[Saberscar223]

People keep saying to save your money on bolt ons and just go straight for a supercharger but if the engine wasnt made to take boost and is limited to 650whp whats the point of supercharging it when a full bolt on e85, Heads, Cam car can produce the same results for like 3 grand cheaper while having better longevity? I feel like alot of the cost that comes with a supercharger or turbo is that they can handle over 1000hp but if your car cant keep up with that whats the point?

Maybe if they had a cheap Supercharger that was limited to around 700-800 whp to be more cost efficient but at least with an SS unless you go full forged engine you cant really safley go over 650.

Now Im not 100% sure a full N/A build is better for longevity/daily driving but itd make sense it was correct me if Im wrong on that.

[m6-lt1]

First, I’ll start by saying I agree with you that boost isn’t worth it on these cars. That being said, unless you aren’t including labor, a heads cam full bolt on car is going to cost the same or more than a blower only car. Also reliability is debatable too. I personally think a blower car with proper tuning AND fueling will be more reliable than a heads cam car. I have seen too many issues on these forums with peoples heads cam cars that I hesitate to eventually do the same to mine.

I’m sure I’m going to get a lot of flack for this on these forums but imo if you want boost then I personally feel the best route is just to trade your camaro for a gen 2 or gen 3 coyote powered mustang. Those motors handle boost significantly better and you’ll spend way less and get a higher horsepower number. They require much less in fueling mods to hit the high horsepower number.

[LT4Greg]

That’s the way it was for me back in 2019 when I was thinking of supercharging my 2016 2SS. After researching parts/labor costs of a professional shop doing the work, it was going to cost between $12,000 to $15,000 to do and I already spent $45,000 on the new 2016 purchase. Other parts to mod like exhaust, wider wheels/tires just didn’t make financial sense to me so I started checking the car sales websites and finally found a low mileage 2017 ZL1 in March 2019 for $52,595 and decided to go that route. No regrets and the ZL1 is so much better than the 2SS in my opinion. The only mod I have done is the RotoFab intake that improved the performance of the LT4.

[KingLT1]

No it's not a waste if you do it correctly.

I have had a Whipple installed on my SS since 2019. It's been pretty rock solid reliable. I had to replace a tensioner right after I got it installed due to missing a lock washer on the pulley. I have upgraded fuel system and run E60 @ 10-11psi of boost on the otherwise stock engine. Car has well over 100 dragy pulls logged. It traps 137 in the 1/4 mi full weight on 20" wheels. Full drag pack on a sticky track it has the MPH to run a high 9 second pass. Not fast but quick enough for the street and is a total sleeper.

Greg aka Laynlo, has a 2021 LT1 with Maggie 2300, THP port injection, E85. Car runs 9.80's @ 142 on a full drag pack. I believe it made 70X whp.

The key is proper fueling, tuning, and octane.

650whp is not the limit of this engine. Plenty of stock bottom end cars out there making 700-750whp.

There are also plenty that have failed at 600whp or less from not taking the correct measures. Slap a Procharger on, canned tune, stock fuel system...there will be a good chance it blows up. Prochargers canned tune is absolute trash. Runs excessively lean, takes forever to enter PE mode, all to stretch the stock fuel system out. Not mention they run very slow due to the tuning.

There is a months' worth of reading material in the Forced Induction section on this topic. Head over there if you want to educate yourself.

All that being said, for the average enthusiast that just wants to run 93 octane and go, I would suggest moving up to a ZL1.

[18.2SS.1LE]

Boost is certainly a viable option on these platforms, especially with port injection in the mix. With you being a mile high, you can at least swap pullies to get into the power range you want. N/A you're stuck with the air you have up there and will make far less than someone at sea level.

[Saberscar223]

Originally Posted by KingLT1

No it's not a waste if you do it correctly.

I have had a Whipple installed on my SS since 2019. It's been pretty rock solid reliable. I had to replace a tensioner right after I got it installed due to missing a lock washer on the pulley. I have upgraded fuel system and run E60 @ 10-11psi of boost on the otherwise stock engine. Car has well over 100 dragy pulls logged. It traps 137 in the 1/4 mi full weight on 20" wheels. Full drag pack on a sticky track it has the MPH to run a high 9 second pass. Not fast but quick enough for the street and is a total sleeper.

Greg aka Laynlo, has a 2021 LT1 with Maggie 2300, THP port injection, E85. Car runs 9.80's @ 142 on a full drag pack. I believe it made 70X whp.

The key is proper fueling, tuning, and octane.

650whp is not the limit of this engine. Plenty of stock bottom end cars out there making 700-750whp.

There are also plenty that have failed at 600whp or less from not taking the correct measures. Slap a Procharger on, canned tune, stock fuel system...there will be a good chance it blows up. Prochargers canned tune is absolute trash. Runs excessively lean, takes forever to enter PE mode, all to stretch the stock fuel system out. Not mention they run very slow due to the tuning.

There is a months' worth of reading material in the Forced Induction section on this topic. Head over there if you want to educate yourself.

All that being said, for the average enthusiast that just wants to run 93 octane and go, I would suggest moving up to a ZL1.

