So I was watching an old episode of Horsepower TV that I hadn't seen before. It's the one where they took a silver LS1 Z28 (Year One sticker on the windshield) and added a 100 wet shot. Before adding the nitrous, the car had a lid, catback, pulleys, "port matched manifolds", and a tune. I think it was an M6, but I'm not sure.

Anyway, they did a run on the DynoJet beforehand and got 285rwhp. Joe climbed out of the car and said "now that's a stout LS1".

Is it just me, or is that an absurdly low number for a car with a few bolt ons? Don't bone-stock automatic Z28s make at least that much power, and usually more?

I don't know why I keep watching that show...

 

thats relatively low, but with only a lid k&n filter and bellows i dynoed 273rwhp, so even lower. i opened the cut-out and hit 281rwhp. so there are some low ball numbers out there too.

 

Mine only dyno'd 289 HP / 307 TQ with A4/4.10's, lid & Choke-master cat-back .

After switching to the M6, and with 3.23's instead of 4.10's, it dyno'd a whopping 317 HP / 335 TQ!! (yes, 28 RWHP higher!)

It seems that MOST M6's dyno at least ~300 - 305 at the wheels, but usually in the "range" of 300 - 320, while A4's I think are typically between ~280 - 300.

There are, of course, exceptions to every rule .

 

Okay, so 285 is on the low end for a stock car, but not unheard of. Fine. I don't know what "port matched manifolds" means exactly -- the car didn't have headers, and it was a stock intake manifold. Ignoring that, a lid, catback, pulleys, and a tune should be worth at least 10rwhp (credit mostly to the lid and assuming the worst for the rest of the mods), which means the car probably would have put about 275rwhp down when it was bone stock. Meaning that this is one of the weakest LS1s you could find.

So the only thing we can really conclude is that Joe doesn't know what he's talking about when he says, "now that's a stout LS1."

 

how many miles are on the car?
how was the maintenance?
what gear were they running in?
did they correct for atmospheric variations?

too many variables to say they were full of BS or not.

 

I'm just going to guess that they ran it in the right gear and did the standard SAE correction for atmospheric conditions. I have no idea about miles or maintenance, but it was really clean under the hood.

Still, it just should have been higher.

 

I wouldn't place a lot of weight in results on that show. THey did a h/c on a car then tuned it w/ a hypertech (prolly just to make it drivable).

I thought my #'s were low.. W/ a full exh and a lid, K&N, P+P'd TB and free mods I dyno'd the #'s in my sig.

 

It's a dyno, a tuning tool. Don't get hung up on numbers. They don't mean a thing as there could be a hundred reasons why their dyno isn't reporting the "normal" numbers.
What actually counts is how much gain from the mods in the after runs.

 

That show is a marketplace for vendors to show off their latest gimmicky parts and nothing more.

 

Yeah, well, I like it on the occasion that they're putting a D1SC on a built 383ci LS1 and dynoing 547rwhp, or putting an STS twin-turbo kit on a C6.

Most of the rest of the time, it sucks... but this is the first time I've seen them be so far off the mark as far as expected horsepower. I don't care how far different their dyno is from any other DynoJet, an LS1 with those mods would have to put down more than 285 hp to justify calling it "stout".

I guess it's not so much that the number is wrong... more that they seemed to think it was an example of a strong-running LS1.

 

^ I betcha some ricers are watching that show saying... "SEE! I told you the LS1's are slow! They only dyno 285 hp! Mine makes elleventy hundered Hp Per LiTrE!!!"...

 

Like "Kraest" stated it's just another place to show off new products on the Horsepower TV, at least on Extreme 4x4 they show the basics of fabrication and etc.

Also for the guys who actually watch the shows, is the chick Jesse on extreme 4x4 hot or is it just me???

 

Yup.. Their dyno's always seem to read lower than you'd expect.. But the gains before and after are _usually_ about right.

I forget, but the original Dynojet? was it? was calibrated against some Honda motorcycle, about 27 hp I believe.. For some reason, they made it so that motorcycle will show up as 27 hp when run, which was the stock rating.. And every model since then of that brand is calibrated to that spec.... There was a HotRod article about this a while back that explained all of it..

 

Perhaps at that time, when the LS1s were rated really low at the crank by the manufacturer, he wasn't expecting the 335 at the crank which is what 285 at the wheels would equate to.

Remember when the LS1 came out that the mfgr. rated them about 50 FWHP less than they actually were capable of given the RWHP numbers.

I still can't figure out why they would claim such low numbers when it is the high numbers that sell muscle cars. Of course it's only been in the last decade or so when chassis dynos and bench racing became so popular. JMHO

 

hey guys. quick q, i see some of you have a ls1 "A1" or "M6". what does this mean?