<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by 5.7lformula:
I am wanting to mod for speed. I enjoy 1/4mile as well as auto cross. I basicly know (for the most part) what suspension work im going to do. The budget that i set (which isnt permenint:-)

It never is, lol

is $400 for headers (which i am led to believe comes with the Y-Pipe) I would like to stay under or at $400 as well for the catback.

Well, for headers, the SLPs can't be beat. They're the best emmisions legal design you can get. These will run you a little more than 400, but not only are they the best design, they're also stainless so they won't rot out on you. There are plenty of nice cat backs for under 400. I like the flowmaster set-up myself. For the dual cat cars (like yours and mine) it has an improved Y design for after the cats that has to be worth power vs. the stock set-up ( 2.5" out of the cats, into a TRUE 3" Y, vs. the stock 2.25" outlets into a poorly shaped near T.)

Does the Air Foil help that much? From what i have read it seems like it would and is not that much. (Moneywise that is)

Well, it's not really worth any performance in practice, but it's something to have if you're bored. The SL piece is the only one worth buying since it's by far the cheapest ($25), why pay twice that for an unmeasureable gain. Or you can make one yourself with epoxy putty

Is there any website that has a how-to for the cold air mod? I would eventualy like to get the ram air hood for the 3rdgen.

You can do a search for these topics, it's been covered a million times really on solutions to the factory air box w/ firebirds.

Is there a shift kit or something like that to firm up the shifts a bit? It seems kinda sluggish when it shifts. ...and get a tourqe converter. He suggested one out of a vette.

This is more a topic for the tranny board, again, just reading/searching there will give you plenty about this. The vette TC is the best low buck option for a converter really, that or the one from an S10.

A friend of mine said to swap the thermostat out with a *160

160 is really too low to be useful, especially if you don't change the fan on temps in the PROM. 180 works well, they're nothing to be gained by goig lower.

which aftermarket intake parts are the best for the money? I have seem some of the prices and wasnt sure if it was worth it or not. should i get aftermarket fuel injectors to go with the FPR?? As well as a aftermarket fuel pump or filter? Do you recomend any certian gauges that would be nice to have to keep track of everything?

As you can tell im NEW to all of this. I formerley owned a Import so bare with me. I obviously wised up and got a 3rdGen. :-)


Well i'm just going to dodge the specifics of this to give you a piece of sound advice. Just start reading and doing searches on the stuff you're interested in. Really get to know how everything works together, and use other people's experiences to figure out the best way to get the performance you want. I mean, it's one thing for me to recomend SLP headers, it's pretty clear that they are universally necessary and good. When it comes to diving into the intake and tuning there are a lot of things to consider. There are plenty of ways to get any level of performance, the fun of it is doing it your way, and IMHO, with the least amount of $$$ and work.

A last piece of advice. If you plan on ever getting serious and making a lot of power you should get into PROM burning early. Being able to tune it in the chip will give you more performace at every step of the game (even stock), and also gives you a deeper understanding of what is going on. If you start early, the learning curve is very slow because you can start out tweaking little things to see what happenes before you NEED to make big changes.
</font>