i have an 86 iroc as a daily driver with a 305 tpi auto, i want to bolt on few things to give it a little snort but still drivability and fuel economy of a daily driver. So far i want to put on an airfoil, k&n air filters, an underdrive pulley set up, and a motorvation stage 1 chip. i dont know a whole lot about tpi's, or if airfoils, chips, and pulleys are hype or not, just wondering what is and isnt worth my time and money

 

Chips by mail are OK for a few things but to get a good tune on a car you need to do it in person hands on. If your going to spend money on a chip go a litte further and set yourself up with chip burning equipment for your car> There are plenty of stickies here to get a beginer going and it's a lot of fun for a gearhead. It will take up your spare time.

Don't have any experiance with bolt ons for your car sorry...

 

a good quality tune up first . then better breathing , headers & CAI . most of all continue reading everything on this site (a wealth of information) . good luck .

 

Have to agree with Uncle Tom on that. Headers and a nice exhaust will work wonders, especially with no cat, and there are some nice intake parts available, although they are a bit pricey. Good luck!

 

Well the idea behind pulleys is great except you never want the entire system underdriven, unless you have an electric water pump. You could see if they make an overdrive pulley for your water pump that way when you underdrive the others, the water pump still works the same. You don't want your car to overheat due to an underdriven pulley system. If you were to get just lighter pulleys it would help almost the same way without sacrificing your cooling systems effectiveness. So, if you know a fab shop you could get someone to fab lighter pulleys for you out of stronger metals and you would get more horsepower out of the car. It's not going to increase the horsepower of the engine, but allow the crank to have less weight on it. The less weight on the crank, the more useable horsepower you have. That's why people do a/c deletes and power steering deletes. They are cheap ways of getting a little more horsepower out of your car. I don't know for sure because it depends on the engine, but for every pound you shed off the crank you should gain anywhere from 1hp to 5hp. Remember that's per pound. I don't know the real numbers for the camaros because they are bigger engines, but I do know in the Nissan 300zx V6 engine every pound dropped off the crank increases hp output by 2.7hp. I don't however remember if that's at the crank or at the wheel. So in the idea that an engine already has a lot of useable power, that number should be slightly higher per pound.

On to intakes, if you put only an intake on a car, you are increasing it's ability to take air in, but not expel it. So, sure you can get some horsepower from CAIs, but not as much if you have a freer flowing exhaust. Just the CAI might increase hp by 10, but hooked up with a full exhaust including headers might give you up to 50 horsepower, maybe more. Depends on the set up. Also, that depends on a proper tune. Which is the reason for a chip, tune the chip to your specs and get it to how you want to drive the car and you will have one nice ride.

There's also no point in asking what your quarter mile should be, or how much horsepower you should have because the easiest way to find that is to get it on a DYNO or on the quarter mile. I have to think about all this a lot because I'm having to remember a lot. It's been a while since I've thought about the actual numbers. Also, when I did it before it was on the Nissan 300zx engine.

Easiest thing to think about when throwing bolt ons, well on your car, is that the more power your engine has behind the crank, the more power you get from add ons. There is a number of people who don't like superchargers, turbos, etc. Those people are also the ones who typically believe in getting more power without the forced induction. Whole other topic.

 

I forgot to add something that might help you a little more. If your engine is capable of getting 5hp/lbs off the crank, think about how heavy the crank is. Say for example the crank pulley itself is 15lbs and you are able to shave 5lbs from that you should get about 25hp more out of the car. The if your power steering pulley is 10lbs and you shave 5lbs from that, same idea. So, depending on how you do it and the actual weights applied, it will make a significant difference. Also, the more power you have available, the more power you get out of intakes and things like that.