general questions about near future mods..

[lilbayz311]

alright i got a header and downpipe already installed on my car with just a universal muffler welded on at the end. i realize that i need a full catback exhaust to maximize air flow to increase power so this is what ive come up with since i dont want my car too loud.. catback exhaust. so then i figure might as well open up the whole exhaust and not have ristriction from the stock catalytic converter so this is what ive found for the cheapest amount of $: catalytic converter. but now i am confused whether or not this will all bolt directly together because the pacesetter converter looks more triangular shaped on the pics then my downpipe and soon to be catback exhaust. i was wondering if anybody knew if it would fit, and if not, a link to another high flow catalytic converter that would fit would be nice.
next.. i bought my car with a short ram intake already installed, i was wondering if it would be worth it to scrap that and go for a cold air intake? i mean would there even be any noticeable gains?
and lastly.. my car is a 97 n/t, i keep debating in my mind whether or not to purchase an safc 2 to help increase my hp. i mean would it even be worth it? or whether i should just save my $ for rims or something. i am not planning on going turbo or even doing much more mods after what i have just named seems how my car has a salvage title and im not gettin anything back out of what i put in it. but i also plan on keeping it for a while and would like it to look nice and have a little more power than it has. oh ya, as of right now i have $1100 to spend. so many decisions.. sry for so long of thread, responses on any of my questions would be appreciated. thnx

 

[BigRand]

As for the exhaust, if you dont' want it too loud, consider going with a Tsudo exhaust, as the one your looking at doesn't look like its going to stay quiet.

As for the testpipe I'd say good luck, but what ever your doing you can always take it to an exhaust shop and have them cut the piping and flanges to match, if they ask about the (lack of a cat) just tell them its your track set up, and you have the stock cat at home. (this would be briing in the exhaust peices off your car)

As for the CAI, if your not going to do any huge mods, then its probably worth it.

Other mods to consider would be

port polished head,

ported intake manifold,

55-57mm Throttle body,

msd/screamon demon coil pack

msd/nology wires,

Ngk plugs,

And call it a day. Should give you a decent 150whp.

 

[dr1665]

First of all, you're not going to be anywhere near 150whp with the set up listed above. It's just not happening with bolt-ons. It's been proven that a fully built 420A with 10.5:1 and a race head, properly tuned can put about 160 to the wheels. You'll be lucky to reach 130whp (which is still better than a 20whp gain) with the list above.

Second, the catback looks decent. I'm glad to see you didn't believe the hype and opt for some $500 JDM show piece that would make scant more power. If you live somewhere without emissions, I'd consider taking the cat off and having a muffler shop use it as a guide to make you a test pipe "for the track." (Removing the cat is federally illegal, so they won't remove it for you.) Installing a test pipe will give you the most flow, but also introduces the dreaded "rasp" to the exhaust note around 3000rpm. Personally, I would shop eBay for the absolute cheapest 2.5" ID mandrel bent catback you can find. Don't worry about the muffler. Just use it for the pipe. You never see it once it's installed, so who cares what brand it is, right?

Third, I would keep the short ram. You're not really going to get much value out of buying even another eBay cheap-o CAI. Additionally, you'll be able to drive confidently that you don't have to worry about driving in the rain or if that cheap, foam bypass valve from AEM will work when YOU need it to. If you don't already have a K&N installed on the short ram, hit up your local Autozone and buy one. It will offer more power and filtration than the sketchy filter on the intake (if you can't figure out what brand it is).

Finally, I think your next stage of mods should include the AFX Underdrive Pulley (search Howell Automotive - it's considered to be the most noticeable mod), a bored TB from Howell or Fierro-Racing, and a ported lower intake manifold. Check out fierro-racing.net (or .com, it tends to change ) for details on this mod. If you really want a computer, save your scratch and get the AFX/R from Howell, since you're a 97 NT 5-spd, or research in the forums above the Megasquirt system. The SAFC will do jack shit for you, especially with an internally stock engine. The only purpose of having a SAFC installed on a 2GNT is to lean out your injectors at idle when you're running aggressive cams, so if you're not sporting a ported head with nasty bumpsticks, it's a hellacious waste of money (and there are better ways to tune the car for less money).

You're off to a good start, man. Save your money on the bolt-ons so that you can go all out on the internals and tuning. If you've got turbo plans in the future, attack the bottom end next, otherwise, keep in mind that power is made in the head. Keep searching and reading. You'll get there soon enough.

 

[lilbayz311]

thanx dr1665 for a response that actually helped me out unlike bigrand's. anybody else?

 

[napkinthief]

The SAFC will do jack shit for you, especially with an internally stock engine. The only purpose of having a SAFC installed on a 2GNT is to lean out your injectors at idle when you're running aggressive cams, so if you're not sporting a ported head with nasty bumpsticks, it's a hellacious waste of money (and there are better ways to tune the car for less money).

