So I'm getting ready to come home from an extended work trip and I've been saving money to fix up the Camaro. Car is a 1992 RS with the 305.

My first upgrade will be replacing the exhaust, the whole rear system has rusted out and full of holes, one day at work it finally separated from the hanger and said hello to the pavement. Second, I managed to snag a complete NOS Dual snorkel intake kit off of ebay.

I've read that our stock exhaust is restrictive, so this is the exhaust system I was looking at, it's a 3 incher.

Is there anything else you guys would suggest that would go good with the extra intake/exhaust capability I'll have? I suck at all things mechanical, so I'll probably have a shop do the work. Will the intake and exhaust by themselves make for a good upgrade? And would the car require any tuning after installing them?

According to the tech data here on the site, our engines only made 170 HP stock... If I could bump those rookie numbers up to 200, that would be great!

 

Dual snorkle air cleaner...fun!

That Hawks exhaust looks nice, but PRICEY! That's Borla money right there, and personally, I'm not a fan of that style of turndown on the tailpipes.

For about half as much, you can get a stainless Magnaflow catback. It's a BIG price difference. Between those two, that's sure the one I would choose.

https://www.magnaflow.com/collection...xhaust-systems

Your tune "might" be OK, but if you want to increase your performance without getting into the tuning business, you should send a private message to forum member Tuned Performance. He can burn a new PROM for your computer.

The L03 TBI 305 has one of it's biggest bottlenecks to horsepower in it's exhaust manifolds and Y-pipe. Doing a catback is nice, and will sounds good, and fix your rust issues behind the cat. But it may not do much for performance, as the cork is farther up in the system.

The cam (euphemistically referred to as the peanut cam because of its tiny lobes) is another issue, and neither of these improvements will change that either.

If you're wanting to keep this engine, and not make the upgrade to a 350, there's nothing wrong with the two items you have chosen to start with. And doing a catback now, while the factory pieces are falling off, makes sense. but just understand they aren't the biggest trouble makers with this engine from a performance point of view.

 

The factory manifolds, T-pipe and factory cat choke the life out of these engines. The factory camshaft is the next choke point. GM has a billet steel roller cam that you can buy for around $100 to your door that is a clone of the Crane 2032. With a little chip work would really wake up a 305.

Cam is GM 94666492

The one I ordered degreed out 214/220. Another guy is claiming his was 207/213. Both on a 112 LSA and 108 ICL with .452/.465 lift. Upgrade the springs to some cheap Z/28 springs. Either way it is a heck of an upgrade over the 178/194 cam that came in a 305 with its asmatic .350/.385 lift. Mercruiser used the cam in a 350 vortec truck engine to get 300 hp.

Air cleaner and catback might get you 10 hp. But it will get those items out of the way for future upgrades.

 

I absolutely would love a 350 or an LS1. Unfortunately, with needing to do the exhaust, replace the convertible roof, new leather seat covers, SFCs, etc.... there's a lot I want to do just maintenance-wise to keep it in good condition that I'm not ready to even think about an engine swap. My DD is getting old too, so it's not exactly in the budget. I think I'd honestly be super happy pepping up the 305 and one day buy a used Lambo if my stocks do well

So what's the difference between short tube and long-tube headers? I'm wondering what type of headers I should be looking at. I see that many of them have "Off-road Y pipes". I'm assuming these won't pass emissions? Even though my state doesn't test, I'd think I'd like to keep my engine clean? I don't know if that's stupid, but I'd like to keep the camaro somewhat stock and close to its original design, but ideally a bit faster. I'd also like to not completely murder my MPGs as well.

This Flowtech shorty header and y-pipe from hawks sounds like it fits my goals. If anyone has used these or others would love to hear about them.

These Hookers also sound like they'd work

 

Save yourself some $ look at Summit or Jegs.

 

Not going to lie, I had to google what a camshaft is. I love the idea of a $100 upgrade. So the camshaft is basically inside the block if I'm understand things correctly, how much (ballpark) might I be looking at for a shop to install that? Suppose if I was having someone do the cam, headers, y-pipe, exhaust.

Combined with my stereo ambitions, and other needed work I have a feeling things are going to get pricey.

 

If you have to pay a shop to do internal engine mods, you'll be throwing good money after bad by having it done to the old 305. Shop labor costs are sky-high, especially for specialty shops that work on old cars. If you plan to spend that kind of $$$, start looking at a 350.

Seriously, paying someone else to work on your 30-year-old Camaro can be a problem-fraught path down which to go. Instead, I suggest you buy some tools and a shop manual, and get involved yourself. Start out with some simple maintenance-type jobs, and work your way up from there to more-complicated projects. That's pretty much what everyone who now works on their own 3rd gen has done; everybody starts somewhere.

GL with your project(s).

 

Take an auto-repair class at a Community College, or an Adult Education course.

Find a local mentor that can show you stuff, and sort-out problems when you get into trouble.

Get a camera that takes decent pictures. No, the one built into your cell phone is NOT good enough, and it doesn't matter how many gigapixels they advertise. Learn to take photos IN FOCUS, and learn how to crop and resize them for posting on forums. Big enough to see the important details, small enough so you don't **** people off 'cause they take too long to load. Mostly the photos are just for you--to help you remember how it came apart as an aid to putting it back together. Take pictures BEFORE you touch the wrench to the object, and more as you go deeper into the disassembly.

