I have an 89 Firebird Formula. 350 5.7L TPI. I wanna get your guys opinions on what i can do to make it quicker? Its bone stock right now. Thanks for your opinions!

 

Well I'm pretty sure you dont have the 225 horse engine I'm sorry to say because those cars are the G92 cars like mine and came with gears, 3.23s in your case because you have an auto. The way to tell if your car has the 230 horse engine is to see if it has 2 cats also. So I think you have the 210 horse and yea mid 15s probably. Okay, well you can do a few things. You can get a new engine, like a ZZ4 crate motor that will put you in the low 13s for a nice $3000. You can have your engine rebuilt because 147k is a lot of miles and putting all that money into mods may not be worth it when the engine blows. Hrmm, if you want to keep your engine I say a full tune up. Exhaust is a perfect place to start with a car like yours. First I would probably work the ignition, change your 02 sensor, and find out why your car is leaking oil on startup. Sorry, I'm a quirk with engines, they need to be perfect before I work on them, or you wont get your whole moneys worth of mods. And, if you have patience unlike me, you can do suspension mods like some LCAs and a panhard rod. There are some other suspension mods out there that I'm not to familiar with. I would not get a blower or NOS because I think it would be to risky to spend such money on a blower that your engine might crap and then you have a $3000 blower sitting in your garage. After you get your tune up, do the free mods. Port your plenum, tb bypass, free ram air, and some other stuff that can be found in the tech articles. If you get the suspension stuff your car will hook up like a beaut. Thats my biggest problem, is traction but I seem to just ignore it, I race mainly on the street so its from either a 20mph roll or a 35mph roll. Get SLP 1 5/8 headers and get them coated, it's gonna cost you a nice $600 maybe more to get the headers and have them coated. Also, if you do have the dual cat options, when you get SLP tell them you have the single cat and just get one cat, I don't think it flows that much better than a single cat and it looks a lot nicer with one. Have them make a test pipe for the car also from the y pipe, and have them bolt it on so when emissions comes you can replace it with another piece of pipe and voila, you pass. Hrmm, then get whatever catback that soothes your ears, Edelbrock sounds so damn pretty w/o cats and so does hooker. Borla sounds the prettiest to me but their dollar sign is pretty too. Get 3.42s, you have an auto and you might over rev, I have 5 gears, you have 4. After that, work on your tranny, either get it rebuilt or put a stage 2 b&m shift kit in it. With that done you will hit 14s. Don't overlook the free mods, sure you wont get a SOTP difference but they really help. Also some underdrive pulleys and a Holley AFPR would be nice. After all that its engine mods, like new 24# injectors and the intake then break into the heads and cam. It takes a lot of money, effort, and time to get it to run fast. Definately get 16" rims, I don't think any Irocs came with 15" rims if I'm not mistaken, post up the VIN number and we can get your specs about your car. But yea, the gears, exhaust, free mods, suspension, and ignition (I mean coil, crane ignition box) should net you 14s no problem. Since you have a auto a 1800rpm stall converter or 2000rpm converter would help you to. All that I say mid 14s outta a stock 305 aint bad at all. You can probably pull some mid 13s with the right head/intake/cam combo and 12s with a power adder. And there is so no way to tell how long your car is gonna last, I wouldn't beat on it like a madman because she is old. If you want, the new edelbrock wheels look saucy on a 350 formula they advertised in car craft i think it was. Do the mods in that order and in about a year or so you have a 305 tpi to be feared.

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1990 G92 5spd LB9 - 3.42 80,000 miles

Accel Ignition/Wires (8.8mm), Advanced Timing, TB Bypass, Ported and Gasket Matched Plenum, Synthetic Motor Oil, 160 Thermo, TPIS Airfoil, K&N Air Filters, Centerforce I Pressure Plate and Clutch, Edelbrock TES Headers, Dual Cats, Edelbrock RPM Series Catback, Homemade Ram Air, Bosch +4 Platinum Plugs

14.4 @ 94mph w/2.0622 60ft (w/o headers and catback)

14.426 @ 96.19mph w/2.167 60ft(w/headers and catback)

Also newly modded w/o track times:

Holley AFPR, Underdrive Pulleys, KYB Shocks and Struts, Crane Ignition