Yeah your car is slow, sell me some parts .

 

You should have held off on buying your Stillen TD because mine is now for sale. I might be parting out in three months, so I'll keep you posted.

 

i think that was me, right?

 

Yes it was. And I hate you for your high baseline dyno numbers.

jk

I just added up my receipts, including labor on parts I couldn't install myself and it only totalled up to $2115. That's not too bad for the gains I've seen, IMO. However, that does not include the cost of my tuning yet. I've been through two semi-successful sessions, but they still haven't charged me. They said they'd sort it out after it was completed. I just hope I don't get some huge $600 bill for tuning after that. They're pretty cool about things though, so I'm sure it will be a reasonable sum.

 

I've got a pedestrian question about cams. Because cams would be an internals mod, would they affect warranty the same was as going FI?

 

Well $1500 for AFR heads is good. My brother was looking to drop close to $3000 for fully ported(by Joe Sherman) AFR 215cc heads for his 383 SBC. LS1 AFR heads will run you just over $2000. I know $3-4K is steep, but once you start getting into overhead cam heads stuff gets expensive. Plus every damn thing for an import is more money. My brother has an 04 Cobra and those heads are pretty damn expensive to just get ported, like $1500 and up.

 

Engine warranty? Most definitely unless the dealer installed and they agree to cover it afterward under warranty if there's a problem. That's why most dealers won't install aftermarket parts like power adders. If you power seat stopped working after cam a cam install, things like that would still be covered since it can't be directly tied to the aftermarket part.

 

You don't have to tell me twice man. I did get a good deal on the heads, but for AFR190s (which were replaced by 195s) on an L98 or LT1 SBC (Corvette; don't know about F-bodies), they could be had for $2000 or less retail, and would be an almost guaranteed 30-50 rwhp. Stick a $400-$800 valvetrain and cam in that joker and you'll be more than set, easily in the 300-400hp range.

Import parts prices are still kind of ridiculous, however they are very well engineered and are always being updated. Because the SBC basically remained unchanged from 1958(?) to 1986 (when a roller cam/lifter came on an OEM SBC), parts became abundant and cheap, and nothing had to really change. Then the LT1 came along in 91-92 and it created a new market for aftermarket parts, and their prices were high, and still are, but they are falling. Now that the LS1 has been out for 10 years, parts are cheaper and more plentiful than when it was the big kid. The same cycle is repeating for the LS2 - few choices of parts available, much more costly than a previous motor.

What I don't understand is, how do import prices manage to stay so high? Hell, Civics are just now starting to get cheap quality parts and they've been around for 20 years. Is it because of so many segments of parts resulting in lower demand and therefore higher consumer prices that's keeping costs up, or is it that the main body of import enthusiasts (youfng types) are more prone to not knowing what a part is really worth? Is it a bloated price structure set up by the import car manufacturers to keep prices high? Is it that our parts really ARE that much better than a competing domestic company, and therefore we pay a higher premium for it?

 

jeezus, that took forever.