Recently it appears a few Zeds have joined the 500bhp club, and apparently with seemingly minor mods. Two questions; how much does it cost to turn a stock zed into a 500hp zed and is a tuned 500hp zed really a contender along side a car with 500hp out of the box in terms of reliability and drivability? If so it's gotta be the cheapest serious performance car on the market when you consider what any standard 500hp car will cost to buy.

Hmmm; seemingly minor mods....?

 

Not for a genuine and reliable 500bhp...:wink:

 

The VG engine is actually pretty tough - but as most are over 20 years old and still yet to be rebuilt, I say you pay your money, cross all your fingers and take your chances!! On a newly rebuilt engine, if the work (and power upgrade) is done properly, then it will be a lot more reliable.

 

Richard:turned:

Recently it appears a few Zeds have joined the 500bhp club, and apparently with seemingly minor mods. Two questions; how much does it cost to turn a stock zed into a 500hp zed and is a tuned 500hp zed really a contender along side a car with 500hp out of the box in terms of reliability and drivability? If so it's gotta be the cheapest serious performance car on the market when you consider what any standard 500hp car will cost to buy.

 

I respond to this the best I can and maybe try to put some things into perspective.

I would say there are only currently 5/6 cars in the club running over the 500 mark with a few behind them between 4 and 500, that isn't many considering the amount of cars we cars in the club. Pop over to the US site it seems virtually no car is running stock power some real monsters over there. You say minor mods...to get 400hp yeah is agree few bolt ons healthy engine good tune, done. Certainly though the generic chip and boost jets will only net you around 330hp so some way short, you will need that roper custom tune and some breather mods to achieve this, oh and a healthy engine to begin with.

To make a genuine 500hp zed you will probably be spending a minimum not including the car of 4k maybe more. You would need a healthy engine, bigger turbo's, divorced downpipes and decats, cat back, bigger intercoolers, injectors to suit. Then the supporting oil cooler and rad to come with the higher power outputs. Not to mention a new clutch by this point.

If were being cynical and sensible about it the costs are going to spiral to nearer 10k by the time you've made it stop better, don't forget that... oh and got the engine to a healthy state, and ensured all those crappy 20 year old bushes are renewed, and you've got some decent rubber and grip, as they say power is nothing without control.

The questions surrounding reliability and handling, well it is 20 years old. So unless its new or refurbished it could break... but that's true of any old car reguardless of tune. As for how will handle well the suspension has to be set up and refreshed properly, don't expect to put 500hp through 20 year old bushes and a 225 wide rear tire with no traction control...Once sorted well its likely you will run out of talent before the car does, watch bob or jaffas time attack cars handle.....

As for cheap, well tbh if you were going to make 500hp there are cheaper ways, any 355 cubic inch chevy will make 500hp naturally astriprated with much less outlay.

The long and the short of it is you can very cheaply get a z32 to 500hp, ie with a few thousand. How long will it last, that's anyones guess, theres chaps making over 600rwhp on stock internals for years. Saying that there people out there blowing up stock power level engines...Do your research before you think about anything further. But yes a vg30 is a power monster like any other 90s jap engine the like sof the rb or jz

Alternatively you can play a waiting game and buy a well looked after sensibly modded example from this forum for circa £5K. 500hp for £5000, surely there is nothing that's better value than that.

Z32bolt has pretty much covered it there, the other expensive part is if you can't do the work yourself then fitting cost of said parts can soon mount up to thousands alone depending where you take it to

Z32bolt has pretty much covered it there, the other expensive part is if you can't do the work yourself then fitting cost of said parts can soon mount up to thousands alone depending where you take it to

 

Forgot that very sore bill. Getting the work done by a zed specialist will cut labour significantly, who wants to pay some monkey to learn on your car. Which is what 99% of garages including those "jap specialists" will be doing. Places that spend all days working on rbs don't necessarily know a damn thing about a vg.