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Posted: 2/21/2015 12:26:16 AM EDT
I have a 1999 Trans Am that is stock. How can I get some more hp outta it?
I wish I could afford a Turbo. I would like to spend less than 3k. |
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longtubes, lid, underdrive pulley
With those mods and a 3600 stall and 3.73s my 2001 z28 was running high 11s (automatic, duh) Roughly $1800 |
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Cold air lid, ported MAF ends, ported throttle body, free ram air mod (search an LS forum), nitrous, LS6 intake, long tubes... Etc.
Ported MAF endplates can be bought, or done DIY with a Dremel. Lots of easy, cheap mods. Gears, don't add power, but let you use it better. |
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I have a 1999 Trans Am that is stock. How can I get some more hp outta it? I wish I could afford a Turbo. I would like to spend less than 3k. View Quote Have you put subframe connectors on it yet? |
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Have you put subframe connectors on it yet? View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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I have a 1999 Trans Am that is stock. How can I get some more hp outta it? I wish I could afford a Turbo. I would like to spend less than 3k. Have you put subframe connectors on it yet? No Sir |
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Heads/Cam/Intake/Exhaust/Tune
LS1 stuff is old hat and getting even cheaper. |
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Cold air lid, ported MAF ends, ported throttle body, free ram air mod (search an LS forum), nitrous, LS6 intake, long tubes... Etc. Ported MAF endplates can be bought, or done DIY with a Dremel. Lots of easy, cheap mods. Gears, don't add power, but let you use it better. View Quote I disagree with the ported maf ends. I wouldn't mess with the maf unless making serious power. I had my stock throttle body ported and it didn't do anything. |
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Subframe isn't gonna help HP, and OP won't be adding enough HP without serious cash to worry about NEEDING a subframe.
That being said, I had a 99 Cam LS1, and I LOVED the subframe! It instantly helped handling. I'd say intake should be first, get it breathing easy. I might still have an LS3 manifold in the garage, brand new. I totaled the Z28 before I installed it. I'll go check edit - Yup, I have a brand new LS36 manifold and valley cover (the one that eliminated the oil line,) research them on the internet and let me know if you're interested. we can come up with some price or trade. Part # on the valley cover is #12577927 I remember having a huge fight with Scoggins over getting the right one. edit again - Yes, after further research, I DO have an LS6 manifold and valley cover. Here is the part of the thread at ls1.com where I was fighting with Scoggins over the correct valley cover. |
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Ls3 intake won't fit on ls1. Different ports.
LS2/LS6 top end swap would be good if you could find the heads cheap enough. Quoted:
Subframe isn't gonna help HP, and OP won't be adding enough HP without serious cash to worry about NEEDING a subframe. That being said, I had a 99 Cam LS1, and I LOVED the subframe! It instantly helped handling. I'd say intake should be first, get it breathing easy. I might still have an LS3 manifold in the garage, brand new. I totaled the Z28 before I installed it. I'll go check. View Quote |
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Subframe isn't gonna help HP, and OP won't be adding enough HP without serious cash to worry about NEEDING a subframe. That being said, I had a 99 Cam LS1, and I LOVED the subframe! It instantly helped handling. I'd say intake should be first, get it breathing easy. I might still have an LS3 manifold in the garage, brand new. I totaled the Z28 before I installed it. I'll go check. View Quote Subframe connectors will help put the power down, and allow less flex. This is one of the cheaper things that will need to be done before you start making serious power gains. The over-all best part is a torque convertor. Other than that, the turbo is the only serious power mod. |
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Ls3 intake won't fit on ls1. Different ports. LS2/LS6 top end swap would be good if you could find the heads cheap enough. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
Ls3 intake won't fit on ls1. Different ports. LS2/LS6 top end swap would be good if you could find the heads cheap enough. Quoted:
Subframe isn't gonna help HP, and OP won't be adding enough HP without serious cash to worry about NEEDING a subframe. That being said, I had a 99 Cam LS1, and I LOVED the subframe! It instantly helped handling. I'd say intake should be first, get it breathing easy. I might still have an LS3 manifold in the garage, brand new. I totaled the Z28 before I installed it. I'll go check. Maybe it was the LS6? I know I got all the right stuff 5 years ago! |
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Jegs stickers
Forced induction or go home, everything else is just weight. |
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first thing I would do on a 99 LS1 is address the weak rod bolts and oiling issues before any power mods
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I disagree with the ported maf ends. I wouldn't mess with the maf unless making serious power. I had my stock throttle body ported and it didn't do anything. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Cold air lid, ported MAF ends, ported throttle body, free ram air mod (search an LS forum), nitrous, LS6 intake, long tubes... Etc. Ported MAF endplates can be bought, or done DIY with a Dremel. Lots of easy, cheap mods. Gears, don't add power, but let you use it better. I disagree with the ported maf ends. I wouldn't mess with the maf unless making serious power. I had my stock throttle body ported and it didn't do anything. I got 10RW on mine doing it. YMMV |
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What does a 3600 stall do? View Quote Is your car an automatic? it makes your car bad ass. Like I said in my first post, with just a few mods my car was decently quick. High 11s for a stock motor was very good back on the day. Still quick today. A Yank 3600 torque convertor took 0.8 seconds off my 1/4 time. Every LS1 should have long tube headers and a lid. Start there. An underdrive pulley added decent power for the price. Roughly 10rwhp. Ls6 intake is next. All those mods are very simple . LS1 is a stupid simple motor to work on. |
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Have you put subframe connectors on it yet? View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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I have a 1999 Trans Am that is stock. How can I get some more hp outta it? I wish I could afford a Turbo. I would like to spend less than 3k. Have you put subframe connectors on it yet? This. Fix that cars many short comings before you go trying to add power to it. |
