• đź’ˇ Fun fact. Whenever you start a thread, TCG Mechanic 5000 (our AI bot) will reply to you to start helping. It doesn't know everything and it will struggle with more complex questions but it can get the thread going and provide valuable information. You can choose to disable it prior to submitting a thread.

🔧 Technical Time to nut up - ZL1 mods/cost questions.

guspech750

Guspech Superdriller
TCG Premium
Jan 23, 2010
9,322
6,111
North Aurora
Leave it alone and just enjoy the car.

giphy.gif

More mods more power just seems like more possible headaches down the road.

I’d leave it and enjoy the heck out of it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Blood on Blood

boostedguy05

not well known
TCG Premium
Dec 18, 2010
34,175
25,505
His car he will do what he wants with it. But it's a cycle. Get car enjoy car. Mod the piss out of it. Becomes "too much" for what car was intended to do. De-mod and or sell car and start all over.

There are a million people out there faster then everyone else.

As long as you keep enjoying the car keep at it.
 

ZXMustang

Suh dude
Feb 19, 2019
2,828
6,686
His car he will do what he wants with it. But it's a cycle. Get car enjoy car. Mod the piss out of it. Becomes "too much" for what car was intended to do. De-mod and or sell car and start all over.

There are a million people out there faster then everyone else.

As long as you keep enjoying the car keep at it.
I've never done that. The only car I modded to this level or beyond was my 07 C6 back in 2007.

That car had an A&A vortech kit installed and headers. I had fun with that car until my first baby came along then sold it for the 09 GT500. Since then I haven't modded anything aside from a few small bolt-ons like CAI and catbacks and such.

I really don't need to justify anything to you guys here. I like to share the progress, but man the judgements are off the charts.

I realize that because its me, the haters are going to pop in and drop the condescending comments to try and start something. And I have most of them blocked. So I'm not really seeing those so nbd.

But for the rest, this is the normal mod path for the ZL1. I have been looking at mods for this car for months. I've called at least 4 different local and out of state shops with similar opinions.

Costs are all over the board for labor but this is what it is for me with this local trusted shop. They are going to be responsible for making all this work together correctly and I'll have a place to return to if I have issues.

God love Jeremy Satera. He was willing to help me with my ZL1 for tuning, but with the hellcat we had so many problems and him not being local to the car and being able to see/hear what it was doing, put us all at a disadvantage.

So rather than bothering him again for another remote tune, I decided to use a local shop. And prices here where the shops are busy 24/7 365 due to better weather and ability to race/drive the cars year 'round here, the prices are higher.

But the shop doing the work has 20 years working on GM performance cars. They have a fantastic reputation and their work is everywhere down here.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jimy Bilmo

ZXMustang

Suh dude
Feb 19, 2019
2,828
6,686
On another note, I think Im going to try the 305/35-20 Nitto NT555RII's on my stock 20" wheels.

I like the 17" MT ET street SS's I have on the racestars, but they are very hard to balance. I've been back twice to the shop to have them rebalanced and they re taking a lot of weight. Then I get vibs at 90+ when driving on the highway. I wanted to leave them on, but they are not smooth enough.

People say the MTs are notoriously hard to balance due to the mfr quality. I've read the NITTOs are much easier to balance. And the 555RIIs should be comparable to the ET Streeet SSs for the street at least. I would still swap on the 17's for the track. And if I run the nittos on the stock wheels, I might just remove the ET Street SSs all together and put an R on the 17's.

Thoughts on those NITTOs for the street if Im making like 630 to the tire?

1655314290428.png
 

Pro Stock John

LS is the best engine
TCG Premium
Sep 20, 2011
10,308
14,090
Chicago North Side
On another note, I think Im going to try the 305/35-20 Nitto NT555RII's on my stock 20" wheels.

I like the 17" MT ET street SS's I have on the racestars, but they are very hard to balance. I've been back twice to the shop to have them rebalanced and they re taking a lot of weight. Then I get vibs at 90+ when driving on the highway. I wanted to leave them on, but they are not smooth enough.

People say the MTs are notoriously hard to balance due to the mfr quality. I've read the NITTOs are much easier to balance. And the 555RIIs should be comparable to the ET Streeet SSs for the street at least. I would still swap on the 17's for the track. And if I run the nittos on the stock wheels, I might just remove the ET Street SSs all together and put an R on the 17's.

Thoughts on those NITTOs for the street if Im making like 630 to the tire?
They'll help a bit over stock hard tires but you know you'll only get so much help from them from a dig. Safer than stock tires though.
 

ZXMustang

Suh dude
Feb 19, 2019
2,828
6,686
So are you doing the cam now?

No not now. Thats next round of mods maybe. I might not need to do the cam and just put in a better hi side pump instead. People usually do the cam to get the benefit of more high side fuel pressure with the change in fuel lobe. But Its not written in stone that I need to do one.

I might just do the pump and injectors and whatever I need for the low side, then get a 2650 or 3.0 whipple. You dont need a cam to make big power. Then you dont need to sacrifice any drivability either.

So no not at this time and im not sure if I will. Anything past like 800 to the tire is going to be useless anyway on the street.
 

ZXMustang

Suh dude
Feb 19, 2019
2,828
6,686
I knew a guy in Louisiana I'd see at LS Fest events, Don Carter, with the A8 I think he told me he was going mid to low 10s no cam. Those cars are pretty heavy so 700rwhp might hook somewhat on a Nitto DR on the street, at least you won't just go sideways on stock tires.
Yeah I just want to be able to do low rolls if needed with the new power. The stock power is no issue for low rolls, but digs are a no-go. I can let the brilliant TC system handle the work, but pure traction is better. I went 3.3 0-60 with the DRs on a few weeks ago.
 

ZXMustang

Suh dude
Feb 19, 2019
2,828
6,686
Just got a chance to ride in a local 2018 ZL1 with similar mods, but it also had a trans tune... WOWOWOW. The TCM hits so hard and shifts like a DCT. It was night and day faster shifting and 2x harder than my stock TCM setup.

So I decided to add this on to my build. All around this is the right thing to do. The ZL1 stock TCM settings are completely locked and encrypted starting in 2020. So the only way to get around this is buy the older gen 10 speed TCM that can be tuned and swap it in.

I got this from HHP in Houston. They have all the correct parameters for the 20+ cars to be able to swap this in. Its plug and play and will allow access to the TCM so my tuner can tune both the ECM and TCM. This will easily make the car pick up real MPH in the quarter mile over what it would do without the TCM tune but all the same mods.

I'm still waiting on the parts I ordered earlier this month, and this is only two weeks out to get. So once it all shows up, the car will be going in. Man this car is going to rip.

1656619918932.png
 

ZXMustang

Suh dude
Feb 19, 2019
2,828
6,686
STILL waiting for American Racing to build and ship the headers. Should have been in by now. I have all the other parts waiting. Even got the back ordered unlocked TCM from HHP already. Hoping it makes somewhere near 650 to the tire when done. And with the trans tune it's going to be an animal fighting way above its HP weight.
 

VenomousDSG

Don't Tread On Me
TCG Premium
Apr 30, 2006
20,626
21,944
Yorkville, il
Old Thread: Hello . There have been no replies in this thread for 90 days.
Content in this thread may no longer be relevant. Consider starting a new thread to get fresh replies.

Thread Info