Just wondering what mods helped the best with the 2nd gear bog our cars tend to have? Would be nice to have good pull through 2nd gear to 100MPH. Seems like 2nd gear at 45-50 ish I'm pulling a jetliner, staying 1st through redline to 55ish helps but 2nd still seems like a dog until you get up top.

Just curious to know what mods have made a noticeable difference in this area

 

nitrous

 

3.69 gears, nitrous, turbo, stuff like that. 6 speed would help loads as well, even a 5...

 

1. A lower final drive ratio. 2.93's are horrible and with my setup it's even worse. I shift into 3rd at 110-111mph or 6500RPM
2. Intake manifold swap LS1/LS6
3. 1.8 rockers
4. Full exhaust. Hogan DP and Magnaflow or custom exhaust
5. CAI (this should be done at time of intake swap. If not then stay in order

Tuning should be done after each upgrade in order to reach max performance. If you were to do only one mod then I'd go with a Diablew tune.

 

A six speed would defiantly help just would some one would hook us up already.

 

Kind of working backwards on that list right now to be honest, just based on $ available, K&N Intake went in first, car has been Overkill mail tuned with some local dyno tuning as well. Custom exhaust is next combined with the Hogan DP7S. After that probably the rockers/LS1 intake, unless LS6 can make more power with the rockers?. Exhaust wise if I go custom what do you recommend? I honestly like the stock GXP sound, not a fan of the Magnaflow, don't really want it too loud or drone riddin'.

Numbers are like 240/266 right now, car sounds and drives much better, numbers not really where I want but I guess the track tells all. I've yet to get it out there.

And oh yeah I did fail to catch a 10 or 11' Honda Accord V6 6MT from behind at a light today, I was right behind her. She was all giddy and jumped hard from the light for some reason and I got on it a little late, thought I would jump to the side and play for a bit....not so much. I didn't even close any part of the 2-3 car gap, she stayed the original 2-3 lengths in front the entire time, got to near the top of 2nd and realized it was pointless and that I shouldn't be going 15 over. So this was my rationale for hating 2nd gear, I got killed by a woman driving her new zippy foreign toy. I felt better after reading the specs...0-60 under 6, quarter mile around 14.3, heard high 13s but I don't believe that. Still thought I would do better since I'm at least tuned/intake. Whatever, now I have justification for blowing my next paycheck on mods.

 

Between my Lew tune and item #4 on David's list, I have NO 2nd gear bog anymore, and my car is not even close to being heavily modded.

I think the exhaust made just as much of a differnce as the tune, FWIW.

 

LS6 Intake is a wise investment and will support future mods nicely if the bucks allow. LS6 intakes range from 300-350 shipped. LS1 intakes range from 50-75 shipped and sometimes cheaper. The LS1 intake will give you 15whp and 25lb-ft across the power band so this is why I suggest it.
Intake swap is expensive though.. So start collecting parts when the bucks allow.
Both intakes will want more valve lift.

For exhaust, the Hogan DP will work just fine with any 2.5" exhaust. I love the sound of my Magnaflows. I wasn't a big fan of their sound when running the Magnaflow resonator. You can find the Magnaflow kit for less then 550 shipped if you shop around.
You said you don't like Magnaflow so I'll let it be... It's the easiest solution though, and it's bolt-on.
Run whatever mufflers you want. Just make sure your piping is no smaller then 2.5" and everything is mandrell bent.

Another option would be to have Curtis@Hogan weld on a 3" flange instead of
the std. 2.5" and then run 3" up to the first curve. Have a E-cut out installed. This will provide you with super flow for super cheap, with a factory sound when desired.

I would like to hear some Edelbrock SCT mufflers. So if you decide to go ***** out and wanna go custom them go single 3" into dual 2.5"

Keep in mind that exhaust won't net big gains with that lowlift cam and bottle neck intake.


As for losing.. that's just the way it goes man.. You win some and lose some.
Stockish LS4's aren't all that fast but they have a lot of potential.
Those V6's have 24V and probably have VVT so they have a lot of power band with much better gearing. The 2.93s with OD is really lame in these cars, after first gear LS4's become such dogs. Not to mention we have heavy *** cars. I'm 3865 race weight.


