Engine upgrade
 

Called west coast corvette about thier stage four kit. basiclly it's heads cam long tubes full exhaust intake and programer. they ask $6,400.00 for the kit, $2,400.00 labor, and $700.00 tune. You can't drive the car away with the long tubes they will make you trailer it. Is this pricing about right for the labor? I'm dedating between this or a magnacharger. I kinda like this better because you don't have to change the hood and you keep the same wieght and ballance of the car. Tell me what you guys think.

RE: Engine upgrade
 

I think a heads and cam kit is a very poor choice for a daily-driver street car. Assuming you have $9500, here are the ways I think you could spend it.
1) Magnacharger, headers, new hood, tune, and paint. You can find a shop to install one for this but you'll have to shop around and a place like West Coast Corvette's will want a bit more, I imagine. I rate this highest because the Maggie makes over 100 RWHP additional, and addsabout 100 ft oflow end torque which is what makes a car satsifying in daily driving, it is reliable as an anvil, and the car ends up very well behaved -- no idle or low end torque problems like lots of heads-and-cam kits. I had the third C5 Maggie kit in the country installws on my '02 ZO6 in '02 (for about $10K total including painting the new hood) and drove it for two years and it was just a very great combination and utterly reliable, too.

2) Procharger P model supercharger, headers, tune. This should cost you less than your budget, done right by a good shop. It would add 100+RWHP at the top, but it would not have nearly the mid-range torque of the Maggie (the Maggie willfeel like a big-block V8, the Procharger like a powerful small block).

3) Budget. You could buy a budget stroker kit (406-420 cubic inches) and exchange your heads for some ported ones, install 1.8:1 rockers, and put on headers. Your budget would be tightbut I've seen all this done for $10K (a non-budget stroker runs about $13k) and as long as you install new springs with the rockers and do not rev the engine past the stock red line you are okay. The result would be about 70 extra RWHP and lots of low end torque, with very good drieability. It would feel like a big block, basically, because in terms of displacement, it is.

4) Heads and cam. The price quoted is a bit high for a heads and cam/headers kit. You can get really good heads, cam and ancillaries, headers, etc., for about $5,500, and I know good shops that will install them, with a good tune, for $2000. You can get up to 75 RWHP more with no significant driveability problems, but low end torque is, at best, unchanged, and typically, cut but 5%. If you cam it for more than 75-80RWHP additional, you get a lousy idle, some driveability problems, and a noticeable loss of low end torque.

If you are worried about the balance of the car with a SCR, move the battery to the trunk (Lingenfelter has a kit that anyone can install in an afternoon). This changes the weight distribution back to stock.