Hotlists for tuners are often some crazy JDM machines, American classics, or muscles. But, little do most people know that some modern American cars does have excellent tuning potential. Unlike the overpriced MK IV Supras and GTRs, these current American muscles can help you significantly with your tuning dream (thereby bringing relief to your pockets).
Tuning cars to achieve monstrous gains is a bit complicated if nothing else. Sometimes, it's a trial and error, but with lots of errors. Yet, some masterpieces can easily give you an adequate boost with little tuning.
One of the most prominent examples is the ECU flash. It'll readily give you additional 20-plus horses if adequately mapped. Another one is cold air intake. Adding it is easy and doesn't require messing with the rest of the internal components. But if you want to make some serious additions to the engine (and therefore its power delivery), you will have to make sure that the car can handle your wildest ideas. Here are 10 modern(-ish) American cars with unlimited tuning potential for you to start with.
10 Cadillac CTS-V
The Cadillac CTS-V is an excellent option for any tuner, either experienced or newbie. It has the most brutal engine out of all Cadillacs, which is a supercharged V8 producing 640 horsepower and 630 lb-ft of torque bone stock.
Taking the driver up to 60 mph in under 3.7 seconds sure is impressive. However, the LT4 block is modest enough to accept all the upgrades you want to make on it. Have a look at this D3 Cadillac CTS-V producing 750 horsepowers!
9 Ford Focus RS
We all know this hot hatch has been a rally car for almost a decade. It is one of the handpicks of a famous rally racer Ken Block, whose Focus RS RX produces 600 horsepower and 664 lb-ft of torque!! Yup, 600 horsepower from a 2.0-liter Ecoboost inline-four. Now, that gives us a taste of how much potential the EcoBoost engine has in the garage of a skilled mechanic.
Apart from this, doing some little tweaks like upgrading air filters, intercooler, ECU, and exhaust mods can give you a 100 hp boost on the Ecoboost engine. The Ford Focus RS is a hot-hatch that many of us admire. The 2.3-liter Ecoboost inline-four produces 300 horsepower and 200 lb-ft of torque. This engine has unlimited potential, be it stage one, two, or three tuning.
8 Ford Mustang SVT - Terminator 2003-04
The Ford Mustang SVT badged with the Terminator name is undoubtedly one of our favorites. Ford Equipped the Mustang SVT with a 4.6-liter supercharged V8 that produced 390 horsepower. We'd even go as far as calling it the Hellcat of its era.
You can easily gain over 100 ponies by throwing in free-flow cats, exhausts, cold air intakes, and tunes. But if you want this pony car flying, replace the supercharger with a bigger one; 700 horsepower is not far from reach!
7 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat
The Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat is so powerful that you need guts to think of tuning it further. But that's precisely why this dragster is on this list. The company stock Challenger SRT 8 comes with a Hemi 6.2-liter engine that produces 707 horsepower and 650 lb-ft of torque. Many tuners have managed to push out more than 1,300 horsepower from this demon through serious upgrades.
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The new Hellcat Redeye is a great daily driver as well. It works well with little amounts of tuning if you want to keep things simple. Also, you can easily put on some extra horsepower on this line monster by putting a cold air intake system, free flow cats, enormous throttle body, etc., and the list goes on.
6 Dodge Charger R/T
The Charger R/T makes fewer horsepower than the SRT at about 707 hp. But that is where the fun begins. It features a 5.7-liter Hemi engine, leaving much more space for improvement.
The extensive and restrictive air intake and exhaust systems keep the motor underperforming for more engine life. However, delete these restrictions, and you’ll have an extra 100 horses to play around with. Not to mention adding a decent supercharger can boost its performance even further.
5 Ford SVT Lightning
Yes, the Ford SVT Lightning. Featured in the famous Fast saga, the SVT Lightning is surely a beast itself. It came with a 5.4-liter V8 that made about 360 horsepower stock. Though the parts for this lightning truck may be difficult to find, you can gain immense horses if you do. If only Ford could bring back the SVT Lightning again.
Some regular custom tune mods like cold air intake, exhausts, and more breathable cats can boost this 5.4-liter V8 to 400 horses without budging. And if you want to tune it further, you’ll not regret upgrading the internals and boosting its power figures to more than 500 hp. Now that is a sports car slayer!
4 Chevy Camaro
The Camaro is a great place to test your mechanic skills. Chevrolet Camaro is one of the most famous cars for any enthusiast, especially rookies. You can choose from various engines for the Camaro under the hood. That is a base turbo inline-four, a 3.6-liter V6, a 6.2-liter V8, and a 6.2-liter supercharged V8 for the top-spec ZL1 trim.
There are tons of mods available for the Camaro that can gain immense horses. Adding a supercharger, cold air intake system, free flow cats, and exhaust systems can make this a supercar killer.
3 Ford F-150 5.0-Liter V8
The Ford F-150 has many engine options, out of which the 5.0-liter naturally aspirated V8 is the best for tuning. It produces about 400 horsepower and 410 lb-ft of torque from the factory. Since it is a naturally aspirated engine, fitting a supercharger adds huge power figures to this mini-truck.
Ford Performance Parts have unveiled supercharger kits for their 5.0-liter F150 V8 customers that boost the performance to 700 horsepower and 590 lb-ft of torque. This mini-truck, after upgrades, can crush many corvettes on a drag strip!
2 Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8 6.4-Liter V8
Jeep equipped the Grand Cherokee SRT8 with a 6.4-liter Hemi V8 engine that produces 475 horsepower and 470 lb-ft of torque. Though the performance is not at par with the Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat, being an SUV, the Grand Cherokee SRT's performance is impressive.
Like other Hemi engines on this list, this one also doesn’t disappoint. It can sustain a bigger throttle body, some free-flow cats and exhaust systems, cold air intake, and an ECU tune that can easily give you a hefty 100 horsepower. That's where more than 500 lbs of weight difference comes into play.
1 Ford Mustang
What can be more fun than tuning a legendary pony car by Ford? The mustang has several powertrain options: a 2.3-liter EcoBoost, a 5.0-liter V8, and a 5.2-liter supercharged V8. However, the NA 5.0-liter V8 is the glory we demand since it's more fun to add a custom turbocharger.
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We all know that mustangs are very reliable. Ford performance parts provide a lot of options for custom tuning your mustang. Look at these heavily tuned mustangs that produce at least 700 horsepower, sent to the rear wheels.