My dad just bought a 1994 Corvette M6 with 75,000 miles and its bone stock. He wants to do a heads and cam package that will give him around 450 rwhp while still having good street manners and he doesn't want to change his gears. We've looked into the LE2 setup, but what other packages are offered from vendors that will get him close to his goal? What about TPIS? We know he needs full exhaust, tb, injectos, rr's, tuning.

 

Why worry about rwhp? Corvettes typically dyno like crap because of gearing....but they fly on the highway?

450 rwhp while maintaing stock manners, good vaccum and little maintanence is a tall order.

His best bet would be to do a rebuild, better pistons, nice, very mild cam, new springs, good valve job and boost the car.

 

Guess I should have said for around $5000.

 

Yea, getting a "TRUE" 450 RWHP (naturally aspirated) out of an LT1 nearly always takes away a good part of a cars "acceptable" street manners(in any sane persons view anyway)...375-400 RWHP is another story.........The Lloyd Elliott packages are one of the most cost effective "tried and true" set-ups for the LT1/LT4's......as is www.advancedinduction.com ........you really can't go wrong with either place.........you can see my mods on my car domain link and what times are possible with basicly the same car as your fathers(asside that mine is an A4 car and will "usually" leave the line a bit harder than a stick car)......my car is a daily driver with great street manners and sounds almost stock at highway speeds while cruising....Since good drivability and getting "somewhat" alright gas mileage is still important with my car....I choose to add the additional power with a small nitrous kit...instead of killing the street manners going with more naturally aspirated power........ and IMO, TPIS really has nothing "great" or cost effective in the way of heads & cam packages to offer for LTX engines.........IMO, your on the right track with your initial ideas.........PS: if he's got the factory 6 speed with the 3.45 rear end, then that would be alright to leave alone, but really anything numerically lower than that should really be swapped out if maximixing the combo is important to him.....larger cams like the ones that it takes to make RWHP horsepower like your talking about just don't like tall gearing.......any track goals in mind??.......good luck with it.............Joe

 

The bigger the displacement you have, the bigger the cam you can run without giving up driveability. Also, better heads require less cam to make more power. With that being said, 450rwhp won't be easy to do on the stock bottom end with your goals.

 

Most of the 400 RWHP N/A LT1s in existance are far from what I would call having good street manners. There aren't very many 450 RWHP N/A regardless of manners.

If 450 N/A and nice manners is possible it will be $$$$ and involve more than the top end.

Doing gears is a no-brainer on an M6 LT1 vette. Big improvement in acceleration and makes 6th usable.

Aftermarket exhaust on the LT1 vette gains you very little power. Although to get to the power level you want, I guess you will need every 10HP you can get...

To be honest, it sounds like you need to do a whole lot more research.

 

Here's the only Y-body LTx I know of that dynos in that range and claims to have nice street manners.

Duplicating his heads alone will take your entire budget.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show...4&page=1&pp=20

 

Easiest way to make a streetable 450rwhp LT1 vette would be a mild cam setup and a 100 shot.

 

heads, mild cam and a supercharger.

 

Those numbers will be hard to achieve on all motor and still retain good street manners. That is where a forced induction setup would shine, but if you have a budget of 5K, that will easily be used up and some.

 

450rwhp naturally aspirated on a stock block LTx isn't going to happen. A medium sized cam, headwork and N2O will get you there pretty easy though and with all the bolt-ons for $4K or so....

Brad

 

Not sure if I agree with everything you say. Making 450rwhp in any N/A Ltx engine is never going to be cheap but I’m in the 480 range with almost 13 to 1 compression and the drivability is absolutely super. The car will drive 45-50 mph in 6th gear all day long and have very good pull at any moment. This is with 4.11 gears.

It doesn’t “chug” down low, overheat or have any other bad manners. It also took me ten years of playing with different combo’s to find one that was reliable, can hang with most LS1’s and is honestly fun to drive. But you need to dot every I and cross every T as it's not kid stuff to do it. I tried a lot of different things that were an absolute waste of money and you do need to balance the overall combo.

FYI……..On a stock LT4 I was able to pick up 20 hp from headers and a very good exhaust. The car with typical bolt on low cost type mods and the headers/exhaust made 331 rwhp and ran 12.6’s @ 112mph on factory street tires first outing at Ennis. Very worthwhile mod in my opinion.

 

Everyone has said it already. Buy a used supercharger from someone and then used the left over cash to buy bolt on's or a mild H/C setup. Either that or go solid roller 383.

 

450 rwhp N/A on a stock shorblock with 'good street manners' for $5k isn't going to happen. You either need to lower your expectations or increase your budget.

 

Anthony

Living in Coppel you should be vary aware of the heat in the middle of summer in Texas. Just how do you think running the air and running a supercharger would work in August??

Answer....not well at all. I've seen several people trade in their superchargers for N/A combinations due to heating issues.