I have a 1988 Camaro V-6, What is the easiest way I can add power to my V-6?

I want to replace my conventional oil to synthetic, would that help? can i even do that or is it a stupid idea?

so any tips would help

 

sure you could change your oil to synthetic, but i have heard that when people switch sometimes they get leaks from the carbon that was holding it together got cleared away. i would just save your money and just stay with the conventional. im not familiar at all with v6's but id say get the engine breathing better (unrestricted air intake, exhaust and not too sure about v6 headers) that would be where i would start with a v8 so it should work for a v6... your best bet would be to take a look at the v6 boards. and welcome to the site!

 

I just bought a performance chip for my '91 firebird, supposedly, it can give my car an extra 50hp boost, increase fuel economy, and even increase torque. I am not sure how well these things work, but when i recieve it, i will let you know.(only cost me a total of $17, ebay)

 

Unfortunately I hate to burst all of your bubbles but there is no way you will be getting anything more that 5-15 hp on bolt on's or ''chips'' for a tired old v6. First of all there are many things you can do to increase a motors performance. You did not mention a budget or skill level either so its very hard to give an appropriate answer. So Im going to take this chance to educate someone else in this world. I too was young and wanted find the cheapest way to increase power. So here we go from the top hopefully you listen to what I am going to try to say, I am going to try to answer your question as best as I can then I will give my opinion.

Number one the best way to start gaining performance from a motor is to start on a fresh slate. Do what you can within your budget of course but this includes...
- Replacing worn and abused parts.
- Start as fresh as you can. Disassemble the motor give it to a machine shop, repair damages. Hone, mill, deck ect...
- Tune ups Included, you don't want to modify a worn motor to only throw away the money you put into it.

Next step would be to plan your approach. And research.

Now when you have come up with your approach, your hp goals( I wouldn't get too excited about the v6) , and your budget and what you want to start modifying first you can start putting parts together.

Ill take you through the bolt ons first. You will find that it is extremely difficult to find parts for your v6 because it wasn't built for performance so you will have to modify more than replace.

Essentially you want the motor to breath better. So things like Intake manifold, Carb /throttle body, Headers, Exhaust, High flow cats/No cats should be replaced or modified with new higher performing parts.

With more air now you are going to need more fuel, This is were your carb tuning, jets, Pumps, or electronic chips come in.

This is really as far as you can go with bolt on performance. Note this- You will see more power from a bolt on with a stronger base. essentially the more hp your car has the more it will gain from a bolt on. If you upgraded all of these things you "might" gain 15hp which is hardly enough to feel on a butt dyno.

Now with technology and machine shops or experience you can. Upgrade things like your Bore size, crank, pistons, Piston rods, your head, camshaft, valve train ect. and you will see much more performance that with a few simple bolt ons. But this involves more money, more time and more experience as with many things in life good things do not come easy.

Now aside from bolt on's and high prices engine modifications you have things called power adders which fall somewhere in between because most of the time you have to do a little on both sides of the spectrum to reap the benefits of these power adders.
- Nitrous Oxide
- Turbo Chargers
- Pro Chargers
- Super Chargers

As a general rule of thumb a stock motor can handle an additional 40% on top of its stock power from forced induction or nitrous. Any more than that and you will have to start upgrading internals such as pistons, rods, cranks etc to forged internals. But a properly built machine that is tuned correctly with forced induction or nitrous can easily achieve more than double its original HP.

As for oil with a new setup that has been broken in correctly you want to use the best oil possible and stick with it. These oils are usually synthetic and are more expensive. You should NOT confuse their price with power. You will gain no power from a synthetic oil what so ever. Their price comes from the process in which they are man made and superior to conventional oils. Why are they superior? NOT because they produce more power but they.. dissipate heat better, they lubricate better, they have a more positive effect on engine materials, and they last much longer.

Now for my opinion last but certainly not least. Do not spend your money on headers/exhaust/intake ect. on your tired old V6. You will see little to no benefits and those bolt on's if bought from reputable manufacturers they can cost you upwards of 1000 dollars easy. For what? 15 hp. and a feeling of "coolness" for now because they look nicer and sound louder.

Save your money every-time you think about buying a synthetic oil, or intake, or exhaust system. Save it and in the mean time take your motor apart piece by piece
at a time and send them to a machine shop get them cleaned up milled, honed, decked, blasted. Then you will have a fresh start ((Paint them as well. Painting parts is not as silly as some people make it out to be. Paint protects from rust and oxidation as well as heat. Ideally you would want to powder coat but proper paint per part will do fine.)) Upgrade your pistons and rods first thing to forged pieces. Now you have a building block for what allot of the third gen guys are doing with their v6 cars, turbos. Piece together a nice turbo kit with rebuilt parts/junkyard parts/ some new parts and when its all together you will have a motor with more than enough power for you to handle. You will have status and you will be recognized for doing what you did and not being like every other kid who slaps together a loud muffler and intake and calls it a day with a slow car that drives around town trying to be fast.

If that fails you, 400 dollars can get you a starter nitrous kit. Throw 100 shot to it until it blows and then put in a real motor. One with more than 6 cylinders and one that's not good on gas :P

-Charlie
Performance Automotive Technician

 

Charlie,
Very well said.
As Jackie Stewart says, "There is no substitute for cubic inches".

 

I'm sorry, i couldn't help it but i actually

 

this is the course of action i would take. when you upgrade time to put in a 350 and have a better platform to start with

 

Yes. I would prob blow it up with nitrous as well. Unless of course it was my DD. I know could piece together a used nitrous kit for dirt cheap on craigslist. I'm sure I would have a fun time throwing a huge shot at it to see what it would take until it gave out.With a shot of nitrous you could get that old 6 up and going pretty quick for a few runs. I remeber a few months ago they had the show ultimate car build off. 2 teams had to build a super car out of an astro van. Anyway one team threw an ebay turbo on the 6 and another team mid engine mounted it with a 150 shot both held up and performed pretty well I was impressed with how well they performed.

 

Trust us. There is nothing worse than throwing $$$ in to a car only to eventually realize that you've been throwing it in the crapper. Save Save Save and do it right.

 

good post, its the least anti v6 one ive seen in awhile lol and actually just informative


it takes a bit more than a 100 shot
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/v6/5...vastation.html

however if you want to keep the v6 post on the v6 board for help

 

the odd thing is i've seen these 2.8 cranks come out in 3 pieces running 3500 rpm's....and some live forever with ridiculous boost and nitrous


al comes down to how much do you wanna roll the dice?

 

yeah its a dice game with all our motors really... i think that problem was more common in the early 2.8s though

 

even though it wouldn't even run with the vortec headed stuff i've done, i still wouldn't mind doing a turbo v6 just to do it lol.


of course i'd be building it a little differently than anyone on here has, so maybe it would lol

 

mine is pretty sweet

what do you have in mind though?,

 

around 11:1 compression, 35lbs of boost, and a whole lot of supporting stuff

 

I have always loved small displacement turbo builds. But honestly I just associate mine and all Camaro's with high displacement performance. I would feel awkward driving around a camaro with anything less than a small block v8, but that's just me.
I have done a few turbo builds on smaller 4cyl motors ( mazda protoge, nissan sentra, twin turbo 6 Audi s4, and a couple of hondas one we built up d16 and another on a b18b) the b18b honda had over 360whp. The S4 had just under 500whp and was capable of more if the owner had more funds.
I have also gotten my hands involved with a single turbo SBC as well as a Twin turbo SBC both of which had over 500whp and were very fun. Not to mention easier than that of the japanese decent.