Cant decide what mod to get

[blackdeathtrap]

heres another good question are you machanicaly inclined

 

[socal200913]

heres another good question are you machanicaly inclined

i am not but i want to learn how to be

 

[socal200913]

Keep it stock except scan master, hotwire kit, pump, fpr, and chip. Save yourself a whole lot of headaches. But if youve got to go past that, an exhaust (pypes is cheap), k&n filter, and a down pipe. Had that on my car for awhile and it was alot of fun after riding around stock.

do you have links to where i can purchase them and what exact model?

 

[Howling Mad]

I had a down pipe from kirbans with a ported elbow. The pypes exhaust you can find just about anywhere, summit, jegs, kirban might have them in stock. Pretty much everyone sells k&n filtters too. But start with spring cleaning/tune up and scan master. After those mods ta49 turbo, alky, large neck ic, and sticky tires and youll have a mean little ride. Oh and get a service manual. You can find a cd rom of one, someone on the site sells one theyre pretty cheap and nice to have.

 

[trbojo]

You will benefit most with a 3" TH style down pipe and free flowing exhaust. Cold air intake won't buy you much.

x2.....that was the biggest bolt on increase that i did .5 sec.......

 

[Fast Farmer]

One thing calls for another. First thing for sure is a Scanmaster. 160 deg. t-stat. bypass coolant line to throttle body, port and polish turbo inlet bell,make the cold air kit yourself, get a Walbro 340m pump, hotwire, Accufab adj. fuel pressure reg, fuel pressure guage, and a Pypes exhaust with the racepro mufflers. Next, port the stock exhaust elbow, get an adjustable wastegate actuator, a boost guage, and get a Kirbans 3" dp. Get a Duttwieler neck welded on the stock intercooler, get a Pat's 2600-2800 12' converter, use type f tranny fluid, and finally, get a Turbo Tweak 93 street chip and injector combo burned for the setup. It will haul ass!
Lee

 

[socal200913]

One thing calls for another. First thing for sure is a Scanmaster. 160 deg. t-stat. bypass coolant line to throttle body, port and polish turbo inlet bell,make the cold air kit yourself, get a Walbro 340m pump, hotwire, Accufab adj. fuel pressure reg, fuel pressure guage, and a Pypes exhaust with the racepro mufflers. Next, port the stock exhaust elbow, get an adjustable wastegate actuator, a boost guage, and get a Kirbans 3" dp. Get a Duttwieler neck welded on the stock intercooler, get a Pat's 2600-2800 12' converter, use type f tranny fluid, and finally, get a Turbo Tweak 93 street chip and injector combo burned for the setup. It will haul ass!
Lee

how do i make the cold air kit? do you have links to the 160 deg, t-stat? how do i bypass the coolant line?

 

[we4Mateo]

You're going to hear lots of advice, but the most important is a scanmaster and knowledge of what it does. 2nd, the fuel system is weak for stock cars so hotwire kit and a good pump. Pump gas today sucks so get a modern street chip of your choice with the proper timing for todays bad gas. Stock chips are WAY too aggressive in timing plus there have been numerous secrets unlocked in our ECMs that make them run better now on a modern chip. The scanmaster will tell you if it's running right at this point, and it'll be fun if it is without a lot of $ yet unless there are other things that just plain break. These cars are old. You may end up buying other things you're not planning on just to keep it road worthy ie: MAF and Translator; once you price a good NOS one, you'll think it's a bargain but it's still out of your budget at this point. Once you take it past the level of good running but near stock boost, ie: exhaust, alky, turbo, and the other cool guy stuff, then you need more wallet. Enjoy what you have now. A lot of people do a lot with a little, I consider myself one of them, but I still have almost as much in parts for maintenance and mods as I did buying the car. It's a snowball that grows quickly. Do your research though and plan. Nothing worse than buying the same part twice...do it right the first time.

 

[blackdeathtrap]

get a scan master and save you pennys and start reading and learning if your not mechanicaly inclined its gonna get expensive cuz people love to over charge special to a teen with a gn

 

[we4Mateo]

One thing calls for another. First thing for sure is a Scanmaster. 160 deg. t-stat. bypass coolant line to throttle body, port and polish turbo inlet bell,make the cold air kit yourself, get a Walbro 340m pump, hotwire, Accufab adj. fuel pressure reg, fuel pressure guage, and a Pypes exhaust with the racepro mufflers. Next, port the stock exhaust elbow, get an adjustable wastegate actuator, a boost guage, and get a Kirbans 3" dp. Get a Duttwieler neck welded on the stock intercooler, get a Pat's 2600-2800 12' converter, use type f tranny fluid, and finally, get a Turbo Tweak 93 street chip and injector combo burned for the setup. It will haul ass!
Lee

He shouldn't need a converter with a stock turbo as the D5 ought to make as much launch boost as he can hold and it kinda defeats the purpose of having a budget. The turbo porting didn't make my car pick up anything at the strip; same with downpipe, at a near stock 15psi anyway. Good exhaust and cat removal work well. This was just my experience though. Every car is different.

