gradymayhem

Hey all, bought a sweet teal '92 camaro ( I already gave myself a mullet, seriously) that will be getting an ls with a turbo and 4l80 in the future. Basically gonna be following Matt Happel's (Denmah's) sloppy guide to make some cheap power. My question is how much power is 'streetable'? Not looking to to set any records or have a car that's a pain to drive on the road, I just want a fast trailer park hotrod that can **** on fancy BMWs and vettes with the t tops down and Skid Row blaring as my old lady's teased up platinum blonde hair blows in the wind.

Coming from the diesel truck world, 600-700 hp isn't much but I figure in a car this light, it'd move. How far can I go before it just becomes a major pain to drive conservatively on the road?

bammax

In reality 400hp is plenty for most people. 500 will keep you up with most of the modern pony cars. It's more about having the guts to use the power than having lots of power.

SouthernRex

600-700HP in most cars will kill a lot of inexperienced drivers. Assuming the car is set up for all that power, not a lot of people can control that kind of torque and peak power output in something that light. Look up the statistics of how many Lamborghinis are wrecked within 48 hours of being bought. With the LS1 in my TransAm, just adding headers and a little bit of weight reduction was enough to spin loose new rear tires at 40MPH with TCS off. Power to weight is everything. That's why those Japanese sport bikes are psychotically fast compared to cars, despite being 1/5th the displacement.

gradymayhem

Yeah, those bikes are scary machines. Lot of guys who don't have much experience riding seem to be drawn to the 1000+ cc monsters and end up dead. Not looking to be that guy.

gradymayhem

Yeah, that's a good point. My main concern is keeping 500+ planted and not just going up in smoke.

bammax

I'm getting some wheel spin pulling out into traffic and that's just with exhaust, emissions delete and a tune on a high mile LS1. You really need to get some good grippy tires on these cars if you want them to move instead of just making noise and tire smoke.
I'd suggest you do the engine swap and see how it feels and then start doing the mods. If you do it all at once you may end up going beyond what you're actually comfortable with. Scary fast is fun once in a while but if it's a driver that'll be stuck in traffic on a regular basis you'll want to keep the driving manners more than the extra hundred horses.

gradymayhem

That's the plan. Get it in stock NA and get all the quirks worked out before slowly adding power. Will be a summer cruiser that will almost never see traffic, never commute to work, never hit the interstate. That being said our area is quickly turning into awful suburbia hell so who knows how much traffic will be around in 2-3 years. Better err on the side of caution I guess.

bammax

I'm in central Florida and the development is crazy. Roads that were easy cruises a couple years ago now have lines of traffic because of new shopping plazas with no dedicated turning lanes. If someone ahead puts on a left turn signal it adds 2 minutes to the commute. I've been taking back roads more and realized I can run all my errands and get back home without ever hitting 2k rpm. That has totally changed my build plans.

Utinator

You should look into the 5.3L LS engines with a single turbo. They can make serious power, if you want it. Once you have the turbo kit, you can basically make as much power as you want. You can keep turning it up until you're happy. For this kind of set-up, 500hp would be about ideal. You can easily achieve that with a little boost, and still have a safe/reliable car.

For a "budget" build, the 5.3 w/turbo is hard to beat.