Hello MCF, I hope all you great taste having, big brain using, car gurus are having a wonderful day. I just got my first car the 06 MC SS 1.5 weeks ago and I plan on turbocharging it in the future. I plan on buying the $5k kit from Turbokits.com
https://www.turbokits.com/cartuning-turbo-kit.html
My car has 88k miles
My dad thinks its a bad idea because the engine is older now and thinks it cant handle it
Is this true? Should I buy a better engine in the future instead? I really love the way this car looks and have already started buying new parts to make it look sexier(new taillights in black, LED light kit, want to get projector headlights, a scooped hood, and plan on buying new front bumper and different side skirts). I want this thing to be a beast please help
What other options do I have to make it faster?
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88k on the engine is nothing. Its not so much the engine that cant handle it, its the trans. If you plan to add power to these cars, you need to upgrade the trans first. Now, I hate to say this.. The trans is probably due for a refresh unless it had been done just before you getting it. I have a very strong belief/suspicion/bias (whatever you want to call it) that people trade these cars in at the first sign of problems and your mileage is right on par with what ive seen a ton of times, including personal purchases, especially with an example, seemingly, as nice as yours. The problems usually start intermittently and happen rarely enough to not show on a test drive or even for weeks after driving the car.

Now, I dont have a crystal ball telling me your trans is bad. You could get another 100k out of it. It seems like a crap shoot with these transmissions. I say all this because if youre due for a rebuild, its the perfect time to spend the extra money on an upgrade seeing as you plan to add power.

Or, add the power now. Just plan for a catastrophic failure and have a rebuild or funds ready for when it does. Like I said, you could get lucky and your trans will hold up. I was really lucky on one of my rebuilds(not done by myself of course. I dont know anything about autos other than theyre magical disappointment between the engine and wheels). Ive been able to beat on that thing daily for the last 75k miles.

Sorry, kinda went off on a trans rant. Theres a ton of info on here about adding power and someone will surely explain more.

 

There's no basis in reality there at all. Google turbo 5.3 junkyard LS and you'll see literally mountains of posts + videos of people taking 100k, 150k, and even 200k+ engines and pushing 800++ whp through them. Id venture to say the 5.3 LS has had this done the most out of literally any engine out there today. 88k miles is absolutely no concern for making good power reliably.

There's certainly prep to make them last longer at the high power end, but most people with this specific turbo kit are doing 600 wheel or less- nowhere near pushing the engine to the ragged edge.


I will say performance aside, the AFM / cylinder deactivation can be problematic, even stock. As above, plenty of examples of failures out there across LS engines. Proactively deleting it may be something to consider.

There is no better (or ANY other) engine in this case. The LS4 is a unique casting to the FWD application (the bell housing connection being the biggest difference). So its not like RWD where you've got options for different OEM and aftermarket blocks.

It certainly can be built to hold more power if you're going nuts with it, but you'll be tearing up transmissions long before you reach this point- something the RWD crowd doesn't have to worry about with the plethora of options.

IMO if a turbo is the plan, go 100% all in on that. Its a (relatively) low displacement, low compression NA engine, so its not super cost effective per hp to do NA mods. Theres certainly stuff out there - intake manifolds, headers, heads, cam, etc - but you'll quickly close in on the cost of the turbo for only a fraction of the HP.

If a turbo ever falls off the table as an option completely, we can certainly suggest the best of NA mods. But if a turbo is the goal, I wouldnt waste a penny on anything else. The turbo alone will make all the power you could want with no other mods and without tearing apart the engine.


Whtmonte hits on an absolutely critical point though - the transmisison. Stock 4t65s struggle even with modded 3800 v6s, much less a v8. Plenty of stock LS4s, myself included at only 50k miles, had transmission issues even when taken care of. You're talking about literally doubling the torque of a LS4 with a turbo - IMO its a recipe for disaster long term, especially if you actually use the power. The transmission could already be on its last leg from stock power as it is.

There are options through tripleedgeperformance for a build, but the high end parts to truly hold that power level are long discontinued. Some folks swap to a different/ stronger transmission, but that's got its own quirks.

Lots of research to do there if youre serious. Id just hate for you to dump $5k on a turbo only to have it puke the transmission all over the ground in a week and require a surprise $5k to get your (now) paperweight up and running again.

As noted, there are certainly people at those power levels that get lucky. But IMO there's two reasons for that:

-Shear luck. Some get a favorable end of tolerance stack up, some don't - but its a total roll of the dice. There are equally as many threads of destroyed transmissions sub 300 whp as there are threads of people 500+ with no issues.

-Usage. I think a bigger part of whether it survives or not is how its used. Someone actually going WOT regularly and using sticky tires is going to tear up transmissions far quicker. There are plenty of people who do a build, make a glory pull on a dyno, and then park the car in the garage for Sunday cruises. Sure its a "500whp" car, but if it hasn't seen a WOT pull in 3 years, its a bit disingenuous to claim the transmission is holding up fine (seen that numerous times on the LS1tech LS4 board). Despite lots of these LS4 turbo kits sold, theres a surprising lack of real track videos/ times like the 3800s used to have - so Id take it with a grain of salt if anyone tries telling you this thing is going to live long term on a stock transmission at 500+ wheel.