xkilo16x

While the C7Z06 is plenty fast for most folks, I do a lot of roll racing and standing mile type events, and I end up being pitted against some fast cars. My car is a 2017 M7 1LZ and long before I purchased the car, I had already done my research and mapped out the path of modifications. While gains, drag times, and dyno numbers are somewhat well documented here, I’m writing this post in hopes to combine all my findings into one post. I’ll be posting comparisons via data from my VBOX as well as my own personal impressions.

The modifications I’m doing are, what I believe, to give the best performance gains without involving too much work, effectively staying true to the definition of bolt on and being fully reversible without too much effort. Obviously this is subjective but I think the mods I’ll be putting in my car will be the most popular ones for most folks looking to make their car go faster. Eventually I will go the pulley and tune route and log those here as well. I do plan on taking the car to road courses so not going to get too crazy with the power mods that can potentially overheat the car on a track.

I have two metrics that I will be using to compare the changes being made to the car, 50-120MPH and 60-130MPH. Some mods will not have 60-130 times as I was unable to reach those speeds for the test. The significance of the 50-120MPH test will be to see the power gains throughout an entire rev range, which is done in 3rd gear without the variable of any gear changes. The significance of the 60-130MPH test is to gauge the car’s performance against other cars as this has been the performance metric for many high end sports cars in the last few years. I will attempt to do all tests with constant variables to the best of my ability. This means the same level of fuel, same ambient temperature, same road, same drive mode, same driver, and same amount of time for the car to relearn each mod (roughly 50-75 miles of mixed driving). Unless otherwise noted, I am using the stage 2 aero package for these tests. Anyway, without further ado, let’s begin.


Stock (93 Octane)

• Ambient Temp – 68 Degrees Fahrenheit
• 50-120MPH – 7.18 seconds, 6.99 seconds, 7.64 seconds (avg. 7.27 seconds)
• 60-130MPH – 7.95 seconds, 8.39 seconds
• Notes: The second 60-130 run had a slow shift from 2nd to 3rd gear resulting in bouncing off the rev limiter for a moment. In my opinion, the car is a solid 7.9 to 8.2 second car in stock form in the 60-130 test. Which makes it slower than the C6 ZR1 and Gen 5 Viper in this range. I believe this is due to the extreme amounts of downforce from the aero components. Later in my mod progress, I will test the difference between the Stage 1 winglets vs. the Stage 2 winglets to see how much of a difference it makes in these runs.

Stock (Torco/93 Blend)

• Ambient Temp – 67 Degrees Fahrenheit
• 50-120MPH – 7.47 seconds, 7.09 seconds, 7.21 seconds (avg. 7.26 seconds)
• 60-130MPH – Not applicable. No runs done.
• Notes: Given the blend that I did, which is 16 ounces of Torco, the fuel should be approximately 98 octane. No significant gains over 93 octane at least in the 2017 cars with the updated stock tunes.

Stock (Boostane/93 Blend)

• Ambient Temp – 68 Degrees Fahrenheit
• 50-120MPH – 7.15 seconds, 7.15 seconds, 7.14 seconds (avg. 7.15 seconds)
• 60-130MPH – Not applicable. No runs done.
• Notes: Using the same ratio as the Torco test, BOOSTane gives approximately 100 octane. The most interesting find is that the top speed in 3rd gear is now about 1.5MPH higher than 93 octane or Torco. Perhaps the ECU is allowing the engine to rev higher based on the fuel quality. Interesting that BOOSTane gave such consistent times in the runs even though they were back to back with maybe a few minutes of driving cool down.

Borla X-Pipe (93 Octane)

• Ambient Temp – 60 Degrees Fahrenheit
• 50-120MPH – 7.53 seconds, 6.75 seconds, 7.12 seconds, 7.53 seconds (avg. 7.23 seconds)
• 60-130MPH – Not applicable. No runs done.
• Notes: For fun, I did some runs immediately after the install and these initial runs were faster than what I recorded for the official tests. I think that once the ECU learned the new modification, the gains were less noticeable with the programming. The car sounds great though, it’s not too crazy. In Stealth mode, it retains the stock quiet quality but in Track mode, it really gets that American muscle sound in the mid-range. Doesn’t seem to give much of an improvement to performance over stock, but perhaps with BOOSTane, it can achieve more consistent fast times as shown by the 6.75 second time which is significantly faster than stock. Regardless of which, this is a must do mod because the sound alone is worth the money.

Borla X-Pipe + Tony Mamo Ported TB (93 Octane)

• Ambient Temp – 64 Degrees Fahrenheit
• 50-120MPH – 7.02 seconds, 7.00 seconds, 6.61 seconds, 7.09 seconds (avg. 6.93 seconds)
• 60-130MPH – 7.68 seconds, 7.30 seconds
• Notes: Tony Mamo’s Ported TB is probably the one mod you should get for your car other than the Borla X-Pipe. It beats the average stock time by more than 3 tenths of a second. Easy install and no codes thrown on a 2017 car. Not only is the throttle response improved, the performance gains are significant for the price. I can now break traction more easily with this mod, which indicates both more power and more response from the throttle. The first 60-130 run had a slow shift into 4th gear which resulted in hitting the limiter for a moment and giving a slower time. Analyzing the run before the shift indicates that it would have been roughly 7.3X seconds as well.

Borla X-Pipe + Tony Mamo Ported TB + Green Filter (93 Octane)

• Ambient Temperature - 64F
• 50-120MPH - 6.57 seconds, 6.86 seconds, 6.79 seconds (avg. 6.74 seconds)
• 60-130MPH - 7.13 seconds (see notes below)
• Notes: Seems like a good mod to do with easy gains for no money. In slightly cooler weather, I did a 60-130 pull and the time was 7.13 seconds. The 50-120 times were consistent with with what I got in cooler weather. So I'm deducing that this car is now a low 7 second 60-130 car. So far these three simple mods have knocked off 8/10ths of a second in the 60-130 when comparing to stock.

