modification planning tips

luke_ftw said:

It's a general rule to do intake and exhaust first. But after that things get blurry. I've heard that the ECU starts acting up when you modify intake and/or exhaust. If that is true, what mods should be done to get around that? Also, should someone immediately do header back exhaust or is there a more economical route to take? Once you have I/E done should you work on fuel? gears? other things?

i know it all depends on what the end result your aiming for is, but what are some general rules to follow when modding a car?

and on a side note what websites do you order your parts from?

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You use the words "more economical route to take".

If you are stock spending money on store bought cai's, catbacks, headers, throttle body, maf, and roller rockers won't give you near the performance gain as other parts will. I'd hold off on these until the following are in place.

1 A set of gears will give the most gain for the buck spent.

2 A mid pipe is also a good gain item and will give you the rumble sound.

3 An intake manifold will pick things up a good bit also.

At this point you can go for the first few items above or (the one I like) if you are going for the greater power of say ...... 300 to 325rwhp ...... make plans for a set of heads and cam with larger inj's and maf.

The prob I have with starting on the first parts I listed is you will spend a small fortune on all that stuff but your performance will not really be improved much at all

Its no fun to spend lots of money and you still ain't fast

IMHO 1, 2, & 3 is the "more economical route to take"

Later
Grady

Opinions are like as**oles, everyone's got one. So here's mine. The first few mods I would do are cat back, shifter, gears, then start tearing into more labor intensive stuff. The order and choice would, of course, differ for an automatic, probably pushing gears up to first.

luke_ftw said:

hmm you make a good point. but would you really want all of that stuff (heads and all) without even doing exhaust?

secondly, if i'm going to supercharge (way down the road) should i get pullies?

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Just trying to get the most power for the money spent. I did say to upgrade the most restrictive part of the complete exhaust system. On a stocker Stang a catback is not gonna give you even 10rwhp but how much money spent ...... too much. Now if you gotta have the cool sound then I understand but my focus was on performance. Headers are the same kind of deal but they most likely would give a bit more of a gain but then again look at the money spent.

The exhasut can be done after the high gain parts are in place.

I know exhaust is the first thing everyone does first but from a performance point of view it is not sound.

My sig kinda points out that not only do I believe ...... I also put into practice those thoughts about catbacks.

Just my .02 based upon my findings with a few cars I've had in the past.

Almost forgot about the pullys. You always can pick up a set used and sell them for the same price so why not get the torque gain from them during your na combo's life.

Later
Grady