Topic: V8 worth the costs?

[Omiotek]

heres my 2 cents on the topic.....

Its all about the person and what they want to do to the car.

Person A...... If that person wants something unique, awesome, clean(with proper installation), and has some money to spend this v8 swap is for you.

Person B...... If you don't have some money to spend, are ok with a messier looking engine bay and can deal with a little lag but making close to the same power then this is your option .

If it was me I wouldn't do the v8 swap but I love doing working on them and seeing them finish and making people say wtf when they see them. More or less I guess my point is too each is their own and a cars only worth what it is to the person that owns it.

[LatinVenom]

Not sure why you say on B close to the same power.
We know an EFR-6758 on a LNF will generate more power than the LS3 and LT1 from the factory.
Also to me is not if you have the money to spend, but a better return for your performance investment on a KAPPA.

[Sly Bob]

Yeah I love the LNF and the potential it has for performance. If you could only get the exhaust note of a V8, then you'd have somethin'.

I'm must be gettin' old...   

[wspohn]

Yeah I love the LNF and the potential it has for performance. If you could only get the exhaust note of a V8, then you'd have somethin'.

Frankly, I'll take the admittedly less than inspiring exhaust note of the LNF over the tedious blat of the V8 as long as the LNF note is disappearing into the distance leaving the V8 blatting behind it......

[ChopTop]

All this talk about how the 2.0 can be just as powerful as a V8 seems disingenuous when you considering it's s all being predicated on adding engine enhancements to the 2.0.  In fact any engine modifications that can be done to a 4 can also be done to a V8. For example the SC-ZR-1 638HP, 604TQ, GT Shelby SC-500, 662HP, 631TQ.

[Critterman]

yeah but how are you going to put 638 ponies to the ground in a Kappa?

[Gentleman Jack]

With tires?

[username]

The LNF engine can make a lot of power, and I might just get one of the direct injection LT1s from the new Corvette, because that tech is cool and allows for higher compression. In any case, I think a turbo I4 can be a lot of fun.

Personally, I thought the nose of the GXP was ugly, so I got a base and put a V8 in it.

[ChopTop]

yeah but how are you going to put 638 ponies to the ground in a Kappa?

Very, very gently. 

But that's not the point, the point is in order for a 4 to get OEM V8 like HP, TC/SC have to be added.  Reminds me of that song anything you can do I can do better.  A 4 owner puts on a SC, so a V8 owner does the same.  A 4 owner puts on a TC, so a V8 owner does the same. 

Think one of the fastest Kappa's is that black and red Bullrun Solstice, that's both TC/SC which says 500HP (thinking it may be the 2.4 since it doesn't have the GXP fascia).  But take a V8 and Twincharge (TC/SC) and I'm going to assume that the HP is going to be significantly higher.

[Sol Asylum]

True but you can't just add a V8 to the Kappa there is quite a bit more work that has to be done to install one where as it's really not that hard to do a turbo swap on an LNF.  You could spend $20-40K to put a V8 in the Kappa or spend the money to up the HP on the 4 and that is what this thread is about, is it worth it?

[wspohn]

True but you can't just add a V8 to the Kappa there is quite a bit more work that has to be done to install one where as it's really not that hard to do a turbo swap on an LNF.  You could spend $20-40K to put a V8 in the Kappa or spend the money to up the HP on the 4 and that is what this thread is about, is it worth it?

Right. The LNF offers enough scope that it pretty much boils down to the guys for whom a V8 is the be all and end all no matter what the power may be, who bother sticking a V8 in there.  I don't quite get the mindset, but have had discussions where the responder flat out stated that if it wasn't a V8 it wasn't a 'real' engine and he didn't care if an alternative 6 or even 4 cylinder actually performed better.  Like I say, I don't get that.

I'd still like to see someone pull into a Corvette meet in a C1 or C2 and blow away the other guys on the drag strip, before opening the hood to reveal a 450 bhp LNF under there.  Presumably the rest of them would suffer cataclysmic testicular shrinkage as a result.  Right before they expelled the iconoclast for wrong thinking behaviour.

This is a conversation that would never have happened in the past - only due to these marvelous high output turbo engines can there even be an argument.  Have all of you taken a close look at the internals of the LNF?  Built like a brick layer cake!  The strength they built into that engine is something I'd have loved to have in the various engines I've had on the track over the years.

After a certain point, adding more power to the platform is really just bragging rights.  Draw the line where you will - 400, 500 whatever. The point it that for the first time, a 4 cylinder is able to provide that sort of power level as an interesting alternative to the 'stick-in-a-bigger-engine' tradition.

[Gentleman Jack]

There is always the "power curve" discussion to muddle the waters.

[ihawk95]

True but you can't just add a V8 to the Kappa there is quite a bit more work that has to be done to install one where as it's really not that hard to do a turbo swap on an LNF.  You could spend $20-40K to put a V8 in the Kappa or spend the money to up the HP on the 4 and that is what this thread is about, is it worth it?

That Kappa is a 2006. I first saw it in July 2006 when Hahn was modding it and taking it to the track. It's a 2.4.

I believe there was a 800 hp sky. It was only ever put on a dyno and in car shows. I don't believe it ever made the street or a track. And I don't recall if it was an engine swap. I think it was a built lnf, but I could be nuts on that!  (I'm nuts...it was a twin turbo LS2...got close to 1000 hp.  Looks like there were a few high performers out there, but they are built V8's.  A 800 HP drift build with what sounds like a big huffer in it, built for Falken.  I'm also seeing a 1300 hp sky??  Ahh yeah...from Canada with a 427 in it.  So all V8's ).

