Cold Air Intake, Headers, and Exhaust

[Christ]

Originally Posted by 99LeCouch

Ahh, you gutted your airbox? That's a nice, easy mod to do. I've done mine. There's not a big difference in FE. If anything it slows down the air coming into the engine if you took out the back piece. I'm thinking I want to put in a few pieces of Coroplast to redirect air towards the throttle body so the airbox is nice and wide-open in the front, then it tapers down in the back so air isn't stagnating in the corners of the box. I wonder if that would do anything.

The 3800 is a 90* V6, not a 60* like the 3100 and 3400.

Is it? I'm fairly certain it bolts into the same bell housing... Maybe it's the same housing design with a diff block.

You want better gas mileage, get some longer gears, and the Eaton M90 kit from a Riviera or similar, with everything needed to make it operate correctly, then put a smaller pulley on it. Supercharged low-end torque FTW. Make sure you've got "diesel" gears so you can really take advantage of the low-RPM torque increase, and you could potentially see some awesome gains.

[99LeCouch]

GM designed their bellhousings to take 2 60* V6's and the 90* 3800's.

Top-swapping an L36 is doable but takes lots of $$$ and lots of time tuning. The folks who have done it spend about $2000 or more in parts and tuning software.

Check which gears you have. If you have the 2.86 final drive, that's the lowest you can get factory. If you have the 3.06 gears, finding a 2.86-geared transmission may be worth the time and effort.

[Christ]

Originally Posted by 99LeCouch

GM designed their bellhousings to take 2 60* V6's and the 90* 3800's.

Top-swapping an L36 is doable but takes lots of $$$ and lots of time tuning. The folks who have done it spend about $2000 or more in parts and tuning software.

Check which gears you have. If you have the 2.86 final drive, that's the lowest you can get factory. If you have the 3.06 gears, finding a 2.86-geared transmission may be worth the time and effort.

Well, I don't have either, now... My father has the Grand Prix, if the transmission ever goes out, we're going to 5 speed swap it. (Cavalier)

If I can't get my Wife's non-GM product fixed, we're going to have to push back swapping the tranny in Cara, as well.

[Marty]

Well the Exhaust part of this thread seems to have yielded lost mpg's overall (2-3). Haven't tried the CAI or the headers yet, and won't unless they are able to pick up the losses from the OEM exhaust. What a waste.

[99LeCouch]

I just had the lower intake manifold on my car ported and polished, along with smoothed head ports. It's definitely making more torque at low RPM since it now leaves the TCC locked on many hills it would unlock it on before.

It's intake-related...