First mods to my car
 

I'm sure this topic has been posted a million times so forgive me if I am redundant. Picked up my 2002 Z06 last Wednesday (thanks everyone for the nice welcoming!) and looking at doing:

Kooks LT headers
Kooks catless X-pipe
Vararam intake

Now, I assume a tune is necessary to make the most power with these mods. Is it necessary or can I wait a bit before getting the tune?

Also, recommendations on accommodating mods for my stock 02 C5Z?

Thanks in advance!

Eric :cheers:

Congrats on the new Z. :cheers: You're definitely headed in the right direction. My first mod was an SLP Blackwing intake, followed by LG Super Pro long tubes, cat deletes, and x-pipe. Really woke the car up. You can wait on the tune, but as others will tell you, you won't get the full benefits of your mods until your car is tuned. I waited about two weeks or so because of my work schedule. As far as further mods go, the next logical step would be heads/cam. As I understand it, there's no need to replace the throttle body or intake manifold unless you're shooting for some radical horsepower numbers. (500+ rwp, forced induction). Good luck with everything. :thumbs:

I have those exact mods.

You can wait on the tune but I wouldn't be flooring it around un-tuned. My Air/Fuel was way off when I just installed the intake and going catless is going to throw an engine light. I don't like driving around with an Engine light on because if something else goes wrong it's already lit up.

Perfect! I'll probably do a cam down the road; but for now this will make me more than happy. Good to know I'm headed the right direction. Much appreciate the input!

I've thought about that same thing - I might go with cats. Tune will come ASAP. What power #s would I expect to gain?

Check with some local tuners. When I talked to a couple they said if I had them tune initially, they would only charge me for dyno time when I wanted to retune for future mods. Worth it to me to get it tuned immediately.

I would go with hi flow cats and get a tune ASAP from ECS. They have mail order tunes for a fair price and with minor mods that is really all you need at this point. Expect gains of about 30-35 rwhp on a conservative street tune.Should put you at about 375-380 rwhp as a stock 02 z should dyno about 345-350.You may need a screened MAF with the Vararam, and a catch can is also nice to keep oil out of your intake.A 160 stat can be used and let ECS know that so they can change your fan settings.

with any intake mod you do with a c5 z06 you may notice you get lean left and right banks...heltech makes a maf screen insert that goes in to get around that problem

You'll be thrilled with the exhaust upgrade, trust me. :thumbs: Exactly how these cars should of come from the factory. Right now I'm fighting the urge to cam my '04. I'll probably(definitely) give in sometime this coming year. :D

Go with Cats. I cannot drive my car where I don't have to come home and throw my clothes in the laundry hamper because they stink.

going to look into this...thanks for the advice. i've heard alot of people do the 160 tstat

i literally cannot wait for it! I think i'm going to either do the ECS tune or drop by Speed, Inc. since they are close to my hometown. A cam will be so nice....I think next summer :rock:

damn it's really that bad? I'm going to be driving the car a ton in the summer so I may have to go with HFC's

should I do that regardless whether i get a tune or not?