Turbocharged 5.3 Makes 572 HP In Third-Gen Camaro

Healthy-sounding, low-buck combination puts down big number on Sloppy Mechanics’ dyno.

“Third-generation Camaro.” That phrase may as well be said with “burnout machine,” even with a weary stock 305 in it .However, this third-gen belonging to “Alan” is a bit more lively than a 305 for rubber-to-smoke alchemy. He recently took his twin-turbo, 5.3-powered Camaro to the Sloppy Mechanics’ dyno to see just how monstrously capable this street machine is. The answer: Let’s smoke those rears.

The twin GT45 turbo setup on the 5.3-liter made pulls at six, nine, and 12 psi of boost. Before running out of fuel on the final 12-pound run, the power peaked at 572 HP and 451 ft.-lb. Of torque. Not only will it annihilate the rear rubber, it will do so with a sonorous exhaust note. The lower-boost pulls were no less impressive. At six pounds, the combination made 448 HP and 467 ft.-lb., while the nine-pound pull ran 494/436.

The combination is making some serious power for a low-buck setup. In addition to the CX Racing GT45 turbos, the stock third-generation 5.3-liter V8 has only an LS9 cam with microsquirt fuel injection and decapped truck injectors—a Sloppy Mechanics specialty you can find more on here—fed by a Bosch 044 inline fuel pump. That all puts the power to a TH400 automatic transmission with a TCI converter.

This is not altogether surprising, since LS1Tech moderator and Sloppy Mechanics tuner Denmah more or less wrote the book—or at least the Wiki—on squeezing big power for cheap from LS setups and even developed a GT45 swap kit that you can buy to liven up a junkyard truck engine. If you have an inkling in your brain to build a turbo car, you’d do well to check out Denmah’s commonly used turbo-swap parts list here on LS1 Tech for some pointers.

In the meantime, we’ll keep an eye out for Alan putting that boosted third-gen to work.