JMDEWITT

What is the best way to increase the hp on my 1994 Trans Am 5.7L. Already have a cai and looking to get a performance chip and tune.

henryd3

iTrader: (128)

Depends heavily on how much money you're willing to throw at it, what level of gains you're looking for, and how much effort you're willing to put in.

Tootie Pang

iTrader: (2)

What amount would you be happy spending?

OrangeBird

iTrader: (1)

Orangebird's formula for speed ;


Speed = Cubic Inches X Cubic Dollars , Squared .

So , just how fast DO ya wanna go , , , , Broke ?

ULTM8Z

I'd put the money into a better axle ratio. If you're running say, 3.08 or something like that, then recommend you go to 3.42 or 3.73. You'll get way more punch with that than you would a PCM retune...

I've been through the calibrations on those things and to be honest there's not a whole lot that GM left on the table IMO.

But if I were to look for a little more oomph out of the tune, what I would do is the following:

1.) Lean out the Power Enrichment (PE) a little (GM went notoriously rich- particularly on third gens, in order to ensure no dangerous lean conditions at WOT). My guess is if you stuck a wide band O2 on the exhaust, you'd probably see low 11's on the AFR. I'd lean that out to around 12.5:1.

2.) Have the PE come in a little sooner. This will help your "part throttle" feel a little... instead waiting until WOT to get into PE, you can get into it at 1/2 throttle or thereabouts. The car will feel a little "quicker" during every day driving when you're not exactly flooring the accelerator.

3.) Put in the LT4 spark curve. It's significantly more aggressive than the LT1.

4.) Someone might say to retune for the CAI, but I don't think so. With my Miniram, I actually used the LT1 air temperature tables verbatim when I put in a CAI and there was a huge improvement over the TPI tables. So I think the factory LT1 tune is already calibrated to handle this.

TylerSteez

iTrader: (3)

the best way to increase power would be heads and a cam plus the supporting mods it will take to make it all work.

based off your question, my assumption is you're new to cars so that might be beyond your skill level at the moment. As ULTM8Z said, a better axle ratio will make your car leave the line harder and feel more powerful. You could also do headers and simple bolt ons to let your engine breathe a little easier but on a stock engine you probably wont feel the difference.