chipenstein

I'm buying a 6 speed, LS6 car (curb weight 3,850 lbs.) out of state, and it's been modded professionally. AFR 205 heads, cam, lt headers, free flowing cats and exhaust, underdrive pulleys, tune. Here's the dyno run with the stock setup (340.6 rwhp, 338.6 rwtq) compared to the "after the mods with a custom grind cam" (420.6 rwhp, 399.5 rwtq), then another larger custom grind cam and 1.8 roller rockers was put in the car (437 rwhp, 395 rwtq) and I've inexpertly copied over that larger cam's dyno graph onto the original one for direct comparison sake. I used a ball point pen and it should be relatively obvious which one is the bigger cam.

This car will be my DD but I'll "enjoy it" occasionally. My question is regarding the difference in the character of the car with the larger cam vs. the original custom grind (not the stock LS6 grind). It seems to me that the larger cam isn't doing a whole heck of a lot for the car. It makes more horses after 5500 rpm, but gives up a boat load of low-end torque in the process. I hear talk about "area under the curve" and it seems like the 1st custom grind just puts up overall better numbers, but maybe I'm wrong? Somebody enlighten me here. Maybe the larger cam is ok because I'll stay in the powerband most of the time I'm accelerating?

Another question I have is the car has a ported ls6 intake and tb. Will going to a fast 90 intake and tb give me back some of the torque that was lost as well as provide some nice hp gains? Opinions?