UPDATE 7/9/17 - Sorry this hasn't been updated for a couple months. Basically a little after the green filter runs, I had some warranty issues with my car. I ended up having to get the engine replaced, but I definitely do not believe that it was anything to do with the mods. I think it was simply just a manufacturing tolerance issue. With the new engine, after breaking back in, I re-tested some runs with the last set of mods (XPIPE+PTB+FILTER) as a new baseline. Here are my results:

Borla X-Pipe + Tony Mamo Ported TB + Green Filter (93 Octane) - New Engine

• Ambient Temperature - 78F
• 50-120MPH - 7.36 seconds, 7.17 seconds
• 60-130MPH - N/A
• Notes: The new engine seems to be a littler slower than my original engine. Although the performance delta could be from the 15 degrees difference in temperature. My other hypothesis is that the ECM could have learned the mods since this time around, I had put 200+ miles on the car before doing the runs.

Borla X-Pipe + Tony Mamo Ported TB + AFE Intake (93 Octane) - New Engine

• Ambient Temperature - 77F
• 50-120MPH - 6.86 seconds, 6.99 seconds
• 60-130MPH - N/A
• Notes: Faster than the Green filter for sure. I am using the "Low Flow" Grey Filter in the intake at the moment. Like the previous test conditions. I put around 175-200 miles on the car before doing the runs. I suspect that because of that, the computer learned itself down again to protect itself against the lean conditions created by intake mods. When I first put the intake in the car and took it for a spin, I could break the rear tires loose in 2nd gear pretty easily. Now it doesn't happen nearly as often. Regardless, it's still significantly faster than stock.

Borla X-Pipe + Tony Mamo Ported TB + AFE Intake (Boostane/93 Blend) - New Engine

• Ambient Temperature - 67F
• 50-120MPH - 6.98 seconds, 6.72 seconds
• 60-130MPH - N/A
• Notes: This is an initial test with the 93 + Boostane blend. I drove around 100 miles before doing the tests. Will do another test when temperature is not the deciding variable and closer to high 70s. However, like with my octane booster tests, using Boostane gave me an extra 2MPH on my top speed in 3rd gear. Instead of hitting the limiter at 122.X mph, I hit the limiter at 124.X mph. No other octane booster lets me do that, which makes me think it definitely affects some sort of performance. How much effect is yet to be determined.

60-130MPH Stock Reference Times:

• Gen. 2 Lambo Gallardo (stock 6MT) ........... 9.92 seconds
• Corvette C6Z06 (stock 6MT) ..................... 8.6X seconds
• 991.1 Porsche Turbo (stock PDK) ............... 8.42 seconds
• Corvette C7Z06 (stock 8AT stage 1 aero) .... 8.30 seconds
• SRT Challenger Hellcat (stock 8AT) ............ 8.00 seconds
• Corvette C7Z06 (stock 7MT stage 2 aero) ... 7.95 seconds
• Corvette C6ZR1 (stock 6MT) ..................... 7.80 seconds
• Gen. 5 Dodge Viper (stock 6MT) ................ 7.32 seconds

Will update this post as more mods and data is logged.

BooSSted

Subbed!

pkincy

Thank you for the work and the thread. So you picked up the good part of a second 60-130 with only the Borla and TMs ported TB?

Z0Sick6

You should also try the BMS Filter that Terry has since you do these recordings. ITs supposed to be a drop in filter with the gains of an intake as it flows better than the green.

VictorBarron

Thanks for your effort. Love to see how a Cold Air Intake would do.

MerakiAutoworks

Great writeup!!

-Josh

Bob U

Great real world test.
Thanks

spaceaholic

Are you also going to swap out with the Granatelli plug wires which are supposed to add 10 RWHP ?

jbsblownc5

Nice write up, I've done a few bolt ons to my 17 Z06 as well!!

xkilo16x

Yes, that's a good idea, I'll probably test that before I test the AFE, since it's just a filter mod.

Yes, those two mods are the only things I had on the car to pick up close to 0.7 seconds in the 60-130 runs. I suspect a CAI will get me into the high 6 second range. I'm ultimately aiming for a mid 6 second car.

Let me do some research on those as I haven't really read much on that mod.

george vee

Thanks for the information

tobaccokid

Very much appreciate what you are doing. Extremely helpful. My 2016 Z06 A8 has an AFE CAI and Tony Mamo TB. I like the results but cannot wait to see your results with a CAI.

N2DEEP

Hrlyrdr22

Good write up. Looking forward to future mods.

vetteZpilot

Very good info.
Thanks,

capevettes

Nicely laid out Some real world tests of mods many of us have done. I have the Mamo TB and the Borla catless X-pipe and feel a bit of sotp gain at higher RPM's. Your data confirms that what I'm feeling is probably reality. Thanks.

xkilo16x

Updated with preliminary runs on the Green filter. Looking to do official runs tomorrow. Will also be receiving Terry's BMS Filter for testing soon as well.

BMadden

I've got the Green Filter and Mamo Ported TB on the car right now plus I plan on adding the Borla X-pipe sometime this summer so these findings are very useful. Thanks.

VetterFlyer

How about trying a run without any air filter and a stock air box. In my opinion all filters have restrictions.
Thanks for these tests. Jim

xkilo16x

Updated post with final runs with Green Filter addition.

I'm sure there is a big restriction with any filter. But it's there for a reason, and I rather not risk any debris getting in.