Catching Up with Your Dream Girl
While most of us are just trying to get the attention of a certain crush, the girl one guy longed for wasn't a girl at all.
Dream date
We've all been there. Trudging into high school every day, trying to stay awake while teachers lecture away over stuff we could care less about. We're more concerned with what our high school crush was doing, of course. In that regard, Joey Butel is like any other prepubescent teen who dreamed of scoring the girl of his dreams. But his ideal gal wasn't a gal at all, but rather a machine - the C5 Corvette Z06. And as he explained to Super Chevy, he wasn't about to let his dream date escape him.
>>Join the conversation about this 1,000 Horsepower C5 Z06 right here in LS1Tech.
Patience pays off
Butel's temptress was all he could think about in 2001 when the Z06 moniker returned to the Corvette lineup following a long absence. The iconic name wasn't lost on this latest model, either, with a 405 hp LS6, plenty of sneaky weight-savings techniques, and a price tag out of reach of most every high school student. So Butel was forced to be patient for a while until he was finally able to bring home his dream gal in 2013.
>>Join the conversation about this 1,000 Horsepower C5 Z06 right here in LS1Tech.
Building the Perfect Motor
That's when he located a one-owner, Speedway White 2001 Z06. But it didn't take long for Butel to begin work on the ride he had lusted over for over a decade. And when we say work, we mean installing a host of performance mods that resulted in an impressive, supercharged beast pumping out over 1,000 hp. After the original LS6 gave out on the dyno, Butel sourced a Gen 4 LQ9 to replace it. And that's when the fun really began.
>>Join the conversation about this 1,000 Horsepower C5 Z06 right here in LS1Tech.
Beauty becomes beast
The new block was shipped over to Schwanke Engines of Springfield, Minnesota and promptly bored out to 377 cubic inches. Goodies like Wiseco pistons and Molnar connecting rods were installed in anticipation of some major boost being added. Heads are free-flowing Air Flow Research 230cc aluminum pieces, and the cam is a Tick Performance Blower Stage 2. To make sure the bigger small block gets all the fuel and air it needs, they topped it off with a ported LS2 intake manifold, TPIS 90mm throttle body, Holley Dominator electric fuel pump, and Bosch 127cc injectors.
>>Join the conversation about this 1,000 Horsepower C5 Z06 right here in LS1Tech.
Dyno tested dyno approved
To push power figures into the stratosphere, a Vortech YSi centrifugal supercharger was brought into the mix. The big blower produces 21 psi of boost thanks to an ATI crank pulley and 10 percent overdrive. A custom ECS air-to-air intercooler and Ron Davis four-row aluminum radiator keep things cool under the hood. With 3-inch stainless Kooks headers and Borla exhaust, the combo is good for a dyno-tested 1,029 hp and 949 lb-ft of torque - to the rear wheels! We'd say Butel's patience paid off, even though it took years to land the apple of his eye!
>>Join the conversation about this 1,000 Horsepower C5 Z06 right here in LS1Tech.
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