Modding a 2003 Cavalier (Rookie here)

Hi guys I just signed up to look for some help from you all.

My name is Joe and I'm from CT. I bought my first car about 6 months ago. a 2003 Chevy Cavalier LS Sport (Blue) with everything.

I really want to mod it but don't know where to start, what brands are better than others and all that sort of stuff.

I would appricate any helps in what parts you think I should add and what sites to visit.

I'm open to all ideas, would like to get an Intake first.

Please and thank you very much .

yea go with an intake, go with AEM or injen if they make one. Also you could probably get some rims, check out www.wheelmax.com for rims.

What do you want to do to your car? This would help more with telling you what to get and so on.

Thank you for your reply.

I am interested in modding almost anything. I would like to hear about what you have done and what I can do. Intake first for sure. maybe exhaust second. Any suggestions to are welcome.

As far as my rims, this is the Sport model and came with a nice set. They are pretty eye-catchy for beeing stock, same with the "body-kit" it came with. Nothing special but it lets me do other things to my car first.

I'm thinking of getting my break calipers done. Probably a white color to go with my Blue.

Thanks again.

What price range are you looking at.. and are you looking for performance parts more than anything? Anything you arent willing to do.. That Ecotec is highly upgradeable...

Hi! Yeah, I've got the Blue 2003 as well, already well into moddin it up! Send me an email if you want to see pics and talk Cavs!

[email protected]

Look forward to talking to you - the Blue Cav Rules!

-Steve

Hi! Yeah, I've got the Blue 2003 as well, already well into moddin it up! Send me an email if you want to see pics and talk Cavs!

[email protected]

Look forward to talking to you - the Blue Cav Rules!

-Steve


What in the world did you do to that poor cavi. my god take that transformer shit off your car.

i agree...it just doesn't look good man...lower it a bit and take all the vinyl off of it...

What price range are you looking at.. and are you looking for performance parts more than anything? Anything you arent willing to do.. That Ecotec is highly upgradeable...

I open to any and all ideas for what I could do. It's tuff to set a price range casue different parts run different prices so untill I can compare some prices on parts I can't really say.

I'm looking to make my outside appearnce look nice and well as making it sound nice.

My ideas I had myself were

Intake (My buddy might be selling his. He wants 100 its a Weapon R Dragon intake, any good or should I go better?)
Calipers (White or yellow)
Windshield Whipers (White or yellow)
LED's (Where? Blue, white or yellow)

I have some pics of my car but can't seem to find em. Since we've moved I can't find anything :banghead: lol

As far as performance parts. I would like to get what I can but have installation be easy. No cutting this and chopping that, yet anyway.

I am looking at doint some of the same stuff to my girls 04. We are looking at intake, exhaust, coilovers, rims, pullies, header, etc. I want to know if rksports is a good product or is there something better out there that we havent found yet. Any help here would be good.

yea rksport is good, check out www.rsmracing.com too. and even www.mantapart.com

studballs and urweak,

You guys are dicks - everyone I meet loves the job I am doing. Keep your asshole comments to yourselves.

People like you make these forums shit. All you are are little fags who do not have the balls to say stuff like this to someone's face. I hope you both got off talking shit about someone that you don't even know.

what a couple of losers!

studballs and urweak,

You guys are dicks - everyone I meet loves the job I am doing. Keep your asshole comments to yourselves.

People like you make these forums shit. All you are are little fags who do not have the balls to say stuff like this to someone's face. I hope you both got off talking shit about someone that you don't even know.

what a couple of losers!


Dude just calm the hell down. All I want is some help here and ur picking a fight? Neither of them were rude of anal about their comment. You need to learn how to take some constructive critisism. Not everyone is going to like ur car.

Can we please get back to the ain subject? Helping me! :evillol:

yeah, nothing rude about saying "what have you done to that poor Cavi" or "take that Transformers shit off your car"

Nope, nothing rude about that at all.

I did not "pick a fight" I- am simply defending myself from unintelligent Mongoloids.

By the way, I am still interested in helping you if you don't mind advice from someone who obviously has no taste...

lol, I know what you mean but this is a fourm with car guys who dont really want to see" man you made that car cry dude, please let it breath and take those lovely items u put on it" u know what I mean? The first comment maybe was a little rude but just gotta deal.

I just want to get back on my original post is all so I can start modding my car soon.

Dude, when I first got my 99 z24, I had to make the same decisions as you. However I decided to wait on doing anything to the car until I got the sound system done first ( I'm an audio guy ). You should consider taking the time to invest in a good system first, it is worth the wait.

studballs and urweak,

You guys are dicks - everyone I meet loves the job I am doing. Keep your asshole comments to yourselves.

People like you make these forums shit. All you are are little fags who do not have the balls to say stuff like this to someone's face. I hope you both got off talking shit about someone that you don't even know.

what a couple of losers!


God chill out tuff guy. I said i didnt like your car, deal with it. If you such a little girl that you cant handle what i said, well then i feel bad for you. I dont like the way your car looks, all that transformer shit is nasty IMO. If you dont like that then oh well, just b/c you cry about it isnt going to change my mind. Its like they say, life isnt fair so deal with it. Just like my comment, you didnt like it or think it was far, but deal with it.

