My friend has built a rally course at her cabin, sitting on 30 acres and me and all my friends are buying some cheap cars to gun around with over there. I'm getting a v6 firebird and I wanted to know what any cheap/free mods would be for the v6. I've yet to look under the hood of a v6 fbody, only v8s, so i'm pretty unfamiliar with the engine.

I've got my old stock 3" exhaust from my GTA and I was thinking that I could stick that on there. Do you think it would make much of a difference or would the v6 exhaust manifolds still be too constrictive for the rest of the exhaust?

I was also planning on getting a k&n filter as I figure we're going to be kicking up quite abit of dust and that will prolly clog up paper filters pretty quickly.

The car is also going to be living at the cabing so essentially anything related to emmissions can be ditched.

 

if u drop the 3inch ex system on a stock v6, it will actually hurt ur tq
ur really not gonna get much more out of the v6 without getting into the engine a bit, but if ur looking for just a lil bit more u can
bump the timming a few degrees
get some k&n's
do airboxmod/cold air intake
descreen the maf ( i personally think thats a waste)
but most importantly do a full tuneup change all fluids
get a quality set of plugwires/plugs

 

lol, so its not going to be tagged?
I would just get rid of the exhaust all together lol, might not make as much power but it would have a v8 idle lol, and you would scare the rest of them when it revvs lol, you might want to invest in some ear plugs though

but really, since it won't be driven nicely, get rid of all of the comfort stuff:
seats
carpet
dash? (thats up to you if you need to know your speed lol)
a/c

and things you don't need like the spare tire, interior panels, ect...

weight reduction in other words
you get rid of alot and it would be faster without messing with the engine

hell, if you can keep a tarp on it when its not in use, I would strip off things like the bumpers, hood, hatch, windows, t-tops?, ect...
man, that would be a light 3rd gen

 

haha so i should totally dissasemble the thing? I'm thinking i should keep at least keep it relatively safe... in case I manage to roll it or slam it into a tree or something.

 

lol, well, ok, you could keep bumpers, but you don't need a hood to be safe, and if you think about it, the less glass you have, the less there will be to break later lol but yea, on the side of safety, you might want to put in some type of roll cage, or something along those lines

but seriously, if you think you don't need it, ditch it.

 

on a rally course especially a lighter car is going to do more for you than a car with more power(especially if your talking power out of the stock v6). I believe you can remove the bumper covers without taking out the bumper supports, should lose a lot of polar weight and still stay structurally sound(bumper covers are just polyurethane anyway). lose the spoiler, ac, all the smog stuff(heater core and hoses if you really want, get rid of the whole heater fan,strip the dash down to just guages, take all the seats out and put in a 4th gen(much lighter) junk seat(no power seats, they weigh more). carpet, headliner, etc. I think theres thread about major weight loss in the fabrication forum.

easy cheap power? there probaby isnt. if you arent worried about reliability you could get a 3.4 from a 4thgen in a junkyard for $125 and that swaps right in(bit of work though). if its a manual transmission that is a lot better, since sticks have a lot less drivetrain loss than autos(and its amplified in weaker engines like ours). you could probably see 10 at the wheels by switching to a manual, and thats about a 10% gain from stock.

If you have good fabrication skills you could probably throw on a cheap turbo or supercharger(m90 from a thunderbird), but that would take a lot of time and effort to make and tune, and still a decent chunk of change.

and other stuff gets more expensive/complicated.

oh and it sounds like you would probably want a posi rear for what you are doing, you could get a used posi unit from a junkyard or private seller for fairly cheap.

