Tuning your car takes more than just buying a bunch of new parts and replacing the old ones with them. It takes time, money, and knowledge to dial in your setup. After all, the manufacturer that built your car didn't just achieve that overnight. So you can't expect to turn your car into a race-winning machine with the snap of your fingers. That being said, let's see how the Hoonigan Corvette Z06 is doing these days.
The guys started this project not long ago, as they aimed to create the ultimate budget supercar-killer. Right off the bat, the guys wanted to push their Z06 up to 550 whp. Now, a bone stock LS7 should be good enough for 505 hp and 470 lb-ft (637 Nm) of torque.
The Z06 went on the dyno for an initial test, and the first run revealed an output of 472 whp and 431 lb-ft (584 Nm) of torque. This car was ready to go through a bit of a transformation with new brakes, coilovers, upgraded cooling, wheels, tires, and a supercharger kit from Edelbrock.
After the first phase of the project was over, it was time to see if the "supercar-killer" would live up to its name. As part of the "This vs That" series, the guys had it race against an Aston Martin Vantage at their Santa Margarita Ranch location.
With an estimated output of over 650 hp and 582 lb-ft (789 Nm) of torque, the Z06 performed flawlessly down the 1,000 ft (304 meters) strip of tarmac. The Aston Martin just wasn't fast enough to keep up with the 7.0-liter V8 American sports car. The twin-turbo V8 could only secure a win when the Vantage had a two-car length advantage at the start, but things would have been different if they were running the quarter-mile (402 meters).
Photo: Hoonigan
As official horsepower figures weren't revealed for that race, we knew that the upcoming episode of "Dyno everything" would solve the mystery. And here we are today. Running on 6 psi and with stock cams, the Z06 gets strapped to the dyno for the first run. The predictions are also in, and everyone is expecting to see at least 510 hp to the rear wheels.
At just below 7,000 rpm, the yellow Chevy hits 518 whp and 469 lb-ft (635 Nm) of torque. They decide to bring in more cooling and increase the rpm for the second attempt of the day. And the results are slightly better with 526 hp and just over 500 lb-ft (677 Nm) of torque.
But you can't expect to go much higher up than that, seeing that the car is still running a setup that allows it to be legal in all 50 states. Depending on where you live, it shouldn't be that hard to push things up to 700 hp, but then again, you also have to consider the reliability and maintenance implications.
For the final run of the day, the performance figures are slightly lower than they were on the previous run. But even with 520 hp on tap, this car should be quite exhilarating to drive.
The things Dragos enjoys the most in life are, in no particular order: cars, motorcycles, diecast cars, and drifting. He's seen (and driven) many vehicles since he started his writing career back in 2009, but his garage currently houses a 1991 Mazda RX-7 FC3S Turbo II and a 1999 Suzuki SV650-S. Full profile
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