But seriously, all those stickers look bad on the car, even with rims and other mods to the outside, those stickers would still look bad on it. But this is coming from someone who isnt really into all that flashy ricer shit, so maybe its just me idk. And like someone stated above, its just constructive critasizum. your going to have to learn to deal with peoples negative points of view if you havea transformer cavi, and if you cant deal with it like a man, then you should take that shit off b.c im probably not the last person you will hear that from.

Thanks, alot of people say go for the system first. To be perfectly honest I don't really need one at the moment. I got the highest end system I could get with the car. Alot of my friends say though a system would sounds better I don't even need one for awhile.

One thing does annoy me though, when its up pretty loud I here rattling but nothings broken. Any suggestions?

Here is what my current "System" has

XM Satellite Radio
Six-speaker premium apmlified audio system with rear woofers and front coaxial speakers

If the system is up real loud, then the rattling might just be loose speaker grills or other loose materials that bounce when the air hits them, it doesn't sound serious, just annoying.

"it just doesn't look good man...lower it a bit and take all the vinyl off of it..."

thats all I said...nothing in what I said was being a dick I was just giving my opinion.

For me I'd rather have a clean look instead of adding parts that really dont serve a purpose...shaving emblems, side moldings, clear corners and a slight drop is what I like...everyone has different tastes.

I cant even tell what that shit is on the side of the car... got a closeup?

BTW, You need to CHILLAX dude... Everyone is entitled to an opinion.. even if it isnt what you want to hear. driving in a car that looks like that, many people will have an oppinion. If your too scared to hear it... take your posts somewhere else ..simple as that

Ya now lets please get back to helping Joe lol

Soooooo keep the ideas coming guys :)

Thanks

as for the outside i would lower it with either Eibach or Sportline springs, Koni Adjustable struts, remove the side moldings and maybe some tint...

well the thing is, does he still want to keep the warranty?

remove the side molding? Sorry but not sure what u mean by this. When I say rookie I mean it :)

About the warranty. I've fone alot of thinking about keeping or not keeping the warrenty. As far as I know I can do anything as long as I dont touch the engine but with an intake I can just take it out and put the old one in with no problems right? Would they be able to tell?

side moldings are the strips on the side of your car about midway up the door running horizontal...they are stuck on with double sided tape, removing them gives the car a much cleaner look

Oh ok I know what your talking about, mine are the same color as my car, nothing special I do want to get tiny on my car, would blue look cool or are the color tints to cheesy?

How could I take the modlings off and is there anywhere that has a pic with no modlings so I can get an idea what I'm getting into lol.

Thanks

Allright!

I found some pics of my car. I don't have a digital camera but we got some developed on cd with a throw away one.

But I'm having trouble getting them on. I have 2 pics saved in my user profile pictures profile but they wont show here? I'll keep trying

Got em, DAMN these came out big. I wonder if there is a way to reszie them?

I thought I'd help you out and resize your pics for you. Get a program like Photoshop or Paintshop Pro for editing pics.

http://slybry.com/files/chevy_driver_side.jpg
http://slybry.com/files/chevy_passenger_side.jpg

I'll leave the pics on my server for a couple days. If you can, just download them, and find a place to host them so it doesn't use my bandwidth.

Thank you SlyBry, I appricate it.

I'll see tonight if I can upload them to my geocitites site. I created it just to store my pics so I can show u guys. Hopefully I can delete those and uploads these resized ones. Shouldnt be a prob.

Ok I got em saved and I'll upload em later. Thank you for putting em on for me.

Alright here is what I've gathered so far please keep the help coming

Intake AEM or Injen: How much should I spend? Top is around 300 and lower ends seem to be around 100. My buddy is selling his Weapon R Dragon intake for 100. Good deal?

Calipers: I'm thinking white, opinions?

Rims: Eh I dont think I need rims right now, these look pretty cool.

Remove side modlings: How? Any links to a pic with modlings off to get a look at it?

System: For sure, but maybe I'll hold off. My current one is pretty (xm to btw) sweet for stock and can hold it's own for now. By the way, when I have my stero up fairly loud I hear a rattling. Sounds like its where my sun roof goes. Right around the light in the center of the car. Sometimes it can come from diff. places but mainly there. Any ideas as to what that could be?

Lowering my car: Eibach or Sportline springs, Koni Adjustable struts. How low can I go? Anyone know what its at now?

Tint: Would blue look cheesy? Just black? How dark can I legally go.

LED's: Where can I put these around my car? What color?

Lights: Would Euro's look good?

