Who wants more performance from thei truck?

MHLY01 · November 28, 2001

I posted this about in the light Duty, but want to post it here too. I have been interested in getting more performance out of the new trucks based on the LS1 motor. I am just tired of the normal S/C and such that some people are having problems with. I have a C5 corvette and am currently having Agostino Racing Engines(ARE) build a 432 stroker motor for it. For those of you who do not know, ARE builds some of the fastest LS1 based cars out there. Their own corvette ran 9.42 last year with more in it. For those of you who do not know them check out www.ls1.com and look under the engine systems. Their head and cam systems produce over 400rwhp consistently.

I have been talking to Nick at ARE and they are expanding into the truck market. There is a lack of performance parts out there and we all see how many trucks are out driving everyday. They will be offering Heads and Cam for 99 and newer 5.3l and 6.0l motors. I know alot of people talk about blowers such as whipple for trucks, but there have been inconsistent results. What are the advantages to H/C? Well, you get reliability, power, stock appearance, custom design for as aggressive as you want, and cost benefit. A Whipple normally runs $3900 with around $800 install. H/C are going to be around $2600 depending on aggressiveness as there are different stages of head porting, with a typical install price of $1200 from a good shop. You can install yourself if you like. So we are looking at $4700 vs $3800, plus the usually add ons such as air intake, headers, and exhaust. Whipple claims around 100-125 hp. With the H/C, you will see about anywhere from 80-125, depending on how aggressive you want it. Computer tuning will be dependent as well. Trucks do have more drivetrain loss then cars. I think this is the way to go with with newer LS1 based trucks where we can expand the performance of our trucks. GM built a good motor, but more is better. Gas mileage will remain the same or even better depending on your drivin style. ARE does have installers across the US but any quality shop can install the H/C.

Now to let you know, I am not a salesman for ARE or tied to them in anyway, other then being a happy satisfied customer. Nick and ARE stands behind their products. I just wanted to pass this information along to see how much interest there is for these products. They are availble now. I will be getting a set to go on my truck as well. Just imagine a stock appearing and sounding(if you want, no S/C whine here) truck that will hang in with any camaro or mustung. Let me know what you think and I will answer any questions I can and pass information onto ARE. We all are always looking for more performance and I think this is a great way to get it. Thanks guys.