I've recently obtained a 2006 monte carlo ss 5,3L v8. Man this is one of my dream cars. My question is what can I do to make her faster without breaking the bank? Any suggestions are welcome.

 

John, what is your definition of "faster"? Are you talking overall faster, as in top end speed? Or Quicker, as in 0 - 60 times?

Generally, it is usually one or the other. To make something quicker, you generally give up some top end speed. To gain top end speed, you normally give up some of the quickness.

Of course, there is exceptions but it takes a lot of money to gain in both area.

 

What is your budget and what are your goals? The question is too vague as everyone has a different opinion on mod budget.

IMO, the easy option for a lot of power is the Cartuning turbo kit. Fairly easy bolt on to basically double power. Granted it's also $5500, so that may or may not be in budget.

Next best bang for the buck down the cost chain would be a cam. Labor is certainly much worse, but you could also be done for less than 1/4 the cost of the turbo kit. Power is certainly nowhere near a turbo either, but LS engines in general are very responsive to a cam.

If your budget is below that, it certainly gets a bit more tricky as you're getting into bolt ons that have substantially less power gains. I'd probably look into an intake manifold swap, or nitrous at that point.

The big thing to keep in mind is the junk trans. They dont survive under stock power, so when you start modding, longevity gets worse. They're also very expensive to mod, especially for a hardcore build. And the biggest trans company in the game (triple edge) is exiting the market very soon which will certainly be worse for everyone.

Really confused what you're talking about here. It sounds like you're talking about changing 'rear end' gear ratio in an old school car.

Curious what power adding mods you're talking about that only improve one or the other?

Every typical mod I know of helps both (assuming you've got tires that can hook and the pcm limiter removed).

 

bumpin96, most MODS will have both a negative and positive impact. Take CAMS. Get a bigger bumpily CAM which increase volume, you will get power on the top end (speed) but lose bottom end power (quickness). Same can be said with most other MODS. Bigger valves and intake. More volume giving more top end (speed) but you lose bottom end. It is a matter of Volume vs Velocity. More Volume = top end speed, more Velocity = bottom end quickness. Granted, this is at the extreme levels.

What one needs to find is that middle ground. Your CAMS, Intake, Heads, Exhaust (Header) need to work together. If you go extreme on one and not the others, you will hurt your overall performance. Think Talladega vs Martinsville. Talladega, you build to get the most volume thru the engine as RPMs do not change much. Martinsville, you need acceleration which means getting the fuel as fast as possible (Velocity).

My biggest compliant with the FWD cars is the inability to change gearing. The gearing is a major factor in the above formula. You design an engine to be most efficient within specific RPMs. Whether total flat out at higher RPMs (speed) or for acceleration (quickness). It is the gearing that allows you to make the most of the design within selected RPMs. Without being able to alter the gearing, you are STUCK with limited parameters. Yes, you can MOD the car within those parameters and achieve improvement (however you define improvement) but you are still very limited with a FWD vehicle. Again, just my opinion. And yes, I am "old school" with the gray hair and scars to prove it.

 

You're confusing two concepts here. You're talking about the part of the rpm range where the engine makes power. That's not directly relevant to acceleration or top speed as they both occur at high rpm. Bottom end power is irrelevant to either performance figure because you're not going to be at the bottom end of the rpm range while accelerating at WOT or while doing a top speed run.

Also, a big cam doesnt cause a car to lose acceleration / quickness. Someone lugging the engine down the drag strip shifting at 2500 rpm is doing it wrong. A crazy huge cam like you suggest would be paired with a higher stall converter to keep the engine in the powerband when accelerating.

I'm still confused as to what other power adding mods are going to cause the car to accelerate more slowly while gaining top speed or vice versa.

You're way over complicating this IMO. We're not talking about building an all out NASCAR engine here, the OP is asking how to make his stock LS4 quicker / faster (or both?) with basic mods. Likely it's the former as most Wbody people aren't doing 1/2 mile+ events to even care about the top speed.

As long as he's buying typical LS mod stuff, he'll be fine. The only stuff that's going too be too big for drivability as you suggest are the crazy expensive race parts- hand made intakes, very expensive aftermarket heads, etc.

You can change the equivalent of the rear end gear, it's not impossible - it's just more limited due to size constraints of the trans case. There are options from high 2s to mid 3s (without going custom - up to 4.0 has been done) which IMO is plenty for this platform. You cant really go any higher due to traction limitations anyways on a big power setup (the kind that would be building the trans / changing the chain & sprockets anyways).

I'm just saying if the current options are good enough to put a 3800 in the 8s in addition to the 7 second runs the Ecotec drag cars were doing with them, then its plenty fine for the average street car. Being able to handle more top speed would be nice, but that's not as much a problem with gear ratio as it is with our garbage 4th gear setup.