Yeah my thing is I use mine as a daily driver so I dont want to do too much and I feel like a 9 sec car is a whole lot of car for a daily. and ive seen FBO e85 SS beat stock ZL1s and that would honeslty be enough power for me and its relatively safe. I feel like the riskiest mod I want is a heads cam package mainly for the chop sound and top end power.

[Saberscar223]

Originally Posted by 18.2SS.1LE

Boost is certainly a viable option on these platforms, especially with port injection in the mix. With you being a mile high, you can at least swap pullies to get into the power range you want. N/A you're stuck with the air you have up there and will make far less than someone at sea level.

Yeah I agree me being this high is one of the main reasons Id want to boost my car. A Hellcat here creates a much bigger gap than it would closer to sea level. and I know on certain superchargers you cant even run E85 idk about prochargers. but like i said even with that its not as simple as throwing a __charger on there and tuning it. Id have to upgrade tires,fuel system,interior engine components and possibly even transmission. Ive heard the 10l80 can only handle about 800tq and id have to get the 10l90

[Dynamical]

Originally Posted by Saberscar223

People keep saying to save your money on bolt ons and just go straight for a supercharger but if the engine wasnt made to take boost and is limited to 650whp whats the point of supercharging it when a full bolt on e85, Heads, Cam car can produce the same results for like 3 grand cheaper while having better longevity? I feel like alot of the cost that comes with a supercharger or turbo is that they can handle over 1000hp but if your car cant keep up with that whats the point?

Maybe if they had a cheap Supercharger that was limited to around 700-800 whp to be more cost efficient but at least with an SS unless you go full forged engine you cant really safley go over 650.

Now Im not 100% sure a full N/A build is better for longevity/daily driving but itd make sense it was correct me if Im wrong on that.

My last car was 01 Camaro N/A and it was very reliable. I knew if I went the forced induction route it would be endless. Remember the older days when they said the LS1 wasn't great for forced induction at it's stock compression ratio of 10.2:1? Now we are looking at the LT1 with 11.5:1
I will go the same route with my current 2022. I would rather work with the higher compression and not go against the grain. A fully built N/A car will be a total beast, very reliable and will be all I need. If I wanted a forced induction setup, I would get rid of this car and go for the ZL1 but my pockets are not that deep. I guess the question is in the long run, how deep are your pockets?!

[KingLT1]

That was before anybody knew what E85 was capable of. 11.5:1 direct injected is no problem with E85.

[FarmerFran]

waaa Waaa WAAA > cam rumble

[Rapid_1LE]

I owned an LS3 Corvette for over 15 years and the final 13.5 of them were at just under 600 RWHP courtesy of an ECS Paxton blower kit. The car is still alive and kicking today in the hands of its new owner.

Whether forced induction is worth it is entirely dependent on your goal for the car. If you want a 600-650 RWHP street car that starts, idles and drives like a stock car, a blower is an excellent way to do it. If you're just looking to add 50-100 hp to spice it up a bit, FI is overkill both in terms of output and cost.

Adding SIGNIFICANT horsepower the NA way generally compromises street manners to a degree. Idle quality, cold-engine manners and low-speed driveability all suffer when you start adding seriously big cam lift/duration. Good tuners can make wild setups liveable but liveable is not what everyone wants. Big cams with automatics generally start necessitating pretty loose torque converters which aren't super fun to drive on the street.

I have personally owned a stock-motor blown Corvette and a mild-to-medium NA combination GTO. The GTO wasn't set on kill specifically because I didn't want to hurt the street manners. It sounded better for sure, but it didn't make remotely as much power. It drove pretty well but it did still like a bit of warm up on a cold-start and it still kind of smelled a bit even through high flow cats. The Vette drove like....a Vette...except that when you stomped on it it would tear the tires off in 4th gear if the weather was cold.

Both cars were tuned by top tier shops by the way, no shortcuts. The Corvette obviously had more into mods and tuning but it wasn't anywhere near 15K.

There's also always a question of where you go after phase 1. Do you want to leave room to grow? NA vs. FI is a much more complicated question than how much money you want to spend right now.

[Joshinator99]

Originally Posted by KingLT1

That was before anybody knew what E85 was capable of. 11.5:1 direct injected is no problem with E85.

Exactly. Coyote engines are 12:1 and guys are into the 8’s with stock short blocks. Not saying that’s great for longevity lol…BUT it just shows that E85 is awesome for boosted engines.

[cjperformance]

Originally Posted by KingLT1

Slap a Procharger on, canned tune, stock fuel system...there will be a good chance it blows up. Prochargers canned tune is absolute trash. Runs excessively lean, takes forever to enter PE mode, all to stretch the stock fuel system out. Not mention they run very slow due to the tuning.

i have no idea who would do such a thing

[arpad_m]

Originally Posted by m6-lt1

I’m sure I’m going to get a lot of flack for this on these forums but imo if you want boost then I personally feel the best route is just to trade your camaro for a gen 2 or gen 3 coyote powered mustang. Those motors handle boost significantly better and you’ll spend way less and get a higher horsepower number. They require much less in fueling mods to hit the high horsepower number.

That may well be true, but in the end it'll still only be a Mustang.