Hey..
I've finally saved up enough money for a car, a real one now. I have a job with little other expenses so a lot of the money will go straight to mods.

After looking at all types, import included, and I think I've settled on a 4th gen Trans Am WS6, black, red, or silver.

I know there is a huge aftermarket for LS1's, and I know I'm intent on modifying mine over the next 2 years extensively.

I want to do all NA modifications myself, and then let a shop configure and tune any turbo setup I do, just to make sure its done 100% correct.

I have some general questions and I have some FI specific questions to ask...

First, general questions...
[1] - How much power will be extracted from simple bolt ons, such as exhaust, cai, and a chip upgrade?
[2] - How much power will the stock auto tranny hold, and what about the 6-speed?
[3] - How much power will the rearend be able to deal with with drag radials?
[4] - How many miles can people put on these things? General reliability is great, right? It is a GM V8.
[5] - How light can you get a transam without any crazy modifications, just maybe no rear seat, light weight front seats, and other moderate modifications.
[6] - For those in cali...how hard is it to get a free-pass from emissions? Is it common? If you want to stay legal how much power will you be sacraficing, and is it possible to be emission legal with a turbo?
[7] - How much is a beefier rearend to handle a lot of power? Difficulty to install is high or low?

Forced Induction...I know this is really advanced and will net some crazy horsepower numbers, and thus I will not be doing this for another year and a half to my car, however, I would like some questions answered.

[1] - What NA modifications should be done before installing a turbo kit that will make 900-1100 horsepower? What kind of power will those mods get you before going forced induction?
[2] - http://www.proturbokits.com/store/s...p?idproduct=196
Is that a good turbo kit? With the correct turbo, 800 rwhp should be perfectly attainable?

I know people spend a long time chasing such high numbers, and for me to just toss them out there may make me seem ignorant, but I just want to learn a little, as it seems if a 3 liter i6 (supra) can make 1,500+ rwhp, a turbo'd LS1 should have no problem with 800-900.

Thanks!

Also, what sites are there that deal with Fbody parts? Let me know the good ones. Thanks

This car is going to be a street car but also tear up the strip, idealy.

Edit: I know some of these questions have been answered before, so please just spend 5 seconds typing what you already know instead of making me spend 5 hours finding it all out myself.

I'm not lazy, but I've done hunting like this before for tons of other cars and I just want to know the basics real quick.. Thanks!

 

um if your planning on going FI, dont go crazy with N/A mods. Basically you can't keep any of those N/A mods when you go FI. Just start buying FI stuff, it will save you money in the long run.

Things to buy:
Low compression (Lq9/4) heads (aka 6.0l truck heads)
fuel (intank pump, injectors, lines, rails)
forged bottom end

then you need to figure out what kit, and its called a kit for a reason. so you will get the header, fmic, etc. so no need to buy long tubes or anything that you will just have to sell later.

 

So basically just upgrade exhaust then the kit?

 

Don't know too much about the suspension side on your cars so you have to do your homework there... getting the car to hook is very important. However, as far as building the engine is concerned, seems like a few people on here that recently started their buildup spent every waking hour on the board for a few weeks, did their homework, planned out a reasonable set of parts to get them where they wanted to be performance wise, and then started ordering. I would do the same. It'll save you some expensive "oh ****, why did I buy that?"'s later.

If you're going to build for FI and try to get some serious numbers, it has to be FI from the begining. Low compression will be pretty much necessary... are you trying to go supercharger or turbo?

 

turbo turbo turbo...seems bigger numbers are easier to achieve.

What are the top LS1's making in power, and how much money ?

How far will 6-8k get you in mods?