Hello I'm new to the forums here. I was wondering the best was of adding some HP to my stock motor. I have only added an air intake and a exhaust system so far. I found a turbo kit on ebay for around $900. I was curious to find out what I would have to change or modify to install this kit and to keep things like my a/c and power steering. I was also throwing around the idea of a small nitrous shot. Thanks in advance for any help or advice!

 

Electric Fan, gears, headers, programmer, cam

 

I wouldn't trust those ebay turbo kits your gonna need some sort of tuning for a turbo and depending how much boost your gonna run upgrades to the fuel system

 

Like 08 said. Start small and build up. The programmer will be your best bang for your buck. Good luck

 

OK that sounds good. What needs to be done to change out my cam? Are they other parts that need to be changed or will that work with all my factory parts? Also what kind of performance can I expect from the programmer? Thanks again for the help.

 

Programmer + about 20 HP, the ONLY one that supports the transmission on an '04 is the Superchips 3865 or Cortex. Firming up line pressure and more aggressive shifts out of the tranny is gonna give the perception of more power than any mild HP gains you'll see out of a tuner. PLUS you can download the optional transmission tuning module and change WOT shift points giving you a real "snap the head back" experience.

I'd start there...

The air intake and cat back are good, but if you are thinking cam, you are gonna want to do headers first.

Since you're asking, I don't imagine you are gonna tackle the cam yourself, so plan about $1500 just for labor. You'll need the cam, springs, push rods and retainers.
Herein lies the problem with an '04. You'll need a custom tune to tame the cam, but NONE of the customizable tuners support the tranny and you'll not want to lose that. So your only option would be to get an SCT tuner, have it custom tuned and piggyback it with the Superchips or you can do the Superchips in combo with an plug-in controller for the cam like a Split Second PSC1 or ARC1.

If you had an '05 or later, you could go with a Diablo and have it custome tuned and still retain some transmission tuning, but they do NOT support the '04 tranny.

If you're not the hard core wrenching type, labor for this kinda power is gonna be HIGH!!!

 

You need to figure out what you can afford and budget for then figure out what kind of horsepaower and response you're looking for. The sky is *******ly the limit when it comes to horsepower---just gotta figure what you're really looking for----boltons and gears can often be enough.

 

I put some 4.56 gears in mine and it made a pretty decent difference (though I went to 35's, stock tires would be even better). I also have a superchips, intake, and exhaust, which add a bit to the top end but doesn't seem like much, though my truck weights almost 7000 pounds with all my toys in it... I considered nitrous but after researching it seems to be a huge waste of money - it can only be used about 10 seconds at a time and and 10 pound bottle will maybe last for 10 or 12 10sec. runs. Google "how long does a bottle of nitrous last" and there is some good info. Seems as though a supercharger (procharger or if somebody has a roots style kit) or turbo (sts turbo) is the only good way of getting huge power gains

 

Yeah my beast is almost 7000 lbs. too, I did the 4.56 gears and it made a huge difference. But gears do absolutely NOTHING to ADD power (HP or Torque), which is what the OP said he wants to do. As a matter of fact, if you were to dyno the truck before and after a gear swap, you'd find that it'll make MORE power with 3.55 gears than 4.56s because the numerically higher gears limit your top end RPMs.
But they sure do wake up the low end, LOL...

 

What? We don't count the butt dyno anymore? Haha