I wanted to know some of your thoughts on my goal of getting 300 horsepower at the wheels with a budget of $5000 american dollars. Is it a realistic goal? I already bought the car with a Nismo cold air intake and I already have a Z1 Plenum spacer that i've been too busy to install yet but i'm going to take a wild guess that my car will dyno around 250rwhp once I get the plenum on and then head for my 300rwhp goal. Is that a reasonable goal? Thoughts, opinions, .02 cents.

 

Im pretty sure that they come stock with somewhere close to 287hp. So you shouldn't be to far off as it is.

 

From the factory they measure that at the crank so some power gets lost by the time it reaches the ground which is why some stock Z's are putting up around 250whp on dynos. I know i'm close to 300 horsepower at the crank but I want 300 at the wheels.

 

278 is the hp at the crank your more like 230ish at the wheels 290 is a much more realistic number to be honest that extra 10 is going to be hard to get unless you have one of those high hp cars from the factory, but I would go with full exhaust from long tube headers back, ppe makes a set for 1000 roughly then work on air mods such as plenum and spacer maybe if your mechanical at all I would throw a set of cams in if on a budget tomei 264 you can get a set for 880 and they don't require new springs or shims or anything since the lift is less than 11mm but if you can't install them then don't when go down that road just buy a supercharger, install for cams will be around 1500 and even with all this you still need a tuning solution which would be uprev it will cost about 700 for the tuner version then dyno time

 

only way to get that type of power out of a DE, that ive noticed, forced induction or nitrous. but 500whp will be more like 580 crank and that will blow apart your con rods, so for 5000? i HIGHLY doubt it, unless you get an insane deal on a used turbo kit, then do all labour yourself and buy some forged internals and run like 14-16psi

 

sorry, i read 500rwhp for some reason :S 300? used turbo/supercharger would be easiest, probably find one on here for like 4k-ish

 

oh. Well thanks now I know. I thought they said it was whp. My bad

 

300WHP?.... 5000.00 dollars?.... probably not
depending on what year Z33 your talking about,... Maybe,...Maybe with an HR, but still unlikley. You figure, full intake/exhaust/ tuning and depending on what Dyno is doing the measuring I'd say maybe 8-9k$

 

Definatly wouldn't be 8 or 9 k

You could definatly do a budget build for 5ish

My friend with a 04 z put 286 down with test pipes, plenum spacer intake exhaust at s&r in tampa but then again I'm not sure what dyno they use

 

I would install cams for a lot less than $1500. its pretty easy

 

with a de you could probably see 290whp with cams, all bolt ons, and a tune. with an hr, you could see like 310whp with cams, full bolt ons, and a tune.. stock de's usually dyno around 240whp

 

For 5k I would just go with a Nitrous Kit and get to 300whp real quick! Staying N/A you will have to do Cams and LT Headers which are insane in labor for the minimal power you get.

75 shot of nitrous will get you 50-60 whp, Motordyne TDX, ART Pipes, tune and clutch will get you what you want. Plenty of kits out there that are safe and easy to install. Thats about 3.6k in parts and still 1.4k left for labor and extra parts like, a/f shut off, a/f gauge, pressure gauge, bottle warmer, ect.

If you can stretch that 5k to 6k used supercharger would be better to give you some room for extra parts that may be needed and install.

 

FI would be the easy way , not easy on a $5k budget. I would suggest a Stillen SC with your budget

 

I would save for boost

 

Godspeed turbo kit $1700(hate all you want, he has a budget)
Turbo xs tuner $300
Wideband with gauge $200
3psi wastegate spring $20
440cc injectors $200
Replica exhaust $300
Welding $400/might need modifications to piping

$3000 total. Install yourself free.
tune yourself free or pay someone $600ish+

 

IMO if you're spending $5k on performance mods for this car you better be going FI. Anything else would be a waste.

 

Agreed ^

Save for boost and im sure you'll surpass 300rwhp

 

Boost is the only way your going to get 300whp on an 03, unless someone gets creative on the dyno, lol.

And I would highly recommend NOT doing it if you're on a budget unless you can afford to walk away from the car.

with bolt-ons and a tune 260-270 is do-able.

 

This guys knows the secrets

 

I will not do a Nitrous Kit and don't really want to go the FI route in fear that the reliability of my car will be reduced but, i'll be in favor of a supercharger over a turbo if I can't reach my 300whp goal with regular bolt ons, and i'll pay a little higher than 5k if I have to. Our cars are basically at their maximum performance from the factory, I like it and hate it at the same time because from what you guys are saying you can't really see much gains without FI or dishing out tons of dough.