 

cheap and free are the key words, gut it every thing, seats carpet, speakers center consol, block off the egr at the intake with a quater, cut the exhuast out before the cat and put a 90* elbow on it, weld the spider gears in the differential to lock the rear up and lower tire pressure, remover A/C and AIR pump and get a shorter belt, fresh fluids and trans filter if its an auto, tune up, drilled thermo stat, or no thermostat, since this thing is gonna be running wot alot, she'll get hot, rig fan to run all the time on a switch. and some of that coolant additive to run cooler, and take out the side windows (maybe get some netting) and protect the gas tank, a tree stump will end your fun quickly, along with some sort of steel mesh to protect the radiator

 

since you will not be subject to smog inspections there is no need to use a quarter, just remove the egr and weld a plate over the hole in the manifold. i would keep the heater core if it works. it will provide extra cooling. car gets hot, turn the heat on. you may want to dig up a two fan setup of of a V8 car (like the one in your 88 GTA ) for extra cooling.

pulling the hatch will reduse your rear weight. however these cars are nose heavy, so that will effect your balance. i would leave the hatch and pull weight out of the front. re-locate things like your battery to the rear or center of the car. if you do this you will also have the oportunity to put the batt wire through the cabin and put a cuttoff for it in reach of the drivers seat. good for saftey. if you keep the hood i would atleast gut the skeleton. save some weight there.

have fun, take video, link it here.

 

Rig your own intake with PVC and a cone style K&N. Put it in the area that is normally taken up if the headlights are down. Or pretty much anywhere as long as its in front of the radiator. Use some small diameter heater hose and bypass the throttle body heater system. Theres 2 hoses that connect to the throttle body, just use the heater hose to route the coolant past that. Cooler intake air = denser air = slightly more power.

Stock ignition is pretty adequate, you could go for a high output coil, 8mm wires, better rotor/cap, and some new plugs of your choice that are better than the cheap ones.

Since you don't care about this car you could probably run it on 93 and advance the base timing a few degrees.

Lose the A/C, see if you can get a belt to fit without rubbing by just not using the A/C pulley.

Weld a plate to EGR hole , gut or remove the cat, straight pipe instead of a muffler, but that would sound pretty terrible at RPMs.

 

sell everythig you gut, therefor making it a more cost effective makeover

 

how much do used posi units go for?

I've seen entire rear ends go for $200-$300. If I got a whole different rear end what gearing would be best for the v6? What gearing do v6 equipped cars come with stock?

I was already planning on cutting the cat out and straight piping it. I think I'll keep the muffler tho. I don't wanna be scaring deer away from miles away.

Is there much room to port out v6 intakes at all?

Taking the glass out of the doors seems like a good idea. Winters are apparently pretty harsh at her cabin. Do you think it will still be fine sitting under a tarp all winter? I know most of the interior is going to be gone. but I dont want to have to sit on a real nasty seat when I'm racing.

 

One way to maximize your V-6 is to put a quality performance ign. coil on it. Accel makes a good one and MSD makes another. I have tried different modifications and none seemed to stand out like just replacing the coil with a performance one. I have a msd blaster coil which I had to fit onto the brackets of my OE coil, but you will feel a difference right after putting one of these things on.

 

actually as long as your stock coil is in good shape there really shouldnt be much of a difference in switching to a performance coil. the stockers are designed with plenty of voltage to ignite a stock engine(its in the MFG's best interest for economy, etc), you'll probably only see gains if your stock coil was on its way out. although if it is on its way out, its a lot easier to justify just spening the extra few $ on a performance coil while you're at it.

 

Yep....I have a 300 horse car and could not feel a seat-of-the-pants difference between a stock replacement ignition coil and an MSD Blaster coil, and this is with a set of 9mm plugwires and an MSD box on top of that, along with a brand new module. Only notice a difference if your stock coil is crapping out. I just paid the extra buck to ensure a longer lasting part and also to ensure that it would keep sparking hard at higher rpms which is hard on a coil

 

Thanks for the info. I probably noticed a difference cause mine was weak or on it's way out.

 

I noticed a difference - no more spark blowout under boost

Rally course? Posi, without a doubt, first thing. Then some good dirt tires.

As long as the motor runs good, start there, then do the basics - headers, 2.5" exhaust...

Damn good air filter, too