First Mods - what do you think (newbie)

[Bird of Prey]

Hi, i'm planning first mods on my TTA.

Some guys don't call it mods, but i do
I have a few questions about them:

160° F Thermostat

K&N 8 Inch Cone Filter or K&N 9 Inch Cone Filter ?
What do you guys suggest. 9" or 8" ? does the 9" cone fit in the space where the original air filter is located?

Intercooler Hose Kit

Adjustable Wastegate Actuator
I suppose, the mounted wastegate in my car is the original one, 15 year old. Boost is going up to 16.5 psi as it should. is there a need to replace the wastegate though?

Walbro 307 Fuel Pump
Do i need to adjust fuel pressure, when i'm going with the stock pump and not raising the boost? or if raising the boost a little, will it work with the walbro only?

Scanmaster II

Am i able to improve my ET at the Quarter without raising boost? i dont want to have to pull race gas, and i dont want to wreck the engine, one day.

And one more question (for now) about changing the timing. how to do this? are there timing-setups to read about, where i don't have to pull race gas, but performance improving is done?

thx alot.

Matt

p.s.: i know, you said i have to do a lot of reading, but pls be so kind to answer my questions. i'm sitting here in austria with no other tta or buick GN owners, 500 mls around. thx

 

[trading t/a]

Scan master is a definate first, change the pump to a 340(why go cheapie on the only thing that matters FUEL!). Rest are incedentals and you should do a cleaning of the tb/ intercooler etc.

 

[Swede2]

If you want to raise your boost you have to buy an adjustable wastegate, if the original isnt a adjustable.

But as tatrading said, scanmaster 2 is the first "mod" you shall do.
I dont know if you run the stock chip but if you do, change that against a Trasher or a Turbotweak chip (Eric Marshall has his site on www.turbotweak.com) The stock chip knocks ALOT! On Erics chip you also can change the timing, but that requiers a scantool as Scanmaster or Directscan. You can also change fuel at wot in his chips.

When it comes to fuel, go with the walbro 340. If you gonna go to the track much you will need a adjustable fuel regulator to, cause when you up the boost you have to change the pressure.

KN filter... I have the 8 inch and it fits well, I have taken the stock airbox away. The 160 termostat is a good chip since the car will run a bit cooler with it. The intercooler hose kit do you not need IMO, its about the same as the stock ones. So if the stocks are in good condition, no need to buy it.

Last... You say you dont want to run race gas. In the future you might wanna buy Julios Alky kit wich has been proven to run better times on pump gas than race gas. The best thing with it is that you are able to go cheap using it on street and always runt like 25-30 psi boost instead of that crappy 16-19 boost on ordinary pump gas. It will be expensive to run race gas on street all the time lol.

Hope this helps mate! Feel free to ask if you are unsure of how to do.

Daniel

 

[Bird of Prey]

i'm not going to drag race a lot, since we don't have any strips around here.

i want to have a "competitive" car, when it comes to acceleration.

even if i don't drag alot, i want my car to run a low 13, maybe high 12. only once just to know what this car can do hehe

so, scanmaster II will be my first purchase.

Then, i will go for a 8" K&N Airfilter

Intercooler Hoses on my engine look like brand new, so i don't have to renew them. (btw: is it normal, when they seem like soaked in oil? - all 3 hoses)

Further will come the Adjustable Wastegate Actuator, Walbro 340 Fuel Pump, of course a chip (i have to read about this stuff alot)

John Pearcy furthermore told me, that the 100 LB valve springs are a "must have", because the stock ones aren't the best at all. what do you think?

i don't want to spend too much money for now.
i want the car to pull smooth and strong.

alot of work to do for the next months till spring 2005

thx

matt

 

[Swede2]

Valve springs is a good mod to do. Ever since I came to this board they have been telling that the stock springs are a poor design.

I recently took out my springs with help from Lunkan (Andreas) and we actually could feel the difference in stiffness between the stock ones and the 100 lbs just by pushing with our hands

As I did the THDP and LT1 MAF/translator at the same time as the valve springs, its hard for me to tell if the car got any faster than before. A track visit next year will show me if I got faster...

I was in Austria this summer, it is a very nice country with woods and especially all the mountains. Explendid nature, I like it. Unfortunately did we not know that we had to pay a ticket to drive on your roads, so we got stopped by the police and got to pay 100 euro in taxes... And all the pay tolls sucks there to lol.

Daniel

 

[trading t/a]

You could go with chevy 350 LT1 springs these are the 1970 vintage. They are replacements and are 110 lbs open. They are good.

340 is the only way to go!

Intercooler hoses that are brown have had or are having oil go through them. P_robably bad turbo.

HTH!

 

[Lee_Burough]

Been there done that....

Various boardmembers have been there and done that....Some have even left behind informative posts that are still available to you. Most of these posts were made before the alchy kits came of age (you might want to look into one of those: A kit could take you into the 12's with a good tune and still stock everything else).

Study these posts....Their purpose at post time was not specifically to answer your question as asked today, but, they contain a lot of background about successful strategies that work with a TTA (sometimes very different from successful GN strategies), as well as some modifications that have very small returns.

First archival post

Second archival post

Third archival post

 

[Bird of Prey]

thx alot @ all