What are those ways?



As for power, I think you should go turbo. 1100 is enough for a decent setup if you put it together yourself, and you can just pull the turbo parts out if you plan on dumping the car and get most of your money back. I pieced my kit together, FMIC, turbo, manifold, everything for under 800$. That leaves you with 300$ to spend on rims or some bass or something.

At the end, if you spend 1000$ on n/t mods, and 1000$ on turbo, your turbo will make the car faster.


And if you still dont want turbo, consider a nitrous setup, they are pretty cheap for the power they add, but its only when you hit the button.

 

[lilbayz311]

dont get me wrong man i would LOVE to go turbo i just dont have the experience whatsoever needed to tackle that big of a project YET. I mean this is my first car and I have only taken 1 basic auto class.. I could MAYBE handle installing a star kit that has full step by step instructions of what to do, but it just so happens, the cheapest full turbo setup i have found was $2,100. which is half of what i paid for my whole car.. or should i say am still paying monthly 4 it. and nitrous? i want continuous power not just when i hit a button even though it would be pretty tight

 

[napkinthief]

I was in the same boat as you are. I didn't know didly squat about a car other than changing a tire or basic things. I just read a lot of stuff from this site, and I learned very fast. I have had my car for less than a year, and I would say I have been planning this turbo setup for about 6 months. It took me long because I wanted to best possible price I could find on every item. In the end, it is paying off waiting, but if you dont want to wait your price will only go up a couple hundred bucks.

Spend some time in the tech guide section. By far the best guide in there is by GsGoinfast. This guy documented everything he did while he installed his turbo setup, and it is pretty easy to follow.

There are some things you have to watch out for since our engines have high compression. Boostcreep from internal wastegates is something I didn't want to deal with, so I went with an external wastegate. The engine can hold 8 psi, and my external wastegate has a .6 bar spring. 14.7 is 1 bar, so .6 bar is just over 8 psi. With the pressure drop across the intercooler and piping, it will settle down just at 8 or a little below.

Thats just a little summary, I say take that money that you have right now, but it in a savings account in the bank and think about what you really want to do with it. It took me about 3 months of researching on this site, just a few hours a week, to finally decide I wanted to go turbo. Think about it though, when someone asks you where you got your turbo setup, you can say Oh I built it. Then if you eventually go into the engine and build that up, you can say you built the whole car.

If you have any questions, just pm me, or im on aim "DrNapkinThief". I am sure most of the other people in the community will also be willing to help you. All you gotta do is ask. But please search first

 

[napkinthief]

Just wanted to add one more thing.

If you think of it as a huge project, you will scare yourself away. I like to think of it as a bunch of small projects that dont do anything until the final piece is in.

I did my fuel and gauges a WHILE ago. At least 2 months. After I did the fuel pump and FMU, I started having second thoughts because I kinked a metal line, but I fixed it and when I got the boost gauge in I was souped up. I tried for at least 3 days to get the needle to go past 0 on vacuum by goign WOT, Im a loser

 

[dr1665]

thanx dr1665 for a response that actually helped me out unlike bigrand's. anybody else?

The only issues I had with Rand's post were the 150whp claim and mention of Nology wires. Otherwise, BigRand is a regular, contributing member over here and deserves a bit more respect than subtle sarcasm from a newbie who's taken an automotive class at school.

SAFC 2 MSRP = $439.00
Megasquirt v3.0 w/ 420A/Neon wasted spark = $385 (RS Autosport).

You can get them made by experienced MS'd 2GNTers for a bit less than that.

 

[SonySlave]

Hey, if you are looking to up your horsepower significantly, then nitrous or turbo would be the best routes... but with as little experience as you have, nitrous would be a catastrophe... and you already mentioned turbo may be too much right now... and that's cool... So.. like the rest of them said, bolt-ons aren't going to sport you too many extra horses... But as the rest have said, you have a good start... Things you dont have yet such as:

-Solid Pipe Intake (ebay ram-airs work for most people, I went full AEM CAI, i dunno the difference)
-2.5" or so Cat-Back (Tsudo N1 on ebay seems to work great for people - $230 shipped)
-Hi-Flow Cat or Test Pipe (not too good if you want to stay quiet )
-Larger Throttle Body
-Ported and Polished Head
-Ported Intake Manifold
-Underdrive Crank Pulley
-MSD or Screamin' Demon Coilpack
-Polyurethane Motor Mounts (cheap and awesome for putting power to the wheels, if you can handle the vibration, for some it's worse than others)
-B&M Short Shifter and the Symborski Shifter Bushing Kit (BigRand has both of these and the shifter is absolutely SOLID)
-AF/X Computer from Howell Automotive (http://www.howellautomotive.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=137)

Those are about the best mods you can do without opening up engine block... I've read a couple threads where dr1665 has raved all about how awesome the AF/X computer is... It's only for 97s and you lucked out... Kinda spendy but apparently worth it from what I read! I'd have one if I wasn't a 98... I know I basically just said what everyone else did, but it doesn't hurt to get the same answers from a lot of different people...