Will at overkill did re-adjust your 2-3rd shift points right? If not, then your trans is shifting around 5200-5400 if my memory serves me correct.

 

What bog?

 

You have the third thing I mentioned.

 

David, I am in the process of purchasing a LS1 Intake. Is there any dyne sheets to prove this install. I am hoping to do the install and have the car tuned by the guy that came to the Michigan Meet. (I cant recall his name dammit). What is someone looking at as far as gains with the LS1 Intake , and tune?

I have my res removed as well, but I doubt that does anything. You can PM if you would like but I figured someone might gain something from this question.

 

I put down 277/300 with the ls1 intake, rockers, hogan dp, and magnaflow exhaust with lew tune.
Car was running like crap and i later found out that one of my injector adapters was lose.
Intake is worth about 15whp and 25lb-ft across the band.

Someone else made 315whp with the ls6 intake and 1.8 rockers. I had the injector unplugged so i would expect 5hp less at peak.
My car deveoped a real bad lifter tick so i decided to go with my current setup.
Im telling you.... Ls1 intake with rockers is a tq beast down low.

 

I appreciate the input Dave, I'll be getting the LS1 Intake sometime in the next few weeks. In the mean time the car is going back on the dyno Friday. Curious to know if everyone here runs 91/93? I'm up at about 4500 ft, 91 is the highest octane at this altitude, I believe there is 89, Chevron has 88, then 87 and 85. I've heard that with intake/exhaust setup you can run 89 at sea level and get full performance, in fact if you can drop an octane level and there isn't knock you should get slightly more power. Can you really make more power at lower octane and less timing than at 91 with more timing? I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this, I've always thought higher octane = more power potential.

 

Always run the highest octane you can get. These cars run a lot of time for performance and mileage purposes, and they tend to knock even with 91 octane. I would NEVER run 89 or less UNLESS you have a custom tuned designed for low-octane fuel. Yes, altitude reduces octane requirement SLIGHTLY, but not enough to make a difference in our cars. I know...I live at 5600 feet and my car used to knock on 91 octane on the stock tune.

To answer your question about more power out of less octane, no, lower octane fuel does not contain anymore energy than high octane fuel, and this you won't see a difference in power. Now, if a motor is designed to run on 87 octane, you won't see ANY benefit by running 91. Conversely, YOU WILL lose power if you run 87 in a motor tuned/designed for 91. The reason is, the PCM will hear knock and pull timing. Spark advance = power & MPG. You reduce the spark advance, you lose both. In an LS4 car, it seems to be especially acute. I monitor knock retard in my car 100% of the time, and I can tell you that, with the stock tune, I get a ton of KR using even the best available 91 octane. It's scary bad when running 87, which is why I didn't. I now have a custom tune that eliminates 98% of the knock with 91, but I still wouldn't even THINK of running anything less than that.

As a side note, I had Lew make me an 87 octane tune. When running it, the car didn't knock on 87, and was still quite a bit faster than a stock LS4, but it was nothing compared to when I flashed back to the 91 octane Lew tune. I probably picked up AT LEAST 25 hp/25 lb-ft by going back to the 91 tune and using the appropriate fuel.

Bottom line is, this is a performance car. Use the best gas you can or get a lower octane tune.

 

Great post!

 

Great info here, I once seen a fuel comparison chart that mapped octane level against energy output (watts/gram/sec) for different brand fuels. From what I remember there were some significant differences between energy output across brands for the same octane level. Would be nice to find that again. I use Chevron 91 as it is now, I like the techron additives.

 

Chevron is great gas. I use Texeco but it's owned by Chevron so go figure.
Stick with what the factory recommends as posted above.

What is the reasoning for gettig getting dyno tuned again?

 

Curious to know do you really need to add all of the components listed in the LS1/LS6 sticky swap. Do I really need the LS6 rails and injectors? What's the minimum I can get away with to do this mod?

 

You can try to adapt the stock injectors and fuel rail, and build your own tb adapter. It's a lot of work.

I tried too use as many bolt-on/direct fit parts as possible, for my build.

 

I went from 13.45 to a 13.19 with the intake/CAI swap. Retuned of course...