ok, called vortech, and oil change does not involve taking out blower. but i probably need to have a jack, and should take no more than 5 min.

so i'll just take it to the shop and have them change it for me..

so back to vortech (v3) or v2 vs HKS... i think i'm leaning towards v3 tuner kit w/ the mods you guys mentioned. it seems that I have to pay 7k for the basic HKS with will give me 300 hp on the wheel. too much money for that little gain

i'm hoping the extra hp from the 3.12 pulley will not put too much strain on the stock engine..

or on the blower.

too bad GTM is charging all that for their HKS kits. if they were about 1-2 k cheaper, i would consider them more.

lastly, i don't understand why a more expensive HKS (ie, stage 2 or 3) that produces same HP as a V3 tuner kit w/ above mods would be safer, as the engine sees the same force.

 

I just seen Chefj's installed V3 yesterday. Oil changes should be easy. It is a better design then Procharger's. The V3 has a drain at the bottom. You would need a jack to get to it but that's just because our cars sit so low to the ground.

 

theres a little jack in the trunk of ur car if u don't have a floor jack....the vortech with 3.12 pulley is fine on the blower and the engine....ur not gonna make more than 400whp most likely give or take a few hp maybe on a generous dyno..vortech tuner kit,3.12 pulley, DW 600cc injectors, walbro 255 in tank pump, utec tune is the way to go imo...

 

Don't get me wrong. To be honest with you, do not go FI. If you don't even want to change an oil on blower, how you going to take care FI car with other problems you will have??

And about money, i defi understand about 1~2K. But once you get into FI spend 1 ~2 K is nothing.


Btw, Change an oil on blower will takes more then 5 mins.

chefj

 

i wouldn't mind changing the oil. i was originally under the impression that i had to actually take the blower out to change, which i will def not do myself. i wouldn't mind putting a jack and change oil if that's all, but again i want to make sure i'm doing everything right. i was planning on having the shop just change both the engine oil and the sc oil while the car was on the jack.

i agree, i assumed the guy was talking out of his a#% when he said 5 min. i would assume something like 30-60 min from beginning to end.


regarding vortech 3, another shop said that if i'm concerned about safety / carb emissions (i'm in cali and you know how it goes here w/ the cops), then i should stick w/ the base vortech model and modify header / exhaust...

i already have aps exhaust w/ 3" custom pipe, but he recommended geting a dual pipe and header. not sure how much that will help. maybe it'll even hurt, wouldn't the car bottom out at some point if you have too little back pressure. i think i read that somewhere, have to double check.

chef-j, i've heard plenty of good things about you, are you in cali also?

 

if you are in cali, then your only legal option is the vortech. oil changes are a breeze. install is easy (the single turbo turbonetics is actually easier though). gas milage will really get reduced bc you are running a constant parasitic load on your engine. but that shouldnt even matter as gas is cheap.

you'll be happy with the vortech until you ride in a car with 350 ft lbs of torque at 2800 rpms instead of 5000 rpms.

 

thanks for torturing your poor cali fellow z owners. i think TN would be ideal but if i get pulled over, then it's pain pain pain

ps, anyone know where i can get a great deal on vortech v3?

 

Oh that's nice.
No i'm not in cali. But changing oil isn't really hard, because oil is only 4oz? really small bottle.

You are right, 3" will hurt your performance if you go S/C.
I'm almost finish my vortech, now i think of...how much i spend for my vortech..i could gone with TT turn key setup. But no regret here.

The shop you've talking to about FI, they are great shop ( the one HKS recommand). I'm not just sayin because they are really famous on this forum, i'm saying from my personal experience.

Keep in mine tho, FI will kill your bank account for sure. More power = more money, less power = less money. Whatever you decide, end of day you are going to drive and you are going to deal with any problems.

Edit: If you don't want to go thru all that in cali, go with vortech or HKS. If i had enough money and if i had to choose between HKS and vortech, i will choose HKS.

chefj

 

just a side note, i had no idea that the big vortech's were really this big. no wonder those mustang guys can make soo much hp

 

dude if u just get a complete vortech v3 kit, get a 2.5 inch cat back and 2.5 inch high flows and get a tune u will make at least 350whp...thats all u are looking for and u don't even have to get injectors or anything...just bolt the kit on and an exhaust and plenum spacer and get a retune of the ss box and ur good..or even go with the 3.12 pulley like i did, im still on stock injectors and at 394whp on a complete vortech kit and exhaust and spacer with a retune of the ss box, but like i said just stay with the stock 3.33 pulley if thats what ur looking for and worried about carb in cali. u will be happy trust me on that...for ur power goals i wouldn't bother with the headers for the sake of what u will pay someone to install them and u don't need them for the gain u have stated

 

damn

 

ok, so either way, i'll get a spacer (thinking 5/16th MD). Also I'll just keep my APS exhaust. Leaning towards the stock V3.

