Could you guys help me prioritize, please?

[TheBassist]

Okay, so this is my summer to work on my car! Working at a slightly above min. wage job, and still living with the parents while I'm going to school in the area. I'm pretty much putting all but a couple hundred dollar cushion towards the car.

But this is a limited time offer, haha. I start school again in the fall, then kind of need to save some to move out and go to a 4-year university.

So I'm wondering what I should put TOP on my list and what can wait a little bit. I keep up on maintenance, don't worry.

I have: CAI, 4-1 Header, 2.5" cat-back.

I'm also about to lower her soon (Tein S-Techs).

I should have around $4-500 a month to work with, give or take. I have some basic tools (i.e. no welder, can't lift engine) and am not afraid to do work/learn myself. Oh, and I'm also not afraid of learning to tune if needed.

So my question is what will give me the most bang for my buck...oh, and I'm keeping it non-turbo and no-nitrous...I do know that those are the best performance upgrades, but I'm saving those for when I have the money to possibly replace an engine/car. I'd love to cam it...but I'm unsure of all that's involved. Also on the list are underdrive pulleys, hi-flow cat, lightweight flywheel. Pretty much everything on the Upgrade Path, haha.

Can any of you give me any advice?

Thanks so much.

 

[nickk90]

If you are set on staying N/A dont expect huge gains and it is also going to cost alot for very small gains. Your only options really are cams and higher compression pistons after all your basic bolt-ons and it looks like you pretty much got them covered.

How much you spend on cams and a high flow cat you could get a small wet shot of nitrous and get way more power.

I would stay away from lightweight pulleys as they replace your dampener. A light wieght flywheel will free up some horse power but you will also losse some tourqe with them soo be carefull with how light you go.

 

[MunkyX69]

Look into howell automotive, they have reprogramed ecu's so you don't have to tune. I've read up on here about them and they seem pretty legit. Rev limit increases to around 8k and it increases your timing for some more power. It'll run you around $500 for the ecu, no other upgrades needed. The ecu is direct plug in too. I wouldn't recomend hitting the 8k mark with a stock head.

Be causous about reving out to 8k though. If you want to hit 8k you'll want to upgrade your rockers and lifters to the PT cruiser ones. They're stronger and will hold up to the beating, no modification required. Also with the ecu you'll have to run PREMIUM fuel due to the increased timing.

If your going the cam path this would be the esiest way to drop them in and not have to worry about tuning, but def do the PT cruiser rollers and rockers before you put the cams in, or at the same time, which ever.

I'm also trying to go the N/A route, but please keep in mind that the one guy on here has only hit 213hp and a 13.-- quarter mile time staying n/a and has put a lot of money into his car. Just to put things into perspective for ya. I'm sure if you went with the full exaust, ecu, intake mani and intake, roller/rockers, and cams you'd be ok. A little more pep. Which are all things that wouldn't take much time or would be hard to learn how to do either. Good luck man

 

[TheBassist]

Thanks Munky, I will definitely look into the ecu + cams, I think, if I keep spending modest, I can definitely swing that stuff this summer!

Yeah, I'm fairly familiar with bullett's car... pretty beast for N/A! I'm not looking to have the fastest N/A here, I just want, like you said, a little more pep, a fun daily driver that I can have some fun with from time to time. I might take it to the track too sometime...do they have a slow catagory? . Good luck to you as well.

Thanks Nick also. I'd prefer cams over N20 even though N20 has more power for the simple fact that a) you don't have to refill cams, and b) cams are always being used and therefore more 'streetable' as they say. Thanks for the info thought on the flywheel, I hadn't thought about torque loss with them.

 

[Fotowntalon]

First off, to clear some things up, a lightweight pulley/ under drive puller (udp) is fine for your car, nickk90 has a GST (4g63) those cars don't work well with udp's, where as the 420a's are perfectly fine with them.

Diffidently finish your exhaust with a test pipe/hi-flow, I think mine was only $30, its a good investment as long as you dont have to worry about emissions. Cams + AFX ECU is a good combo. Honestly I wouldn't waste money on cams unless you had a way to take advantage of them via tuning aka either the afx or MSnS. If you are installing cams you might as well do the udp to save you a bunch of time in the install process, although depending on how mechanically sound you are you should be careful, doing the cams, means messing with the timing which has given even experienced members some problems.

If I was you I'd finish the exhaust (stated above), finish the intake by either getting a jeep tb (60mm) or buying a bored one (either a 55 or a 60mm lots of info on this site about the two.) If you have a dremel you can port your intake manifold to match. that shouldnt be more than 150 for those 3 things, spring an extra ~75ish for a crank scrapper cheap easy mod. Then research into either an AFX ECU or MSnS. After researching get the one which is best or you. After that save for cams and a UDP. Hope this helps some. Feel free to search around there is a ton of info on "best upgrades" and "upgrade paths" and etc.

 

[TheBassist]

Thanks for the info Fotowntalon, that's good to know about the UDP.

I'll be sure to pair up the cam and ecu tuning in my mind so I can budget if I decide to do that.

Yeah, I've been looking at all that cheaper stuff (TB, exhaust, etc) but my thought is that I should spring for the more expensive stuff while I can and do the cheaper stuff later on. I feel that it'll be easier to drop ~$1000 while I don't have much to pay for, than do the cheaper stuff, and be stuck until I can save a bunch for the spendier stuff. Does that make any sense? But I will definitely do some searching and make a wise and intelligent decision! ...hopefully