performance mods

Hi all,

I'd like some suggestions for improving the performance of my 2000 Trans Am (not WS6). Keep in mind that I am a novice at this sort of thing so mods that require a serious amount of mechanical skill probably wouldn't be the best for me to start with. I'm not interested in drag racing or anything, I'd just like to give my car a little extra "oomph." As I am just starting, I would like to keep the initial upgrades fairly cheap, say under $500. The only modification the car has is an after-market exhaust which a previous owner installed (or had installed). I Don't know if it is the whole exhaust system or just the muffler. What I do know is that it is "y" pipe and is much louder than a stock WS6 I drove once. Do you guys have any suggestions?

The next exhaust mod would be headers but they can be expensive. Since you have an aftermarket cat-back and Y pipe the next thing would be inlet mods. A Cold Air Inlet comes to mind. After that you are talking internal mods, and lots of wrenching. One place you may to look is a set of subframe connectors. They won't give you more power but it will make the unibody stiffer, quieting squeaks and rattles. Another benefit is that they will allow better transfer of your power to the rear wheels by preventing the body from flexing.

How about these? I"ve had my eye on the cold air package for some time. I've also wanted to get a ram air hood but I wasn't sure if I should go with OEM, fiberglass, or carbon fiber. I am leaning towards OEM if I can find find one.

Cold Air Inlet
http://www.lmperformance.com/2909/1.html


subframe connectors
http://www.lmperformance.com/526/.html

Sorry for the double post but I have been looking at some things and wanted your input on them. Are "Y" pipes stock or have they been upgraded? If they have been upgraded, how can I tell if the headers are stock or upgrades? Would a true dual exhaust improve my performance singificantly? I know it would probably be more than $500 but if it would really help I'd spend the extra cash on it. I am aslo curious about performance chips. I've read that putting on an LS6 Fuel intake could add a segnificant amount of HP, How difficult would it be to install on? They also mentioned something about changing the EGR system if you put on the new intake. How difficult would that be?

The SLP CIA is supposed to be a good one, but don't believe the HP numbers they give you. Things like the CIA, LS6 intake, larger MAF, etc won't give you a lot of HP gain in and of themselves....BUT add a larger cam, better or ported heads and that is where the other "first" mods will shine. The inlet and exhaust mods make the engine able to inhale and expell larger amounts of air...if there is a demand for it. The larger cam and better flowing heads are what create that demand.

If you look at your exhaust up at the engine you should be able to tell easily if you have headers or manifolds (look at some pics on the net of headers for your car and compare). If the previous owner said he added a "Y" pipe, he most likely meant an after market one, usually mandrel bent with smooth radi' on the inside for smoother flowing exhaust.
If you have a 3" or larger single exhaust, you have all of the flow potential you'll need, up to about 500hp. A single 3" will outflow a 2.25" dual system.
Your car doesn't have a "chip" per-sey, the actual PROM chip is hard solidered onto the computer's main board. What you'd need is a programmer, like the hypertech one. BUT! If you do a cam, heads, intake, inlet and exhaust, the hypertech will be useless. At this point you'd need a custom tune for the engine. A net search for it will turn up several options for DIY tuning (expen$ive for all the gear & program) and several people/ companies that do tuning.

The subframe connectors you picked should do just fine.

Ok, I've checked my car. No one told me that I had "Y" pipes I just looked under the car
but I can't tell if they're stock. I do know that they are 3" diameter though. I'm pretty sure I have exhaust manifolds rather than headers.They don't look andything like the header I saw online, they are much smaller and look like they have thin aluminum plates bolted to them, like protective guards or something.

A was reading a post on another forum that said some 2000 TA came with ls6 intakes and some did not. How can I tell if I got lucky here? All I could find on the intake was the number 12560688.

This may be a stupid question but how do I measure the diameter of my rims? while I was out there I measured my rims straight across from where the rim meets the tire on each side and I cam up with 19" but I'm pretty sure they aren't 19" rims.

Replacing the cam and heads sound difficult. Would I need to remove the engine to make those upgrades?

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This may be a stupid question but how do I measure the diameter of my rims? while I was out there I measured my rims straight across from where the rim meets the tire on each side and I cam up with 19" but I'm pretty sure they aren't 19" rims.

Replacing the cam and heads sound difficult. Would I need to remove the engine to make those upgrades?
To measure the rims you'd need to measure where the bead of the tire sits...or just look at the tire and it will tell you something like; 275/45ZR/18
275 is the tread width in milimeters, 45 is the sidewall aspect ratio, ZR is the speed rating, and finally the 18 is the rim diameter.