For future, is it hard to change the 3.33 pulley w/ 3.12 pulley?

easy to tune that ss box?

is that really all I need to do for the 3.12 pulley? i've heard counter to that but maybe there were for the next down pulley.

wonder how savy cops are in figuring out what kind of pulley is in the car and how they would know exactly if the car is carb legal.

 

yeah i have the motordyne 5/16 iso plenum spacer...ss box needs to be retuned on a dyno by a professional...u are in cali and im sure lotts of people tune ss boxes there...pulley is not bad to change but chances are if ur not doing ur own install u won't do the pulley change, so it will cost u about 150 bucks to have switched if u want, but when switching pulleys u will need to be tuned each time for whatever pulley u are on... and ss box retune will be somewhere from 495-600 prolly doesn't matter which pulley u are on for that....ive heard in cali u can get away with the 3.12 pulley cause its so hard to tell the difference from looking at, they wouldn't know the difference..


u say u dont want too much power and all so like i said a vortech kit out of the box with stock pulley and exhaust and spacer and a tune of the ss box u will be good to go for at least 350whp, and with a 3.12 closer to 400whp, but with the 3.12 u will maybe need larger injectors, some do and some don't but it is def. good to look into injectors for safety when upgrading the pulley and a must with the 2.87 pulley

 

so basically if u are looking or thinking u will go with the 3.12 do it right the first time instead of paying for 2 tunes...i did get away with stock fuel system with the complete kit and 3.12 pulley and u prolly would be fine also as long as its a good tuner who knows what they are doing..

 

I used Shawn Church of Church Automotive in Wilmington (by Long Beach) to tune my car....he did a great job....

Originally I was going to use the SS box, and Shawn does do SS box tuning...however, he convinced me to go ahead and do Osiris instead of the SS box, and it has worked great, no transitions between ECU and SS Box...

However, like I said, he will tune SS boxes...

As for the cops and the pulley, the pulley number is printed right on it unfortunately, easy to find with a flashlight...don't know how easy it would be for cops to find it or to be informed about it even...I guess it depends on how informed a particular cop may be; I've been lucky that I've never had to pop my hood to a cop...

 

thanks guys, plenty of great info. i hope it helped the op also, thanks for starting this.

now to chew on all the great info, and more bed time reading

 

are u using a complete vortech kit with fmu and inline pump, but just using osiris to tune instead of ss box? or do u have intank pump? what injectors and pulley u on? im still on stock injectors with the 3.12, but id like to put 600cc DW's in and increase the rev limit to 7100, so ive been thinking about doing aam reflash to scale the injectors and raise rev limit and bump my idle up a little, and retune of ss box and just keep my vortech inline pump and fmu, ive also been thinking about doing the 600's with a walbro 255 in tank and getting a utec and utec tune and getting rid of ss box and inline pump and fmu which i know is a good route, but then theres osiris which im not really familiar with no matter how much i read about it it seems... i know one thing i do not want CEL and i don't have it with the ss box and everything has been very smooth actually with no problems yet knock on wood

 

Lotsa questions...haha, I'll try and answer them...

my setup is a tuner setup: 2.87 pulley, Walbro in-tank pump, 650cc RC Injectors...so no FMU and inline pump...

All your choices below are pretty good...I definitely recommend the walbro in-tank and and the bigger injectors, from personal experience...ss box and utec will probably work too...

But my experience is with Osiris....I picked it because I didn't want there to have to be switching between the ECU and piggy-back, and was too lazy to install the SS box anyway ...basically Osiris re-programs your ECU so it does all the extra functions needed for FI...using you MAF sensor to read the air flow to determine how much fuel to feed (most piggy-backs use boost to determine fuel...aka more boost more fuel)...the stock MAF is probably good to about 380 whp...I got an aftermarket MAF sensor since I wanted more hp...and using Osiris removes any unwanted CEL's too, but any reflash will probably do that as well...

 

i see...im basically curious if i could leave my fmu and inline pump and put the 600cc injectors in, remove the ss box and get a osiris tune if i wanted, or if i would need to do a in tank pump and take out the inline pump and fmu to do the osiris tune.....i have 394whp just on the full vortech kit and havent changed the maf? and no CEL... but i am using ss box so i don't know how that matters..

 

Hmm...I don't know if you could adjust you fmu for the bigger injectors...

I would just get the walbro in-tank pump and remove the fmu/inline pump altogether...besides, removing the ss box will also remove your control of the fmu/inline tank anyway right?

The walbro in-tank install is fairly easy to do DIY...phunk has a great DIY for it on the forums...