You dont need to spend over 2 thousand to get what your looking for. Start with the basics, You can buy everything with the prices Im listing. You need to look around a little. Summit racing is a great site, except when you get your cat-back, try to find one for around $300.

8.2-8.5 mm Spark plug wires - $55
Good spark plugs - $40
Flowmaster (or magnaflow) exhuast - $300
Pacesetter headers - $235 ($375 for the good ones, which I recomend)
Air lid - Free mod*
K&N Air Filter - $70
Aluminum Driveshaft - $150

* - Remove the baffles in your air lid, all you need is somthing to cut them out. I used a dremil tool. After your done sand the lid down & polish it so it is smooth. That is just as good as the $120 whisper lid.

The plugs and wires are to restore any lost HP in your engine over the years, the thicker wires do add a little power, but nothing worth adding.

With just these mods listed above your spending less than $1K and depending apon how your car responds to mods you could have 240 BHP. I would also recomend changing out your rear end for some steeper gears & LSD. This doesnt give you more HP but makes better use of it, and you will feel the difference. Your best bet is finding an LT1 Z28 in a junk yard and taking the rear end off of it and putting it on your 3800. Should have 3.42 gears w/ LSD (might be 3.4X but I think its 2)

After you have done all this you should have the car dyno tuned so it can change the engine CPU for the new mods. This is also the time to do things like Take off the speed limiter and change your timing for 93 octane. You should also program your fans to come on earlier if you change your thermostat for a cooler one. With a good tune for your new engine setup and the octane, you can gain 10 HP which give you now about 250 BHP. You will know exsactly what it is, becuase you will see on the dyno machine. Exspect to pay in the ballpark of $300-$500 for a good dyno tune. If you are adding nitrous to the car after you have done these mods, I would put the nitrous on first and then have the car tuned.

Now all you need is a nice nitrous set up and you will be making over 330 BHP on the spray. NOS from holly makes a kit for your car that cost about $600. The kit comes with everything you need to have a nitrous system but you will need a few other accessories to go with it. If you are instressted in this rought I would suggest talking to some of the members here running nitrous. After you have your nitrous set up, you will need to have it tuned before you use it.

With these mods I listed above your spending about $2K. Plus you will be able to run mid 13 second 1/4 miles. You wont need to worry about the tranmission as it is the exsact same tranny from the LS1 and has no problem handling the HP.

Sure, Nitrous isent giving you the HP all the time. But it has alot of advantages too. You have the power when ever you want it. The power is only a click away. And unlike a turbo it doesnt lag or need to wait for the engine to rev up. And it doesnt take any power away from the engine to work like a supercharger does. And it is much cheaper than F/I is.

I hope this helps you, good luck with the mods.

 

isnt there a sticky about v6 mods?

 

my mods should be a sticky...

 

very true. or added to the current sticky.

 

ya very good budget building

 

Yea, that is very helpful. More helpful than the sticky, which I did look at before making this thread.

You haven't factored in the labor into the budget though. Although I love cars and messing with things,I am not a mechanic and don't have the facilities for mods like replacing the whole tranny. I kind of doubt it would be easy to find a z28 with a good working tranny on a junk yard too. OR am I just being pesimistic?

Also I didn't quite understand your instructions regarding the air lid mod. Would that save me from getting a new air-intake?

 

I didnt add in the cost of having a mechanic becuase everything up there you can do in your garage with regular tools. The hardest thing up there is replacing the headers and that is becuase it is so cramped. I wouldnt post up anything w/out adding in installation cost unless I could do them myself. My recomendation to you is to go to autozone or another auto store & get a haynes manual for the 93-02 camaro. It is about $16 and very helpful. If you need info on how to replace the headers or exhuast PM me & I will link you to some helpful website that go threw it step by step. I might post them up on the forum later.

I didnt say anything about replacing the transmission. If you have an automatic, you have the same transmission as an LS1. So you dont need to worry about it, it will be ablle e to handthe power as long as its in good working condition. So as long as your transmission is working, dont worry about it.

The part I was saying about the Z28 is the rear end. The LT1 Z28 came with LSD and slightly better gears. It is perfact for the 3800s. The 3.42 is a steeper gear however its not so steep that it effect your top end performence like 4.1s do. Unless your making your car for the strip, I highly advise these 3.42 gears for street cars. Finding a rear end of a Z28 is just your will to look. Ive heard of people getting them for $100 before.

Sence you have a 98-02 you do not need to replace the air intake. It is another great thing about chevy that the stock air intake is one of the best for this car. However, the air lid mod I was talking about is removing the baffles in your air lid. If you take off your air lid (it comes right off, just loosen the clamp) you will see it has about 15-20 baffles running parrell on the top of the lid that interupts smooth airflow. Out goal here is to remove these baffles to let as much air flow threw there as possible. So use what ever tools you have avalible to remove them. A dremil tool makes it 1,000Xs easier. After that, drop a K&N filter in there and you have your intake done. I got my K&N filter at advanced auto for $62.


-Stig

 

hey stig you done the LS1 driveshaft yet?

 

its in the mail, orderd it last friday

 

So why are those baffles there in the first place? Sounds dumb for Chevy to have them there if they only obstruct the airflow.

About the gears. So pretty much by replacing the rear end gears I would have more torque on each gear but also have the RPM reach the red at a lower speed for each gear? So thus would lower my top speed but improve acceleration.

Also, do you know if it is possible to replace my 128mph spedometer with the 155mph one like in your sig?