Hi guys (hope I'm posting in the right place),

My '96 Z28 is coming up on 120,000 miles and I've been thinking about rebuilding the engine. I want to rebuild it with some real firepower, but I have absolutely no idea about what makes for a good high-performance machine. I'm looking to get a total of around 500 - 600 horses out of the finished product.

The guys at the shop asked me what specifically I wanted to do to get that much horsepower and I had no idea what to tell them. Do any of you guys have any advice for me?

 

Or maybe I'd be better off replacing my LT1 with another bigger and badder engine??? Trying to keep it close to the $5000 range. Thanks guys.

 

It's prolly not going to happen for 5000.

 

 

a full motor rebuild with new everything would be pushing it for 5k. and then you need to upgrade the drivetrain b/'c of the extra power.

 

the blower and heads will cost over $5000

 

Going to 600HP (assuming you mean "flywheel", not "rear wheel") is going to get very expensive without a "power adder" (nitrous, S/C or turbo). It is going to take some extra cubes, some decent RPM, and some really high flowing heads. I'd guess you could spend about 2/3 of your budget on heads alone. Check for posts by "jimlab"..... he has a stroker on the engine dyno that is pushing into the high 600HP range on straight motor, no power adder. Then ask him which 2 or 3 of the parts he bought add up to $5,000..... I suspect you couldn't put a deposit on an engine like that for $5K.

So... that leads to a "power adder" situation. A reasonable stroker can net you 450-500 flywheel HP, then put an S/C on it or a quick 150-shot of juice on it and you have what you want. Might be possible to do that for a little more than your budget, at least with nitrous.

Then you get the expenses that most people overlook.... .you need to beef up the drivetrain and the chassis to handle that 600HP... .and I'd estimate that could add at least 50% more to your costs. Then you need to setup and tune the engine, and unless you are an extremely capable tuner, you need help.... and dyno tuning a 600HP engine isn't cheap.

How fast do you want to go? How much have you got to spend?

 

who said any thing about a blower? nitrous and a stroker will do it.

the top end will easily be 2.5-3k by itself.

pretty much, its not gonna happen on 5k.

EDIT: Fred did you get my PM?

 

Yes.... sent two responses to the first one, three to the second one (the 1,000 character limit on posts is a bit restrictive).

F

 

It sounds that you're not going to "let them do/install everything"... if that is the case, then be ready to spend a lot of money. I will suggest you to spend sometime reading a lot and using the search tool in this site...You'll learn a lot and you might get a more clear idea of where you wanna go.


P.S. Maybe you should consider go step by step to achive your goal, instead of buy everything at the same time (besides it's not gonna happen). Do you already all the bolt ons?
And be sure to have extra money, because nothing ever happen exactly how you planned

leo

 

You need to reevaluate your goals my friend. A good rear end is already 2000 dollars. It would be no use to have a 600 horsepower beast that gets beat by a stock honda civic because your tires are going up in smoke.

EDIT: I didn't even realize that you wanted to get it done at a shop lol. You better have really deep pockets to pay somebody to build a 600 hp car. In my opinion I would go with heads/cam/nitrous and a 12-bolt and that will get you the power you want for about 5000 if you play your cards right. Then start saving up for drivetrain/chassis and just flat out **** breaking on you. A BMR xtreme torque arm is 550 dollars just so you have an idea of what you are looking it. I know you can get it cheaper than that used but my point is reevaluate your goals.