Hoonigan Crew Shows The Cadillac ATS Has Lots Of Potential: Video
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The standard Cadillac ATS is hardly a car we think of when it comes time to dip into the aftermarket, but that hasn’t stopped the Hoonigan crew from going to town. Specifically, Brad, one of the crew’s hoonigans, has detailed how he hopped up the small Cadillac sedan into something of a performance car.
The ATS is treated to an AFE intake, Magnaflow exhaust, Eibach springs and an E85 kit. Weld Racing wheels are installed for good measure, too. The majority of the video shows our host Brad installing the parts after other figures have apparently challenged him to race the regular ol’ street car. After the few minor performance modifications and the lowering springs, not only does the ATS look good in a tasteful manner, it sounds good, too.
In the future, the Cadillac will head to the dyno to dial in the upgrades and the E85 kit. The goal for stage one is to make 350 horsepower at the wheels, which is no small number to daily drive. However, at the end of the project, Brad’s ATS will make around 500 hp at the wheels. Recall how light the ATS is on its dainty Alpha platform, and this will be one hell of a sleeper vehicle.
The video shows it’s not impossible to turn any rather ordinary vehicle into something of a performance car. The modifications done here aren’t anything crazy, either. Check out the full video right up above.
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yeah…whatever.
500 hp and AWD sounds like a winner to me.
Cars are absolute junk! Had one and was nothing but problems. Google it you’ll see!
ATS is a great car for aftermarket upgrades. If it doesn’t already have MRC, then outfit it with an ATS V-sport suspension upgrade from GM for BMW-slayin’ handling. The V6 can be tweaked to lengthen the intake runners and converted to E85 for a solid 50 hp boost, but on the 2.0T the sky is the limit. E85, new turbo and intercooler, forged internals, and the drivetrain can take up to 400 hp without serious longevity issues.
If you go for broke on an ATS4 Coupe 2.0T, you’ll have what amounts to an all-season Camaro that you can see out of. It even looks gorgeous instead of putting out the cheesy adolescent Transformers vibe of the Camaro.
“E85, new turbo and intercooler, forged internals”
I understood the 2.0T to already have forged internals, but upon further research fount that only the connecting rods and crank are forged (the connecting rods are forged powdered metal – da hell?!?) and the pistons are cast aluminum!
After looking around the interwebs the number one failure of these engine is melted pistons with high boost. So yeah this motor is a NO GO for casual modding. Especially in the turbo world. No boosted engine that’s worth a damn will run anything less than forged pistons connecting rods and crank from the factory if it’s designed for performance and future modding.
I now see why no serious tuners are playing with the turbo four Camaro as well. Upon looking into that, almost all the youtubers and tuners have lost a piston after doing basic – for a turbo car – mods, ie upping the boost and swapping turbos, intercooler and etc.
Any car that needs to have the bottom end upgraded for modest power gains IS NOT a aftermarket friendly engine (the old 5.0 v8 excepted, but those were dark times, lol) The old Ecotec appears to be far superior in this regard. Hell, junkyard 4.8-5.3L Vortec V8s are light years better for boosting compared to this motor.
I now see why the Turbo 4 ATS and Camaro have remained relatively stagnant in the tuning world. GM seems to have built a jewel of a “performance light” economy motor, but it’s definitely no ecotec turbo 4, Nissan SR20 and CA18, SRT4 Turbo, or Mitsubishi 4g63. Hell it doesn’t appear to be on the level of Hyundai’s current turbo four when it comes to tuning!
Too bad, because overall, the driving experience in the ATS and 4 banger Camaro is excellent.