 

[lilbayz311]

The only issues I had with Rand's post were the 150whp claim and mention of Nology wires. Otherwise, BigRand is a regular, contributing member over here and deserves a bit more respect than subtle sarcasm from a newbie who's taken an automotive class at school.

SAFC 2 MSRP = $439.00
Megasquirt v3.0 w/ 420A/Neon wasted spark = $385 (RS Autosport).

You can get them made by experienced MS'd 2GNTers for a bit less than that.

ok thanx for putting me down then dr1665 i appreciate it. you are so helpful all i was saying was that bigrands post got me nowhere but more confused which is the truth. but whatever dude

 

[lilbayz311]

and dont get me wrong, i respect bigrand i mean look at all the sh#t he has done to his car. i just got confused when he said consider going with a tsudo exhaust, where as the one i have a link for is tsudo, and the only other tsudo exhaust has a 4.5 inch tip unlike the 3.5 inch tip one i was looking at. they both have silencers so i dont see what would be so loud bout it? i mean all i want is for my car to sound a little better than what i have my universal muffler sound. im sick of sounding like a honda rice burner

 

[BigRand]

The only issues I had with Rand's post were the 150whp claim and mention of Nology wires. Otherwise, BigRand is a regular, contributing member over here and deserves a bit more respect than subtle sarcasm from a newbie who's taken an automotive class at school.

SAFC 2 MSRP = $439.00
Megasquirt v3.0 w/ 420A/Neon wasted spark = $385 (RS Autosport).

You can get them made by experienced MS'd 2GNTers for a bit less than that.

Hey my bad guys about the 150whp, that was supposed to say 150hp, the (w) came in while I was typing my dyno results to someone on AIM.

As for the nology wires I'm curious to hear what information about them that I missed as to why they aren't a good choice anymore. A couple of years ago I used to hear that name all the time, but I must admit I haven't heard anyone around hear mention those wires for a while. So que Pasa?


P.S. Lean from me ladies and gentlemen, PROOF READ your posts, or risk getting flamied by a newbie.

 

[dr1665]

ok thanx for putting me down then dr1665 i appreciate it. you are so helpful all i was saying was that bigrands post got me nowhere but more confused which is the truth. but whatever dude

Heh. If Rand's post confused you, why not ask for clarification? "Thanks for the helpful post, unlike BigRand," could go either way. If it was a laughable, "Gee, thanks for speeking Greek, asshole," then a simple would have sufficed. No biggie. We're all good up in here.

Hey my bad guys about the 150whp, that was supposed to say 150hp, the (w) came in while I was typing my dyno results to someone on AIM.

Well don't let it happen again, choadsniffer.

As for the nology wires I'm curious to hear what information about them that I missed as to why they aren't a good choice anymore. A couple of years ago I used to hear that name all the time, but I must admit I haven't heard anyone around hear mention those wires for a while. So que Pasa?

The last I read about them, the way they store up the additional energy required for the more powerful spark is through a capacitor. As it takes time, even if only fractions of a second, to charge these capacitors, they act as a sort of unintentional ignition retard. It may not take very long to charge a little capacitor like that, but then again, how many times, per second, is your engine firing a spark at, say 3000rpm?

For every power stroke, there is a spark, and for every exhaust stroke, there is a spark as well (wasted spark - might only happen with the MSnS running things - TalonESI-T will correct me if I'm wrong). So, 3000rpm is 50rps. Best I can figure, the engine is firing off the spark plugs 100 times per second at that speed. I'm sure the measure is pretty close.

And then again, there are still people who swear by them, but I don't see the value in $150 wires which may or may not provide gains.

P.S. Lean from me ladies and gentlemen, PROOF READ your posts, or risk getting flamied by a newbie.

Ironic, don't you think?

Lean on me. When you can't spell, check your own post, telling others to proof read theirs. For, it won't be long, 'til I'm gonna need, more Guinness to read on.

 

[lilbayz311]

well since all this thread has become is a chat room ill try to get it back on track.. i ordered the catback as shown above in my first post but i am still left with what i should do about my catalytic concerter. and no i dont want a test pipe i want to keep my car legal. anybody have any links for a high flow cat not from ebay? and after this mod i have come to the conclusion that i am just going to work on appearance and save up my $$ for a car that comes stock with descent horsepower and a turbo

 

[lilbayz311]

or not.. thanx for all the info that i already new people

 

[BigRand]

Check out www.prostreetonline.com

Look under Exhaust and you should find all sorts of cats they have for sale.

