chevy406

Last night I was dyno tuning a 2008 stock LS3 automatic Corvette. The young owner was anticipating seeing his LS3 car making more power than his Uncle's LS2 C6. After 3 pulls we were still bouncing around 345 rwhp. I noticed that the MAP reading was tapering down to 90 kPa during the WOT dyno pulls. This is a sign of flow restriction upstream of the throttle body. We removed the stock air filter. While initial inspection showed it to be quite clean, the next dyno pull without the air filter element told a different story. Without making any other adjustment, power picked up from 345 rwhp to 377 rwhp. I made small corrections to fuel and topped out at 380 rwhp. The customer ended the night with ordering a Vararam intake system for his car - and rewarded me with a cold Gatorade.

I've always joked about the optimistic marketing claims on many cold air intake web sites, but in this case there truly was ~ 35 rwhp being blocked by a sub-par, off-shore air filter element. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures but I will follow up with the dyno graphs if I remember to print them tonight.

Aardwolf

Good to see some actual tests, thanks!

C6_Prodigy

I think the bigger question is what was wrong with his original filter? Plenty of LS3s with the OEM filter making in the 360-380 rwhp range.

chevy406

It looked like to inlet side was distorted - slightly crushed. Maybe it was dropped or something impacted it. Root cause isn't really what I was after, just trying to share the importance of maintaining adequate inlet air flow.

65 Drivr

Thanks for sharing!

bwill03z

That stock filter had to be in pretty bad shape to cause that much restriction!

Spaceme1117

GM did change the design of the stock C6 air intake in 2010 if I am not mistaken. Maybe this is why.

TCW

The LS2s intakes were even more restrictive.

Tom