Hey All,

I know some of you out there in TBI land are doing up L03's so I was wondering. Where do I go from here. What should be my next upgrade. Here are the following mods that I have done to my car

K&N Open air element intake
Headman Headers
3" exhaust
Magnaflow Hi-Flow Catalytic Converter
Magnaflow Hi-Flow Muffler

What I was wondering is should I work on my engine next...if so what parts should I be looking into. Maybe drive train or transmission. Any ideas on what my next step should be would be greatly apreciated. Thanks

 

I know it's gonna get said a lot today, but chip tuning. Definitely chip tuning. If your driving on a stock tune, you've got some sizeable gains to make. If you don't wanna go that route, and you're running 2.73 gears, I'd say swap those with 3.23 or 3.42s (or if you have drum brakes, go the extra effort and swap rears for a 9 or 10 bolt with discs and decent gearing and hopefully posi). If you haven't started beefing up your suspension and drivetrain (wonderbar, strut tower brace, subframe connectors, lower control arms, aluminum drive shaft from an LT1 or LS1 4thgen, etc). I'd say any of those three things will not only improve your situation now, but save you grief later when you're looking to make more power.

 

Well I am waiting for the pocket programmer to arive and then I am gonna take a stab at the Chip tuning. I already recieved 10 EpRoms from Digikey. Bought a whack load of them for if I get good at tuning I can try and tune some of the local thirdgens at a price. However I got my ALDL cable and my comp is in the car. So once the programmer shows up I should be good go to there.

I forgot to mention that I bought the 3.42 gears...just no clue how to put those in a car. I am gonna get those professionally installed and have the car converted to POSI instead if pegleg.

I did the wonderbar install, and the edlebrock STB. I am just waiting for my neighboor to get his mag welder so he can install my SFC's. Not sure about lower control arms. What exactly do those do?

 

you definetly want to beef up the suspension cause it doesn't matter how much power you make if you can't get it to the ground. Depending on how extreme you want to get, get rid of the worst heads ever that an LO3 has. A good set of 305 TPI heads work wonders and is pretty cheap too. If the heads are off, then you might want to look at getting a new cam and what goes with that. Top it off with a performer TBI intake and the car will scream.

 

I am with wuz_up. I would get some heads or a cam or just get both. It seems like alot of people are going with the vortec heads and the lt1 or hotcam swap. Seems like they are getting good results with it. You would probably have no problem getting some Bins to work with from guys who have done the swap already too.

 

Ditto on the heads and cam stuff. However, only consider that when you can fully understand chip burning.

 

Ok...I will hunt or the LT1 CAM and TPI Heads. I can buy the parts now and install them once I crack this how to burn chips thing. As for a performer TBI...would that Holley 670 cut it or should I go snag me a TBI from a 454 engine? Either or is an option.

 

Both have 2" bores, and flow about the same. It boils down to which you want to modify to work. You will have to bore out the performer TBI intake to accept a 2" bore.

 

heads and cam aren't exactly an easy thing to find on ebay. I was wondering if there is any item I can buy at say jegs or one of the sponsors up top that would be a good addon for my 305 TBI?

Another question...what is the vortech heads. I have been hearing that word and wondering what they are. Where can I get those and do they make a cam?

 

Check out the classifieds for used parts. That is your best bet to find authentic f-body stuff. Also, call your local junk yards for stuff. Look around for 305 TPI (081) heads, or L98 and LT1 cam. Vortec heads were found on selective 1996 through 2001 350 pickups and vans and one of th ebest perduction performance heads out there. A few searches will tell you what you need to do to run those heads.

 

gmpartsdirect has fully assembled vortec heads for around $500 FYI