Ones with sensors, ones without, differnt sizes, and looks, and shapes depending on the application.

I picked mine up for about $125 a while ago...I think the prices might have gone up a lil on the one that I got.

 

[bullettdsm]

or not.. thanx for all the info that i already new people

Really? As I look through the thread I see you ask questions and the questions get answered. A couple of the guys answering are pretty well respected in more than one dsm site. If you already (k)new the answers then why ask the questions? I don't quite understand the sarcastic (and maybe confrontational) manner in which you reply to people who are trying to answer your questions. This really won't help you get input.
MB

 

[napkinthief]

or not.. thanx for all the info that i already new people

I might lose my green square for this one.

This is a performance forum, to go fast. Go work on appearance, spend 10g on a bodykit, paintjob, headlights, tailight w.e then wonder why your car is slow. You know everything so why dont you just do it yourself without asking us STUPID questions. Just go buy a broken safc, push buttons infront of your friends and show off. Personally I hope you blow your engine. I did something many people on this site wont do and typed up a bunch of information into a short little post. I thought maybe you would gimme a positive rating and add to my reputation, but no you pretty much call everyone an idiot and putting yourself ontop of something you dont know jack shit about.

Gnight.


And by the way, you can get everything you are looking for at autozone. They also sell those 9" tachometers, underglow kits, and do it yourself tints.

 

[lilbayz311]

the whole reason i started this thread was to get more info about what catalytic converter if any i should replace along with my new catback i have bought. but thanx for all the info about everything else.. and to napkintheif.. ill give you a good reputation ### you deserve it dude

 

[napkinthief]

alright i got a header and downpipe already installed on my car with just a universal muffler welded on at the end. i realize that i need a full catback exhaust to maximize air flow to increase power so this is what ive come up with since i dont want my car too loud.. catback exhaust. so then i figure might as well open up the whole exhaust and not have ristriction from the stock catalytic converter so this is what ive found for the cheapest amount of $: catalytic converter. but now i am confused whether or not this will all bolt directly together because the pacesetter converter looks more triangular shaped on the pics then my downpipe and soon to be catback exhaust. i was wondering if anybody knew if it would fit, and if not, a link to another high flow catalytic converter that would fit would be nice.
next.. i bought my car with a short ram intake already installed, i was wondering if it would be worth it to scrap that and go for a cold air intake? i mean would there even be any noticeable gains?
and lastly.. my car is a 97 n/t, i keep debating in my mind whether or not to purchase an safc 2 to help increase my hp. i mean would it even be worth it? or whether i should just save my $ for rims or something. i am not planning on going turbo or even doing much more mods after what i have just named seems how my car has a salvage title and im not gettin anything back out of what i put in it. but i also plan on keeping it for a while and would like it to look nice and have a little more power than it has. oh ya, as of right now i have $1100 to spend. so many decisions.. sry for so long of thread, responses on any of my questions would be appreciated. thnx

You typed all that to ask if you need a new cat to go with your exhaust?

Seems to me like you asked a bunch of questions there.

Thx for the rep, but you gave me a trader point.

 

[Blitzeclips]

I'm confused...

WHat is he asking? You can get any answers you need with the SEARCH button! I'm starting to sound like a moderator...

 

[speed127]

let me help you out buddy... the answer to your question is YES the pacesetter hi-flow cat will work and fit perfict. The pic may be a generic one. I know because I have it installed on my car. I also have OBX headers and a megan cat back exaust w/ silencer which I use because the thing is just crazy loud without it. Also I would defently go with the CAI instead of the short ram air... those things are a waste I think. One other thing you may want to considder is a Modern Performance 60mm throttle body. I got one and did notice an increase in throttle responce and pickup...

Just my 2 cents

 

[napkinthief]

I would never buy a short ram for an n/t. I removed my stock air box, got a cone filter and stuck it on the end with a hose clamp and it works fine.

Personally, from what I have read on these forums, and 2gnt, a 60mm tb is useless unless you have other big mods done, like turbo or nitrous.

 

[lilbayz311]

thank you speed127. you are the man. now i got a question that is confusing me. so i ordered that cat back exhaust as shown above from eracingzone.com but i never got the confirmation email nor has the money been withdrawn from my account. i have read up on people who have ordered from this particular website before and have received, but they wont even respond to my emails. are these guys out of business or something? i got my order confirmation and even printed it out. but i dont see what good it is because the only way to contact them is threw emails. so i dunno??