Replacing the heads and cam do not require engine removal, but they are a lot of work

Ok, I've checked my car. No one told me that I had "Y" pipes I just looked under the car
but I can't tell if they're stock. I do know that they are 3" diameter though. I'm pretty sure I have exhaust manifolds rather than headers.They don't look andything like the header I saw online, they are much smaller and look like they have thin aluminum plates bolted to them, like protective guards or something.


telling the difference between exhaust manifolds and headers is pretty easy. On manifolds the pipes coming out of the heads will go about 3" before connecting to another pipe which all of them connect to. On headers the pipes exiting the heads travel a lot longer distance before connecting to each other.

http://temp.corvetteforum.net/c3/themoneypit/stock_bb_ex_manifold.jpg thats a manifold.

http://www.bbexhaust.com/car/vseries/images/ctsv-headers.jpg those are headers.


The other way to tell is to start your car... if you can hear it idle from a mile away you have headers. :iceslolan

I've got 17" rims.

I definitly have manifolds. From the look of things, if I upgrade to headers I'll need to modify my exhuast because judging from those pics it doesn't look like the exhaust pipes I have now would line up.

I've got 17" rims.

I definitly have manifolds. From the look of things, if I upgrade to headers I'll need to modify my exhuast because judging from those pics it doesn't look like the exhaust pipes I have now would line up.

Those pictures arn't of headers/manifolds designed for our cars, just random pictures i pulled off google to show the difference. I'm not really sure what it would take to install them, my camaro has the stock manifolds and my corvette had headers when I bought it.

What difference is there, performance wise from long and short headers? I have seen several posts on this forum and others that say the firebird manifolds allow air to flow easily, would there be a significant difference in air flow if I put headers on my car?

I am curious as to what kind of performance boost I would get if I put these on my car? http://www.lmperformance.com/5916/1.html

I know they are well outside the price range I quoted but I thought I'd ask. Would these be overkill for someone not interested in racing?

What difference is there, performance wise from long and short headers? I have seen several posts on this forum and others that say the firebird manifolds allow air to flow easily, would there be a significant difference in air flow if I put headers on my car?

I am curious as to what kind of performance boost I would get if I put these on my car? http://www.lmperformance.com/5916/1.html

I know they are well outside the price range I quoted but I thought I'd ask. Would these be overkill for someone not interested in racing?

There would be a huge difference in air flow going from manifolds to headers... Headers flow a lot easier, but manifolds have more back pressure. Basically if you put headers on you will gain more high end horsepower but lose low end torque.

Headers also make your car a lot louder. It may be hard to have a conversation inside your car or hear the radio over the exhaust, with headers.

I would think that low end torque would be more important to me since I only use the car to drive around town rather than racing. So would this mean that I would loose performance by putting headers on it?

my 2 cents:
first $500 does not buy much
but a little at a time. a lid, ported throttle body, LS-6 intake, long tubes, new mounts and torque arm bushing (prothane) and a good tune will be a seat of pants differnce. with torque management deleted and the ported T\B you will notice no loss on the low end.
headers are only loud if you have a loud muffler. i put pacesetter L\Ts ORY
and a magnaflow C\B its pretty quiet. most P\Us with C\Bs are louder.
then i put an electric cutout on it and then it sounds more like NASCAR.

i would strongly suggest a set of edelbrock TES headers. i have them on my IROC and they provided a major seat of the pants performance improvement as well as a much throatyer sound.

they are also from a wrenching standpoint rather easy to install. It takes a bit of flexibility, and not minding a few scraped knuckles, and as i recall i had a lot of left over mounting hardware i wound up not using. mostly bolts and nuts and washers and such. but its better to have too much than too little. but they came with everything you needed to install them in the car. including wiring extensions for the O2 sensors. gaskets, and all that jazz.

the nice thing about the TES headers, is that they are 50 state emissions compliant, and they are small primary tube headers, which boost low end torque at the expense of some high end hp. if this is your daily driver, youll actually use more of the low end power, and dont need large primary long tube headers. its overkill and you will rarely feel the power difference unless you wind it up.

as i recall, the only real modification i had to do when installing the headers, was reroute some of the brake lines to keep them away from the pipes. other than that, it was a fairly simple unbolt and bolt in operation. assuming the catback also follows the factory routing of the exhaust, the edelbrock system will also bolt right up to your existing cat back system.

i think when i bought mine, they were around 300-350 for the uncoated ones. they offer ceramic coated versions, and jethot coated versions that resist rusting and whatnot but they are quite a bit more expensive.

Thanks for the replies. So long pipes = less low end torue and more hingh end HP while short pipes - more low end torque and less high end HP. Will short pipe headers give me less high end HP than my stock manifolds or just less than long pipes? Doesn't really matter I suppose since I rarely wind my car up but I'm curious.

headers of any type will make more power than the factory manifolds. of that you can be 100% sure. the pipes on my IROC are short tube, small primary headers, and they perform wayyy better than the manifolds.