a catch can is never needed.

 

rrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigggggggghhhhhhhtttttt tttt.......

 

Are you running meth and do you have the catch can /breather or any issues at all?

 

Mustang00066,

I live in Utah as well.

Having dealt with forced induction before on cars, here's my honest opinion.

We live in high elevation, and our cars suffer from power loss because of the DA here. We are not used to the feeling of really high horsepower cars.

Since this is your daily driver, you don't want a really high output on a stock motor. You want it to be as reliable as possible.

91 octane here is not a problem, it just needs to be tuned accordingly. You do NOT need meth injection if you are running a standard output kit from AA, ECS or Procharger, edelbrock, etc.

If you have never felt 575whp in a 3300lb car, it's going to scare the $#!t out of you the first time you floor it. Trust me, 7 psi on the LT1 is more than plenty of juice on a daily driver. There are some 800-1200+hp junkies on here that will laugh at that, but trust me when I tell you that 575whp in a vette is really freakin fast and dangerous.


Go with your basic set up. You can always add meth, more boost and headers down the road for more power but I'm guessing that a conservatively tuned base kit is going to be more than enough for you.

You'll run low 11's in the 1/4 at this elevation with that basic set up. I run high 12's bone stock in my Vette at RMR with a good launch.

As far as the catch can is concerned, I think spending the money is worth it "just in case". It's almost stupid to not get it.

 

Which ever route you take factor in a catch can. I'm at 13psi and did the ECS reroute of the pcv system and found oil on the air filter. Will it work at 7psi, maybe, but if you are daily driving it you NEED a catch can. You don't have to spend $1000 on a catch can anymore. My car is a Z51.

 

I did an ECS unit and a meth kit with absolutely no other bolt onsu and still have stock exhaust. Took out the restrictor, it dynode at 11 lbs. of boost and 686 wheel HP. let me tell you the car is stupid fast and scary as hell. No issues at all, no catch can and it drives like stock unless I'm in the gas. Its so quiet you would never know.

 

Haven't seen many people address all the things that need attention when turning up the power. Driveline, fuel system, stock clutch, stock A6/8 TC??
If your goal was 700-750whp what supporting modifications would be needed for a weekend warrior car seeing the strip 5 times a year?

 

There will always be a lot of opinions and they will be based on what each individual has done. We offer systems from all of the manufactures and we've installed all of them with varying results. You can simply bolt a system on and not do the supporting mods such as a catch-can/breather, headers or methanol but based on my experience I suggest those items for longevity and safety.

The LT1 PCV system leaves a lot to be desired and when you turn up the boost there is an opportunity for them to push seals because they can't evacuate the pressure effectively. That holds true for the Z51 and non-Z51 options. The fact is you also get a lot of contamination from the combustion events that is vented back into the intake..... It's not good and a catch-can set up will address those issues. We have options that range from $150 to $625 depending on the application..

The benefits of methanol are the increased octane, the cooling properties and it keeps the engine clean. It is only injected under boost and it prevents detonation on hot days or under heavy load. It isn't completely necessary for a car that wants to add a modest amount of power but we suggest it for any car over 600 WHP..

The factory drive train components are pretty tough. I've seen stock clutch go through a lot of abuse as well as drive lines and axles. The converter doesn't need to be addressed until you put a fairly aggressive camshaft in or you want to pick up some time in the quarter mile. The fuel systems are limited on the LT1 but with methanol it will support 700+ WHP.

Kind regards,

Jordan Priestley
888.308.6007

 

Thanks so much for this response.

This is the road I initially intended to go down, but then starting worrying and being told that a supercharger would fry things/cause oil problems without the meth and catch can/breather. I Originally figured I'd throw the headers on later down the road, but since the shop is a few weeks out to get my car in, if I'm doing a SC, the meth, and catch can, and because I'm impatient, maybe just do it all at once and be without the car for a week and be completely done.

Is 650-700 hp in a daily driver stupid and would it be hard to drive?

Jordan at jdp is saying it's totally fine until you romp on it, but he probably drives much faster cars more often than me! I guess the meth doesn't kick in until WOT, and then just keep your foot out of it until you want to scare people???

Has anyone gone from stock to big mods and thought it was unmanageable?

Will this hurt the reliability of the car you think?

I trust Jordan from talking with him and the good stuff people have said on the forum, but would be curious to get some other thoughts or opinions as well from people?

Big decision for me and want to make sure I'm well informed and going in with my eyes as open as possible.

Thanks again for the help and opinions

 

Its all in the tune. My C7 has all the mods you are considering, and my car is still a perfect daily driver. To be honest if you walked up to my car with it just idling you couldnt tell that it had 600-700HP. when I am driving it it feels very manageable. But as I said, its all in the tune. The better the tuner the better your car will drive.

 

Thanks for your insight. I guess my last question would be how many reliable miles would you expect to get out of the engine while running a setup like this? How much will this decrease the life of the engine?

Thanks again everyone for sharing your experiences.

 

Procharger is good and it will be the likely route I take after the winter months are over with.

 

Well thats the real question isn't it. I don't know that anyone has an answer to that yet as nobody has a 100K+ miles on their C7 yet..

 

I have 25k miles, procharger with corsa x-pipe

 

You will really really enjoy it.

 

That power level is still easily managed on the street. The C7 throttle is really easy to control, even when tuned for max response.

The catch can is something you really shouldn't pass up, but the meth kit is completely unnecessary at the standard kit design of 7/8 psi level. Is it better to use it? Perhaps, but you really don't need it. If you want to go past 600whp, definitely be using it, but the standard kits don't make that much power. Besides, at this higher elevation, the actual output is much lower than stated on a corrected dyno. There's nothing to worry about without meth.

On the other hand, the meth kits aren't that expensive so it's an easy add on.

 

You are adding a decent amount of power through your motor. everything is going to be under more stress. reliability isnt going to get better.
But i think when done right, and you are not beating the car to death. Let engine warm up, change oil etc.. I dont think you are going to run into a lot of problems.

although if it were me, I wont bother supercharging unless i bought a stingray. Then Planned on doing a blower years from then. which i might do with mine.

I would just go Z06 otherwise. all set and done with blower and parts, cost of stingray. its not to far from a base Z06.

nothing beats being able to beat on a 650HP corvette with GM backing your repairs.

 

I don't know about that Mike LSX. I bought a 1LT for 52k and invested $8,500.00 for a S/C and meth kit. 686 WHP. Nothing like $ 60,500.00 to blow the doors off of a $100,000 plus ZO6, what does the commercial say, the look on the ZO6 owners face when you blow past him.....Priceless

 

HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!

Glad you know more about LT1 engines than most of the rest of us.

And for anyone saying the Z51 comes stock with a catch can, PLEASE show it to me.

My first mod was my catch can with clean side separator for my 15' Zr1 A8.

And...the 2 LS engines I have in my G8's have catch cans that collect almost the same amount of oil per thousand miles as does my new Vette. Not a big fan of oil condensing in my intake, even if it is a port injection LS engine.

 

Its not needed, it's recommended. Would I get one? Yup. Needed means the engine will not run without one. So calm down