 

[blackdeathtrap]

good exhaust and dp with no cat will be a huge difference over stock i did 3 inch dp 3 inch dual exhaust no cat and it spooled twice as fast

 

[BlackBandit]

Where in SoCal are you located? There's guys down here that would love to get together and just talk buicks. Also, check out the swouthwest section at the bottom of the board. Congrats on your Buick!

 

[socal200913]

Where in SoCal are you located? There's guys down here that would love to get together and just talk buicks. Also, check out the swouthwest section at the bottom of the board. Congrats on your Buick!

Im not actually in socal I just want to live there so bad. I live in central New Jersey but im going to college in the summer either in Arizona or California. maybe Lousianna but most likely the first 2

 

[blackdeathtrap]

i like this thread it seems to be motivational to me i got my new upper control arms on and my new headers with cooper gasquets on will this convo was happening today just need to put cross pipe on the the fun stuff commes next

 

[we4Mateo]

i like this thread it seems to be motivational to me i got my new upper control arms on and my new headers with cooper gasquets on will this convo was happening today just need to put cross pipe on the the fun stuff commes next

Exciting! I have an appt with my Buick dr tomorrow morning to get a few things going for the season...I love Spring!

 

[~JM~]

how do i make the cold air kit? do you have links to the 160 deg, t-stat? how do i bypass the coolant line?

Do a search on Cold Air Intake or Fresh Air Intake. Mine is as simple as removing the OEM Air Box & adding an AFE open element air cleaner to the end of the MAF. The air cleaner just lays in the engine compartment wedged underneath the A/C lines.

We use a 160 degree thermostat to run the engine at a lower temperature than factory. This helps prevent detonation/pinging. Kirban's is a good shop for that type of part. http://www.kirbanperformance.com/product/144/160-DEGREE THERMOSTAT #1508.html The modern chips usually are designed to run at 160 degrees & turn the cooling fan on shortly after.

The Throttle Body has 2 small rubber lines that come off of the bottom & run to a black steel line on the passenger side of the engine. I removed both the rubber lines and then used one of the lines to connect both open ends on the steel pipe. I believe the thought here was to warm the throttle body to prevent icing. Not really needed in most parts of the country. You want to try & provide the coldest most dense air to the engine as possible.

A new ScanMaster will cost you $250-$270 or so. A new TurboTweek Chip will cost $85. http://www.turbotweakstore.com/
The Bosch 237 fuel pressure regulator cost me $30 when I found mine at a local import auto parts & Bosch dealer. The Thermostat is about $10-$15 after shipping. You will need these 4 items at a minimum to install a chip. The most challenging & messy part is changing the T'stat & its not that bad. This will give you a noticeable performance improvement & your engine will run better with the modern chip.

Sounds like you may not know your way around the engine bay all that well. At first its somewhat intimidating looking with all the lines running around. Just keep staring at it & pick up a service manual, pretty soon you will feel more comfortable working on the car.

Good luck
~JM~

 

[jcawley3]

take it from someone who "rode" in a GN to High School.... (it was my buddy's) Take it easy kid or you will not have that GN long..... you will blow it up showing off for the girls..... we did ( one tranny, 2 head gaskets, one turbo)...... save your money do the spring cleaning then buy a scan master...... and keep your foot out of it till then......

 

[mj440]

this is a really good read, I'm curious why a Bosch 237 fuel pressure regulator over adjustable? I'm still running a stock car but starting some basic mods and this is good info.
I also wonder if instead of buying scanmaster, chip, maf & translator and whatever else of just forking out for a fast xfi system.
I'm also surprised no one mentioned valve springs.

 

[Mr.Spool]

if the car doesn't need the exhaust and dp,id leave it be besides gutting the cat and porting the elbow.i can say you need a scanmaster, tt chip,fuel pump,shift kit,stickey tires.now if you want to make power the boost needs to go up,the stocker will make 30psi with proper fueling and octane.that's enough to hurt the stock tranny.

 

[696]

Scanmaster and a real boost gauge of your choice along with a spring cleaning. At least you can see what the car is doing then go from there. Use the "search" here, there are a lot of common questions you will have that are already posted. Some dont mind answering them, some do and will tell you to search. Next research, research, then ask BEFORE you buy some you will only have to do it once...maybe. Use the for sale section but to some research on the seller but you can get some good deal there to help save some$$$