BUY THE FACTORY SERVICE MANUAL. Paper is better than DVD, but DVD is marginally acceptable and certainly better than nothing.

There's two thousand places to buy inexpensive tools. You don't have to go to Hazzard Fraught and buy Communist Crap. Cheap box-end wrenches are moderately acceptable. Cheap open-end wrenches will show you your own blood. Most wrenches have a box on one end, open on the other...and the open end will be a mess if you buy crappy wrenches. Cheap sockets are moderately acceptable. Cheap ratchets will bust your knuckles. And don't buy typical (too-short) "regular handle length" ratchets unless you've got arms like canned hams. Most guys do better with a longer-handle ratchet because they're more controllable. Cheap screwdrivers work fine...for awhile. When the tips get damaged, stop using them.

Work CLEAN. Dirt destroys engines. Destroys transmissions. Destroys...everything...it gets inside. And you will be amazed at how little dirt it takes to cause problems.

 

Thanks for the suggestions guys... I have always wanted to learn how to do this stuff, I've always just been intimidated from having no experience and trouble when I have attempted to do stuff. I can change the oil and change a tire, but not a whole lot more. It would be so much better and cheaper if I could do this stuff myself. I see on ebay the shop book for my car isn't too pricey, I might go ahead and grab one.

 

The dual snorkel air cleaner is a nice upgrade and will flow much better than the stock one. It will help that 305 some and will support future increased horsepower if you go down that road.

A 3” catback is another good upgrade. Many different options out there. I like the Magnaflow as well. Good quality, sounds good, reasonable cost.

Bump the base ignition timing from 0 BTDC to 6 BTDC and run 93 octane. The stock timing curve is setup to run 87 octane. A custom tune is a better option, but for a pretty much stock motor, bumping the timing up at the distributor works good enough and it’s free.

If you want to go further, as has been stated already, swap the exhaust manifolds, 2.25” y pipe and converter to something that flows better. A good set of shorty headers, matching 3” y pipe and 3” converter, mated up to the 3” catback will make a big difference. This would be a nice combo if you stop right here.

At that point, anything further requires going into the motor. Sure, a camshaft isn’t that expensive, but it’s a lot of work to change it in the car especially if you are paying someone to do it. Maybe I would swap to some 1.6 ratio rocker arms, but that’s probably it. I would save anything further for a motor swap to a 350 or 383.

 

Leave the engine alone internally. Waste of money to modify it for now. Focus on things that will transfer to a new better engine later. Do maintenance items that keep the engine in good tune.

Even jumping to a 350/383 is a waste of money on stock heads. And then you are need an upgraded intake . Essentially you are replacing the ENTIRE engine at that point and any previous money spent on things like a am in a 305 with stock heads is a total loss.

You'd be spending better money to get the nose painted so its not peeling.

 

This is a good list of upgrades, I'll definitely keep this in mind thanks!

I do have a question about your point about octane, the owners manual for mine recommends mid grade, 88.5. I have run regular rarely and I never had any problems, but I usually do mid (88 in alaska). If the car is tuned for 87, why does the manual recommend 88.5?

 

Flotek is garbage and the summit house brand headers are the same run fast and far

 

It was 20 years ago that I did these upgrades to my brother's 1992 RS, so I probably just remembered the stock octane requirement incorrectly. If the manual says 88.5, then I would assume it would be tuned for that octane and I wouldn't go below that. My point was just that you can advance the base timing and run 93 octane. We did that on his car and it ran great with no issues.

We also swapped the rear end from the stock 2.73 to a 3.73 (complete rear from a donor car). That made a huge difference in the seat of the pants feel. Probably wasn't that much faster, but it certainly felt like it was. To do it again though, I would do a 3.42 gear instead. The 3.73 was a little too much for the RPM range of that 305.

 

Go ahead and do 3" exhaust + headers, posi + 3.42 gears, higher stall torque converter.. Will feel like a different car and go over well with a 350 swap later on. Like Thirdgen89GTA said..Don't do any mods internally to the boat anchor 305.

 

Headers + 3 inch Y pipe + tubing + a high flow muffler does wonders. Add shorter gears = completely different vehicle. Still have to open the induction system but just exhaust and gears is huge for the 305 TBIs

 

Use your scan tool to watch the knock-sensor activity. If you have a high-enough octane rating, there'll be very little knock sensor activity. If your octane rating is too low, you'll have plenty of knock sensor activity, along with the retarded timing the knock sensor causes.

 

Yup, I think that's what I'm leaning towards! Headers/Y-pipe and new exhaust.

Not sure about the gears, are there any downsides to changing them? Lower MPG? As far as the rear goes, one mod I would like to eventually do is at least a LSD.

 

A small reduction in fuel economy and a little more engine noise on the highway. Should still be mid 20's for mpg on the highway, even with 3.42's.

 

I went from 2.73 to 3.73s. Went from 26mpg hwy to 25mpg hwy so no big deal there. Car probably does better mpgs in town and traffic as it seems not to be lugged down as much for sure.Huge improvement as far as seat of the pants the car feels totally different.