[L-N-Fn]

No, unless you like the sound. This is what a well tuned LNF with a EFR 6758 on a stock lower end can do.    red is stock, green is trifecta, blue a good HP tune. The HP is close to stock until 3K and than pulls great to 7.5K.

[1LILNDN]

yeah but how are you going to put 638 ponies to the ground in a Kappa?

John , What about    " SKY 888 "  with that compound Turbo he is building . I think that going to be right up in that power range . how will he get power to the ground.  A little ground shaking when you think about it.

[Sly Bob]

Still doesn't sound like a V8. Hmmm, are we back to these again?   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9XAC-BvUyo#t=80

[ChopTop]

I'm thinking the V8 vs 4 debate comes down to respect.  Maybe it's just me, but I don't think/feel V8 owners (Corvette, Camaro, Mustang, Challenger, V8 classics, hotrods, etc.) respect 4s (regardless of HP) like they do V8s.  It's like a unspoken rule to be allowed into the V8 brotherhood only if your car has one.

I've been waffling between a SC/V8 for a couple years now but then I hear a nice sounding V8 and my subconscious says "that's why you dummy".  The irony is we also have a GXP w/Solo exhaust and I don't take advantage of that power.  Maybe I just need to hear a 2.4 SC in person.  I've listen to plenty of vids on YT, but sound clips aren't cutting it.

[LatinVenom]

This is the discussion wspohn posted above.
L-N-Fn just showed you a Dyno graph of his LNF producing 404.71 WHP and 379 of torque. This is equivalent to 487 BHP at the crank with an investment of probably less than $6K. He is producing well over the power of the LS3 (430 BHP) and LT1 (460 BHP) in factory trim.
Is the V8 mentality that is hard to comprehend vs less money spend on equal or better performance.

[ChopTop]

Is the V8 mentality that is hard to comprehend vs less money spend on equal or better performance.

Basically I think it comes down to the heart and the brain.  The brain says it doesn't make sense to pay thousands more for a V8 when a 4 can achieve the same performance.

On the other hand, the heart is saying but a 4 will never sound like a V8, and you have to admit how an engine sounds seems to be very important to enthusiasts.  Any enthusiasts, whether it be fans of 4s, 6s, 8s, 10s, or 12s.  Each engine has its own sound and that sound is part of the reason its fans like or prefer the number of cylinder an engine has.

[wspohn]

It may also come down to guts - as in not having enough to go your own way, and being afraid to tell all your V8 fan buddies that you don't share their adulation of the magic number 8.....

[2kwk4u]

I said it on page 1, but I'll say it again:  If we were all thinking with our wallets, none of us would be driving sports cars.  There's more to a decision than bang for the buck.  So if we throw out budgetary considerations, we're left with the tried-and-true American desire to stuff the biggest, baddest motor possible in, with the least effort.  For a Kappa, that's an LS-series V8. 

What's so hard to understand about that?

[LatinVenom]

I am not thinking with my wallet. I am just applying a little bit of logic to my decision in the case of the KAPPA.

[wspohn]

I said it on page 1, but I'll say it again:  If we were all thinking with our wallets, none of us would be driving sports cars. 

Speak for yourself. I've been driving pretty much nothing but sports cars for decades - there has never been a time in the last 40 years where I didn't have at least one sports car on the road as my daily driver - and they aren't any more expensive than any other form of car - station wagon, pick-up, sedan.

[2kwk4u]

Perhaps you missed my point.

The heart wants what the heart wants.  To the point of the original question, "Is a V8 worth the costs?"  that is a very personal decision.  As demonstrated in 7 pages'-worth of back and forth (in a thread that split off from the original topic to begin with), opinions vary.  The only one that can answer that question is the one making the decision. 

One can ask that question regarding any purchase.  Is a Kappa worth the cost?  Is home ownership worth the cost?  Is a sex change worth the cost?  It depends on the buyer's own estimation. 

As for me, I'm in the V8 camp.  I understand that in terms of "dollars-per-horsepower" it will always make more sense to build on what's already there.  Nobody is arguing against that logic.  There is, however, a point of diminishing returns with either option.

Was it worth the cost to put a V8 in an AC Ace, thus giving birth to the Shelby Cobra?

[gmtech16450yz]

Take two identical Kappas, same color, same interior, same options, except one has a 500hp 4 banger and the other has a 500hp V/8. Park them side by side and ask 100 people which one they want. 98 of them will take the V/8. One of the two people left over is deaf, and the other is wspohn.

Then take the two motors, put them on engine stands and set them out at a car show or just in the middle of a parking lot. The little 4 banger is putting out 3 TIMES the power/liter as the V/8. The LSA would have to put out ~1500hp to have the same power output per liter, or ~1100hp to have the same power output per cylinder. The LNF's technology is cutting edge compared to the LSA. It's lighter and gets FAR better gas mileage. How many of the 100 people are looking at, and impressed by the V/8 and how many are looking at and impressed by the 4 banger? I'm gonna say again, there's gonna be 98 people around the V/8, and two guys looking at the LNF. Of those two guys, one drove there in a lowered Civic with a fart can, and the other guy came in a Prius.

My Sky and my CTS-V had almost identical horsepower and torque. The CTS-V made it's power at a slightly lower rpm, but the Sky made it's power over a wider range. Which one was quicker? The lighter Sky of course, but only if you could get the trans to shift. Which one did quicker 60-100 times? The Sky again. Which one (based on power alone) was more fun to drive? The V/8 CTS-V by far. The ~550hp Sky was pretty crazy, but nothing beats the kind of power, sound and the just plain "feel" of a good running V/8.

Here's an example...

http://s841.photobucket.com/user/j16450yz/media/caddyburnout.mp4.html