Hey Guys,

I've got a friend who owns a 2003 Monte Carlo SS - and he wants 400whp. I'm more of a diesel kinda guy (hince the screen name), and have turned to ya'll for help. A complete drop in/bolt on kit would be ideal.

ZZP has their Z7 Turbo Kit on sale for $3k. He'll need an intercooler and injectors, so we figure about $4,200 and he's good.

Cartuning has their Turbo Kit on sale for $3,700 currently. However their kit doesn't come with an upraded exhaust manifold/performance headers - so that'll probably put us in the same neighborhood of about $4,200.

The ZZP kit's turbo is a Precision 62mm turbo, while the Cartuning kit's turbo is a 61mm turbo. I believe both have billet compressor wheels, so turbo lag would be at a minimum (I assume) with the 42lbs injectors that we'll be using. I'm not familiar with this power platform, so any additional information such as supporting mods would be good to know; how much power can the stock tranny hold without having to do some upgrading? That kinda thing...

Any advice/info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks fellas!

Chris

 

Hello welcome to the forum As far as what kit to use, we have a member here running the CarTuning kit and he lays down some stupid insane power. To me his kit performs exceptionally well. CarTunings Stainless Steel exhaust manifolds are by far the best, they have people putting over 600 hp through them. ZZP's is only able to support 300hp. My ZZP' came apart and now I have to replace my turbo from parts getting blown through the exhaust side of the turbo. I'm now using CarTunings manifolds.

 

I have a Cartuning kit and love it. No turbo kit alone will make 400whp safely without more exhaust work, cutout, rockers or cam and most import and a built trans.

BTW it would be fwhp not rwhp

 

Thanks Greg! Yeah, I saw your thread where that happened. Sorry to hear about that. Looks like you've got your eyes set on some pretty impressive numbers. Your new turbo, is that a 73mm???

Also, what is the L26 UIM you were talking about? Is that the Upper Intake Manifold from an L26, or am I way off?

Wow, can't believe I made that mistake. Haha! Good call, and good eye. I keep forgetting that these cars are FWD.

So... how much power could my buddy put down with the Cartuning kit linked above? His car is bone stock, and I believe he has around 90k miles on it. As I've stated, I know absolutely nothing about this platform. I think he's just caught the horsepower bug from me with all of my diesel club stuff going on.

Which reminds me, we're going to dyno his car before the turbo swap. The dyno will be done at PHP in Winder, GA. It's a loaded mustang dyno, and the numbers have been backed up with track times - so we know it's a pretty accurate dyno. What do these cars weigh and how much stock FWHP do they put down? Just need to make sure we've got a healthy engine we're working with first.

What transmission upgrades need to be done in order to keep it healthy and reliable with his goal of 400 hp?

 

I'm still new to the whole tuning (and almost clueless on turbo's) but I do know that the transmissions do need some sort of tune just before or around 300fwhp. Poor thing can't handle much even with a slightly modded l67.(thats from what I'm told.. I'm not even going to touch a smaller pulley until I tune the transmission) Even if that transmission is in good condition, its smart to work on it as well for safety.