I purchased a 2013 ZL1 M6 in June ’15 and performed some interesting mods and tuning during my ownership. The first round of data was collected throughout the Fall of ’15.
I’ll provide some thoughts on the mods and results below. Unless noted, each dyno sheet is showing runs from the same day with equivalent coolant, oil, and intake temperatures. This will provide true before and after results.
Step 1 – Baseline dyno pulls:
The dyno sheet below is a quick shot comparing the dyno run hot from the street and then after sitting for 45+ minutes with fans blowing to cool the supercharger down. This allows the motor to run higher timing because the air entering the motor is 60* instead of 90*…. this yields 30whp and 21wtq differential for a motor sucking hot air versus cool air!
Either way these aren’t bad numbers for a bone stock rig with a warranty 🙂
Step 2 – Intake Install:
An easy power gain with these LSA motors is to install a cold air intake. I decided to go with the Roto-Fab setup, but similar results can be found with CAI or others. The install was painless and the instructions were more than sufficient. I made dyno pulls before and after the installation… verified coolant, intake temp, and intake temp 2 were all at the same level for the pulls. It’s great to see a product live up to the hype!
Final results are 35whp and 9wtq with no tuning! Looking at the dyno sheet shows no difference below 4,500rpm, the factory intake was sufficient until ~400whp.
Step 3 – 10% Overdrive Pulley:
The the second part of “stage 1″ for the LSA is an overdrive pulley. I installed the Innovators West 8.6” overdrive lower pulley. This drive the supercharger about 10% faster than stock. This pulley utilizes a dampener with a hub setup to easily switch the outer ring, which cuts down on install time for future pulleys swaps 😉
I made dyno pulls before and after the installation… verified coolant, intake temp, and intake temp 2 were all at the same level for the pulls. It certainly made good gains. The air-fuel starts to pull lean at the top-end because the injectors can’t keep up.
Final gains from the pulley and tuning was 40whp and 47wtq!
Final Results – Further Tuning
After the pulley swap I continued playing with the tune to optimize Air/Fuel and Timing for my car and local conditions. Additionally I utilized the nice cold New England air to get what we call the “glory pull”… yielding 604 whp and 572wtq. That’s a gain of 95whp and 67wtq with intake, pulley, and of course a Performance Dyno tune!
Overall, I was very happy with the results of this setup. The car drives like stock and makes great power. Of course, I was already looking forward to headers, injectors, and a larger pulley the following spring!
