steve2001sh

I've found in my life that most things work unbelievably better when you have a plan. For instance, when I went to college, I sat down with the class catalogue my freshman year and decided every class that I would ever take. I graduated in 3 years, whereas most people graduated in 5 after realizing their senior year that they hadn't taken half of the required courses they needed and many of them had prerequisites. Building a car is the same way. You can do a lot of unnecessary work and spending if you don't have a plan. Why buy a cat-back if you're eventually getting true duals? Why buy ram air if you're eventually supercharging? Plenty of guys have spent more on buying the wrong parts than they did on their cars. You'll always need to experiment for best results, but obvious errors can be avoided.

The first thing that you need to do is set a goal for your car... a realistic goal. If you want the fastest LS1 ever, that's fine, just be prepared to pay more than your house, devote your life to the track, and resign that your car won't be good for anything else. I went through several phases of "Fastest NA car", "Most HP per CI moter", and so on. Ultimately, I don't want to be the best of anything (beside, I can't afford it). When you are THE best in one thing, you probably suck at about everything else. What I want is a fun car that looks good, has a high top speed, good acceleration, is comfortable, and gets decent gas milage. I'm not going to be the best at any of those or even extraordianry, just pretty good at all of them.

So, what is your goal? If you want to save yourself a lot of frustration, you need an overall design. Any experienced guy on here will tell you that bolting some random part on your car hoping for more HP is a bit naive. How many "Which header is the best?" posts do you see on here? Well, it depends on what you thing "best" means. I guess the point of all this is, do your homework. Learn what things to before you put them on your car (or worse yet, rip them off). If you're reading LS1Tech, you're off to a good start.

elderon

Well said. Let me add though that picking the wrong parts for bolt ons is usually not a big problem. There is always a market for them used. If you get a cat back and then decide to go true duals later for example, you can always take it off and sell it. But yes by all means go with a plan, but its OK to change you mind later on too!

God of Thunder

nicely put!

CaptUSA

iTrader: (5)

Another point is, that (and this mostly applies to guys like me who are driving their first big sports car) if you skipped all the steps in the middle, and went right to your goal, a couple of things are going to happen..... 1) you're not going to learn as much about your car, 2) The car will feel SOO different than you've become accustomed to, that you'll find yourself wondering if you've made a huge mistake, 3) You're going to have to get rid of some stuff, and change some things out anyway, because you didn't have the experiance to know what worked well w/ the next part, and 4) you'll NEVER have the money to skip straight to the end product, so you'll be stuck driving around a stock vehicle until it fall apart, and you buy another one to dream about forever. That's an exhample in the extreem, and I really do agree w/ the point of planning (I do the same thing), but there comes a point where it's **** or get off the pot, and you've gotta start somewhere. Just my $.02

steve2001sh

Yeah, that's true. I don't want people to think I'm saying go from stock to pro-stock in a weekend. I just mean to say that you should have a good idea of where you want to go and how to get there, even if only one part at a time. Heck, look at my sig. I've got a long way to go. I've made a few mistakes already too. HPP3 was one of them. It's a usefull product, but edit is SO much better. Good thing I got it cheap on ebay.

God of Thunder

this should be made a sticky

jrp

iTrader: (16)

great advice but will most likely fall on deaf ears.

steve2001sh

Kind of like, "We don't know how much your insurance will cost" and "SEARCH BUTTON! Use the $&#*in search button!!!" eh?

jrp

iTrader: (16)

people seem to want answers on demand and dont pay no mind to the advice, options, tech knowledge that is already present.

Ru2n00n3er

iTrader: (13)

The reason I ask questions on here, is because I'm of the opinion that the the best way to learn about a product is NOT reading about it on the manufacturer's website. There's obviously a reason why they all sound excellent in that media, they're trying to sell the product to you. People on here, if you ask them, just give you their honest opinion they don't try and force you to buy just one product because it will make them money.

Whitten

iTrader: (1)

I hear ya brother,and even if you have a plan it is always good to remind yourself of why. This is good advice for anyone that has a car project going on no matter what tactic they are taking to build it.

SMOKIN01TA

iTrader: (10)

a plan is good, but they also change. i wanted a 12 sec street car, well what happened. now in the next few months ill have a low 10 sec 90% track 10% street car. i never planed on this but stuff happens. and i rarely ever regreet it, if i do i just go for a ride.

jrp

iTrader: (16)

lol, true that. when i started out bolts and maybe a cam were going to be it. now im building a high compression forged h/c setup

Fulton 1

iTrader: (9)

Cool thread. Planning always seems to be underrated. Its not glamorous or exciting, but more times than not it makes all the difference. Project Management 101 tells us that its not at all unusual to spend 50% or more of our time in the planning phase, yet the problem is that its so hard to quantify. I think our society in general likes to see results and not be bothered with the details of how the results were gotten, but I digress...

With these cars its sometimes tough to have a good plan, just like jrp mentioned. For example, I originally bought the SS for my wife as a daily driver. I'd always wanted one and I knew that they weren't going to be around for long so we got one. My project at the time was a 1992 ZR-1. Well, it turns out that there was so much more available for the LS1, the prices for mods were much more "reasonable", and the damn thing was almost 10 years newer (not to mention the fact that GM feels its appropriate to discontinue parts for cars barely 5 years old ). So I decided that the Camaro was going to be the project and we sold the Corvette. Now that I have a revised and more clear plan I just need some more damn $$

SMOKIN01TA

iTrader: (10)

story of my life.

davered00ss

iTrader: (4)

Teh plan is Boost......................Lots & Lots of Boost.

pmh

Great thread! I'm trying to start the planning stage for my ride. The problem is, I'm not sure yet what I want to do! So, as advised already, I'm going slow and not spending my cash until I've got a better idea of what it is I'm looking for. Thanks for the advice.

PMH

Boingogod

I jut got my camaro.....i love it......im getting some really good advice......Good idea for the planning thing.....I might just be a bit high but...um.....I think my plan is getting my Z28 front end to come up off the ground like your picture........What in the world do i need to buy and install to make it do that?(might be a bit of a dream, but it doesnt hurt to ask.....)
Thank you

jrp

iTrader: (16)

you need a good rear end, clutch/stall, gears, and the proper suspension setup. there have actually been quite a bit of threads on lifting the front tires off the ground

pimpmaro

Another good idea is that when you're looking for bolt-on parts, you can get a lot of parts used that are just as good as new parts and save a bit of cash at the same time. Just my $0.02.