well, my friend had to pull the engine on his 91 305 powered bird last week due to a knocking rod. so, to have a car to drive while hes fixing it, he went out and bought a 90 3.1 powered bird. this makes three birds in a row for him. guess he dosent like variety, but for 500 bucks he got a steal. any way, he drove over and we decided to have a little 3.1 show down. i pulled my 92 3.1 bird out of the garage, she is stored for the summer cause i drive the 91 GTA during the warm months, and we lined 'em up. i ended up edging him by half a car, maybe less. we were dead even from the start (go figure...lol) but i pulled a little at the end. both are stock, except i have a flowmaster cat back. not much of an upgrade, but thats probably what gave me an edge. it wasnt a fast race, but it was fun as hell.

 

90' 3.1 vs. 91' 3.1

I own a 91' 3.1 and my uncle sold me the 90' for 300bucks from his used car dealership. I then sold that car to my best friend for $500. We also lined up to race and he slowly crept past me....his motor had more miles and wasn't in as good a shape as mine. Not anymore though, his has a blown head gasket(he drives it hard all the time). It made me mad that his car was slightly faster than mine and made me wonder what made it so...could it be my car has pretty much every option they came with at the time and his had none. Could it be that I upgraded from the 15x7 to the 16x8 ws6 wheels? Unlikely. Or that I weight 40more lbs than him??? I don't know, but I used that extra $200 I profited and got the functional ram air hood. Also got new, non-dryrotted tires...they helped significantly with the launch. And your right...definetly not a fast race, but fun.

 

looks like you won in the long run, cause he blew a gasket. haha, good times...for you.

 

Yeah, and i've beaten every other car he's owned. Not much to brag about though, the fastest car he's had was a 240sx twin cam. Or maybe it was his Hyundai Sonata??? Or his Ranger. or the little Nissan NX 1600(that was a close one.)

 

a win is a win, no matter how slow both cars are. my recomendation is to save up some gren and go find yourself a l98 car to have some serious fun in. i just beat an 05 mustang and an 05 srt-4 at the track with mine, and its stock.

 

Any moola I save up will be for a swap.
Actually...it'll be for paint and body, and some wheels. I'm not too worried about power right now, mostly gas mileage. Once im done with school i'll start focusing on that.

 

good call. i am going to keep my sixer and turn it in to a 10 second car soem time down the road. I dont want to sell it 'cause its the first car i ever bought. i plan to put in a 455, and make it a modernized version of the old SD cars that came with the 455's. good luck with getting your car in shape. btw, a cheap flowmaster catback exhaust does wonders for how the six cylinders sound, most people think mine is a 305 when they hear it...at idol anyway.

 

I heard Flowmaster exhaust makes it sound Raspy, like a canned import...I do want it to be louder though, it has a nice somewhat deep tone to it at Idle, and driving it sounds good too. I've heard sound clips of 3.1s with Flowmaster mufflers and they're horrible sounding. But if you say catback sounds good, i'll take your word for it.

 

mine has a 2.8 with a 3 inch ex system no cat with a flowmaster muffler (80 series) and it sounds good at idle and launch once it gets upto abou8t 3,500 rom it starts sounding liek a import till about 5,800 rpms after that it has a sound all its own,though ull never rev ur motor that high

 

I used to try to keep my car under 2500rpm when I accelerated. Now i've moved to a more hilly location and keep it under 3000rpms, but i've been hitting 3500-4000 more often. I think since im now at a higher elevation, i've lost some power. But it could just be in my head, or i've got something wrong with the car.

daves89rs - 3" exhaust on your 2.8?? You've lost backpressure, no? That's why im afraid to touch my exhaust, don't want it to sound like that. It sounds good now, just not loud enough.

 

mine sounds great at idle, but its not loud. it sounds like a tuned up v8....if your standing near the rear of the car, up by the font all you hear is fan. your not going to get loud with out the rice fart can sound. my flow master dosent sound rice-y at all. but you can tell its a 6 once i stomp on it. now the 350...thats a whole nother beautiful animal.

 

I'll probably end up keeping my exhaust the same until I swap in a v8. It sounds good now, and it'll kill me everytime I step on the gas and my car sounds like a dirt bike.

 

Haha You don't know my 2.8 She loves it right at 6k rpm