few years ago, a colleague of ours spent more than a few bucks to elevate the performance of his LS1-powered fourth-gen Camaro SS. It was a bolt-on extravaganza, with long-tube headers, a snazzy-looking intake manifold upgrade, and a larger throttle body, along with a cold-air intake and more. The engine looked great under the hood and sounded even better through the headers.
On the chassis dyno and with proper tuning, power to the tires definitely increased, but the gain wasn’t dramatic. Worse, the car’s crisp street performance was dulled like your mom’s old caravan down a cylinder or two. To put it nicely, it was a dog, particularly at low rpm, where what little torque the LS1 made down there all but evaporated.
It’s all because our buddy took the traditional bolt-on approach to building horsepower—the things we all grew up reading about when people were trying to coax an extra 25 hp out of a smog-laden two-barrel small-block. Opening up the restrictive intake and exhaust systems were the keys to make 275 hp back then, but it’s the total opposite with an LS engine.
In fact, it’s downright detrimental in many cases, because airflow is already an LS’ advantage and the engineers did an excellent job balancing the intake airflow and exhaust to deliver a pretty optional package from the factory. Those traditional bolt-on moves, then, generally deliver less effectiveness for the money and often work against street driveability.
The key to building significant power in an LS and doing it more cost-effectively is to start on the inside with the camshaft and work your way out to the traditional bolt-ons. They’ll support and augment a cam upgrade, but they’re largely ineffectual without it. We’ve put together a list of 10 common and often necessary upgrades to build more power and support it.
We’ve listed them generally in order of importance, starting with the camshaft, but the keyword with all of them and your next LS build is strategy. In other words: Think before you spend.
You’ll be horsepower and dollars ahead in the long run.