headers (LG's street series). Did not have full scope in mind when starting, build was a process.

Can see on Stage 3 dyno sheet in link previously provided that hp flatlines around 5700 and carries out nicely to 6500 while peaking at 6200. Porting the FAST and going to LG Pro headers believe would give that flatline a bit more upside, sounds like you agree.

She's got plenty for her purpose, picked up 160 whp / 121 wtq from build stages 1 -> 3 (landed at 501whp / 476wtq). Spends most of her time on mountain roads in E TN / W NC. The torque and DRM shocks w/ z51 package have proven formidable. Have the opportunity to play with all kinds of performance cars where we live. She's able to keep up on these roads, even when attempting to be left by exotics...

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...and-lambo.html

May some day decide to squeeze the last bit out of her. She seldom sees high RPM though, when getting on it the curves usually come before redline. Torque is what's been so good with this build.

If ever do decide to head down that road, will reach out to see if this is something you're still doing.

Thanks for all your contributions to this forum over the years, Spin. Great source of knowledge for continuous learning curve. Greatly appreciated!

 

If you do anything to a ls2, do a ls3 top end, cam, headers, etc. The ls3 top end will be best bang for your back besides the cam.

 

I think the Trick Flow 225 is the best top end for the LS2 with a ported FAST intake.

 

I can second that. I put a pair of used but refreshed stock LS3 heads and the stock ls3 manifold, EBay headers (OBX), a fairly large cam( F35 stage 4 Texas speed). Brian Tooley 660 springs. Did the work myself ….for $1,600. The seat of the pants meter tells me I’ve gained significant power. The mid range and up is ridiculous. Quarter mile suggestions 490 whp. Car is really fast. It’s a 2007 base manual.

 

I ran the LS3 heads on an LS2 with a 228 cam and a 230cam. They aren't a good low end.

This thread has numerous posts such as post 61 showing the superiority of the Trick Flow 225's.

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...r-225-a-3.html

These are tested combos from long ago.
The G6X3 was a 235 intake duration on a 111LSA and made 530rwhp on an LS2 with the Trick Flow 225's out of the box. Another guy got 518rwhp and ran a 10.41 ET.
No LS3 head combo on an LS2 was anywhere near it. I tried the combo to settle to hype of the heads and they are a budget route but not in the same ball park as the TF 225. Tony Mamo is doing a bunch of good work with TF heads as is Brian Tooley. I'd copy a factual result before getting theories on the internet.

 

The main problem with the cathedral stuff is the intake. The factory LS2 intake sucks, plain and simple.

For the money, the best bang for your buck would be to swap to the LS3 intake and heads. Unless you want to drop 1k on a Fast 102 and even more money on good cathedral heads, but is it really worth it.. I guess it all depends on how bad you REALLY want to chase max effort stuff.

 

The OP hasn't posted a thing since he started this thread and only has two posts to his name but hell the conversation is still good.....LOL

My 2 cents is a maximized aftermarket high flow cathedral set-up is the best way to go for a 6.0 liter engine.....especially in a car that spends most of its life on the street (versus the dragstrip) and especially with an automatic where the bottom end of the curve needs to be sharper

I can easily make 500 to the wheels with a modest cam in a 6.0 in an optimized cathedral configuration......car would be fast and a heck of alot of fun to drive (that's thru a manual trans.....call it 460 - 470 with an auto)

IMO, a 6.0 with an LS3 head feels lazy in comparison under 4K and part throttle response isn't even close. Just not enough cubes to get air moving in the big ports (a much larger 427 LS7 engine has ports that are only 5cc's larger.....260 is big for 6 liters of displacement)

In fact I am designing a package with my new MMS 227 cathedral heads that I will be installing on a 5.7 liter engine with my goal to get close to 600 at the crank....that would be a BIG number with any size cam but making it happen with a small street friendly cam makes it that much more challenging.

As I make more progress with that package I will ultimately start a thread about it and share my results from Westech's engine dyno. The key to making it happen is the new head.....with only 227 cc's it flows 330 CFM on a 3.900 bore (even more on a larger 4" bore a 6.0 engine has)

-Tony

 

I totally agree with this post.

The only reason to think about LS3 heads is cost. I've never seen a good low end or even 500rwhp on the top end with them. Every time the topic comes up, it goes to strokers with mammoth cams.
Moderate cams and a set of Trick Flows will hit over 500rwhp

 

Tony can you recommend a cam for high RPM road course use....ie easy on the valvetrain?

Here is my stockish LS2 vs cam/heads vs cam/head/removed OEM MAF

 

Nice gains there. No tuning just removed maf? I have hp tuners and can uncheck the errors and understand using sd but haven’t played with that yet.

 

I tuned it to level the Fuel Trims but just going VE gave a 13hp jump before tuning . It’s a track engine, so it doesn’t need to be perfect other that PE.