My buddies Uncle has a clear shift knob (auto) one that lights up blue, and blue peddles and blue glow on the bottom inside of the car. Anyone have any idea how much that might run and if it's a good idea>?
Any other ideas please leeme know and thanks

check out www.j-body.org for some ideas. or go to cardomain.com and look at some of the cavis there.

personally i do think that the colored tints look tacky, but as far as how dark u can legally go, that depends on ur local laws. around here where i live, it's 35% with a slight differential but no darker than 32.7% an excellent place to go for ideas is www.cardomain.com (http://www.cardomain.com) i've gotten sooooo many ideas about modding my car(my page is www.cardomain.com/id/angeliz) but u do have to keep in mind what is and isn't street legal in ur area
hope that helps if u have any questions feel free to message me

check out this bodykit that im getting http://www.autosportz.com/bodykits_03_chevy_cavalier_bomex.htm

To get the side moldings off... I used a hair dryer and just pried them puppies right off on my 98 cavalier. It took about an hour because I did it during the winter and took a while to get it warm enough where it would peel off. But once it got warm enough it just peeled right off.

Thanks guys!.

I'll be sure to check out all those links and keep looking around.
I'm excited to get started lol. :evillol:

Thanks guys!.

I'll be sure to check out all those links and keep looking around.
I'm excited to get started lol. :evillol:

personally i do think that the colored tints look tacky, but as far as how dark u can legally go, that depends on ur local laws. around here where i live, it's 35% with a slight differential but no darker than 32.7% an excellent place to go for ideas is www.cardomain.com (http://www.cardomain.com) i've gotten sooooo many ideas about modding my car(my page is www.cardomain.com/id/angeliz) but u do have to keep in mind what is and isn't street legal in ur area
hope that helps if u have any questions feel free to message me


damn 600 bucks but damn i want it lol

All right as of now I'm seriously considering getting the Bomex body kit. Its only 600 on that site and 1250 at many others.

Now, what about fenders? some sites sell them seperate, does this kit come with em? and what about the grill cover part?

If it comes in white is my best bet to match it wil my current blue color? Can it be matched perfectly?

Also ifI get this it looks likeI can get a dual exhuast as well. right? What type should I look for.

On to rims. My buddy will buy the ones I have one now for his err 95 or 97 cavvy and I'll get new ones. Now with this kit should I look for white rims or go silver like I currently have or maybe the black type?

Any other advise about ordering a body kit?

Oh ya if I get a body kit I could stil lget a carbon fiber hood to correct? Any advise on those?

Thanks

definetly do suspension and then a turbo

I think that you should go to cardomain.com and j-body.com and get some ideas. I think that you need to decide for yourself what looks good and what doesent. Its your car. You should make it look different than any other j body

I did, and to be perfectly honest this kit was my favorite. u can mix and match but i dunno how good i would do it lol

anyhelp with my other questions would be great, thanks

bump for these questions

Also ifI get this it looks likeI can get a dual exhuast as well. right? What type should I look for.

On to rims. My buddy will buy the ones I have one now for his err 95 or 97 cavvy and I'll get new ones. Now with this kit should I look for white rims or go silver like I currently have or maybe the black type?

Any other advise about ordering a body kit?

Oh ya if I get a body kit I could stil lget a carbon fiber hood to correct? Any advise on those?

dude, the best advice i could give u is probably something that a lot of ppl will back me up on...
get an idea or vision about what YOU want ur cav to be and look like. Also, what do u want to do with it? show it? race it? or just for fun? whatever YOU picture the car looking like, go with it. u are the only person who can be satisfied with ur ride or not.

as far as ur rims, it really all depend on what color it is(or will be). i'm getting white rims to go with my electric blue - but i'm looking at a whole blue/white scheme. i have this picture of what i want it to look like, and that's what i'm going to do, no matter what anyone tells me looks good instead. some ppl here swear by chrome, but it's all an opinion, u just have to decide what u like.

Thank you for your reply.

I am interested in modding almost anything. I would like to hear about what you have done and what I can do. Intake first for sure. maybe exhaust second. Any suggestions to are welcome.

As far as my rims, this is the Sport model and came with a nice set. They are pretty eye-catchy for beeing stock, same with the "body-kit" it came with. Nothing special but it lets me do other things to my car first.

I'm thinking of getting my break calipers done. Probably a white color to go with my Blue.

Thanks again.


I cant believe you got the body kit on your car from GM. What a waste of money

it came with the model. so really i wasnt wasting my money because i paid more for the better rims and better stero system and more options in my car. the kit came with it

Hey whats up.Love to see other people taking intrest in the american compact car.I have a 2002 2.2 with a pace setters headder cold air intake,and a jet performance mod chip,and a strut bar.a nice combo but I"m far from done.its black with blue theme inside door pannels mattalic blue as well as the dash& front dash. leather replaceses the fabric on the door with cavalier sport embryodered in to it. its the sickest looking one Iv seen yet minus a body kit.

tngtoronto, I agree with you. I did the same to mine and let me tell you what I am very glad that I did. MiniKiller; if it were me I would do the sound syestem and the interior first, this will also give you time to look around, find things you like and save money. Lets face it performance is $ out of hand. When I did my car I did the audio and interior first then I moved on to the wheels and tires and now on to engine parts, it gave me time to look and find what I really wanted. Good luck!

Thanks, I just got a sub box from my buddy and it makes my car sound alot better. I'm currently looking into intakes. looking to spend round $200 smakers.

Go with the AEM intake. Then after that you might want to get say an RKsport catback or something else. But that all depends on what you want, make it faster, or flashier.