Is there any way to get up to 400RWHP in ONLY bolt on mods, with out going F/I? I'm talking about, CAI, tunes, headers, gears, exhaust, and stuff along those lines, like sub $1,000 mods, WITHOUT supercharging, turbocharging, or the like.

 

No. Can't do it.

 

With just bolt ons??? No.....
People have gotten very close or a little over 400 rwhp if they tear into the engine. Such as as ported and polished heads, aggressive cams, and every other bolt-on you can think of for our cars. If you bore and stroke the motor to 298ci or 302ci, and add all the bolt-ons, im sure you would be able to reach that 400 rwhp mark. It wouldnt be as easy as just going straight to F/I but it can be done, just cost a **** load of money.

 

It has been done, but you have to spend so much money you mine as well supercharge it to get the results. I remember reading about someone on this forum that had done it. I'm pretty sure he did full exhaust, intake, tune, pulleys, one piece aluminum drive shaft, port and polished heads, and I think he had to do a cam swap but I'm not sure. I'll see if I can find the post about it, but it is pretty old.

 

That's awesome. If you could find that post I'd love to read it.

 

If I recall, it took some serious, SERIOUS internal mods and some heavy duty cash above and beyond the cost of going FI and the person was barely pushing 400 RWHP. If you can afford it, why the resistance to going FI?

 

Like everyone else here is saying, if you want to do what everyone generaly considers bolts ons, your porbably going to get into the low 300, maybe like 325 RWHP. If you go all out and build the motor, you can get to 400, but your going to be much more money into your project then say, just grabbing your basic vortech kit and being at 400+ for under 4k and 1 day worth of work...

Full Exhuast (minimum 1k)
Underdrive pulleys (210)
Electric Water pump (330)
Delete plates (300)
CAI (250)
Tuner (380)
Custom Tune (400? depends who can do it for you)
COPs (390)
Throttle Body (300)
Plugs (100)
Cams (650)
Phasers (200)
Phaser bolts (25)

Assuming that you have enough knowledge to install everything yourself but the cams, and say you got a decent price for install on the cams, I'll say..... 400. Your looking at 4935 right there, and you will be in the low 300's for RWHP

Now say I give you the same mechanical credit, I would say you can install this kit yourself:
http://www.brenspeed.com/v3vortech.html
Now your at low to mid 400's for RWHP for 1k less.

you do the math

 

I'm not talking about me, personally. Although I am going to avoid FI for as long as possible. But I was wondering if anyone has ever, you know, done it. I was curious to see if it could be done. Sounds like a pretty cool (but expensive) project.

 

^good luck on avoiding f/i itll snag you up!!

 

It can't be done. Especially considering cams, phasors, etc shouldn't be considered bolt-ons.