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Is your car an automatic? it makes your car bad ass. Like I said in my first post, with just a few mods my car was decently quick. High 11s for a stock motor was very good back on the day. Still quick today. A Yank 3600 torque convertor took 0.8 seconds off my 1/4 time. Every LS1 should have long tube headers and a lid. Start there. An underdrive pulley added decent power for the price. Roughly 10rwhp. Ls6 intake is next. All those mods are very simple . LS1 is a stupid simple motor to work on. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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What does a 3600 stall do? Is your car an automatic? it makes your car bad ass. Like I said in my first post, with just a few mods my car was decently quick. High 11s for a stock motor was very good back on the day. Still quick today. A Yank 3600 torque convertor took 0.8 seconds off my 1/4 time. Every LS1 should have long tube headers and a lid. Start there. An underdrive pulley added decent power for the price. Roughly 10rwhp. Ls6 intake is next. All those mods are very simple . LS1 is a stupid simple motor to work on. What kind of hp are we talking here? the headers add? The lid adds? |
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How much are turbo's and what hp do they add? View Quote They will add anywhere from very little, to a few hundred horsepower. They will also cause your stock bottom end of the engine to fail at pretty much any time since it isn't designed to handle boost Honestly, going by the questions you are asking, turbos are way beyond your skill level right now. |
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your best bet is going here for best information. http://ls1tech.com/forums/
imo best to start with intake, longtube headers, exhaust, and tune. |
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They will add anywhere from very little, so a few hundred horsepower. They will also cause your stock bottom end of the engine to fail at pretty much any time since it isn't designed to handle boost View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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How much are turbo's and what hp do they add? They will add anywhere from very little, so a few hundred horsepower. They will also cause your stock bottom end of the engine to fail at pretty much any time since it isn't designed to handle boost ok....so much for that, |
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What does a 3600 stall do? View Quote Can make it possibly annoying as fuck to just drive around on the street. Lol but seriously the stall speed is when the converter stops slipping. You need to match the stall speed to the cam in the engine. If you have to big of a cam and not enough stall it will bog off a start and run like shit. If you have too much stall speed and not a big enough cam than the converter will be slipping most of the time causing excessive heat in the transmission and therfore shortning the life of the transmission. Unless you are going to be racing this car or plan on driving with the rpms around 3600 all the time than a 3600 stall is way to much. You really need to decide on a cam before you even consider the correct stall speed. A massive cam sounds cool, but will have very little bottom end torque unless you advance the shit out of the cam timing which will result in lower horsepower. |
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What kind of hp are we talking here? the headers add? The lid adds? View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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What does a 3600 stall do? Is your car an automatic? it makes your car bad ass. Like I said in my first post, with just a few mods my car was decently quick. High 11s for a stock motor was very good back on the day. Still quick today. A Yank 3600 torque convertor took 0.8 seconds off my 1/4 time. Every LS1 should have long tube headers and a lid. Start there. An underdrive pulley added decent power for the price. Roughly 10rwhp. Ls6 intake is next. All those mods are very simple . LS1 is a stupid simple motor to work on. What kind of hp are we talking here? the headers add? The lid adds? Meh. Doesn't really matter. I dynoed around 330rwho before the stall (which would have dynoed less) and was fast. But usually headers ~25-30, Lid ~5, pulley ~10 |
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Meh. Doesn't really matter. I dynoed around 330rwho before the stall (which would have dynoed less) and was fast. But usually headers ~25-30, Lid ~5, pulley ~10 View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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What does a 3600 stall do? Is your car an automatic? it makes your car bad ass. Like I said in my first post, with just a few mods my car was decently quick. High 11s for a stock motor was very good back on the day. Still quick today. A Yank 3600 torque convertor took 0.8 seconds off my 1/4 time. Every LS1 should have long tube headers and a lid. Start there. An underdrive pulley added decent power for the price. Roughly 10rwhp. Ls6 intake is next. All those mods are very simple . LS1 is a stupid simple motor to work on. What kind of hp are we talking here? the headers add? The lid adds? Meh. Doesn't really matter. I dynoed around 330rwho before the stall (which would have dynoed less) and was fast. But usually headers ~25-30, Lid ~5, pulley ~10 talk to me about cams and hp. |
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What does a 3600 stall do? Is your car an automatic? it makes your car bad ass. Like I said in my first post, with just a few mods my car was decently quick. High 11s for a stock motor was very good back on the day. Still quick today. A Yank 3600 torque convertor took 0.8 seconds off my 1/4 time. Every LS1 should have long tube headers and a lid. Start there. An underdrive pulley added decent power for the price. Roughly 10rwhp. Ls6 intake is next. All those mods are very simple . LS1 is a stupid simple motor to work on. What kind of hp are we talking here? the headers add? The lid adds? Meh. Doesn't really matter. I dynoed around 330rwho before the stall (which would have dynoed less) and was fast. But usually headers ~25-30, Lid ~5, pulley ~10 talk to me about cams and hp. Dont add a cam unless you have all the supporting mods first. eta- heres a good LS part vendor http://www.texas-speed.com/ |
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The solution for me was to sell the ls1 and drop an ls3 in my 98 trans am. I cammed it (lg g6x3) and stepped longtube headers. Yella terra rockers. 02 computer. Tens of thousands in supporting mods.
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What does a 3600 stall do? Is your car an automatic? it makes your car bad ass. Like I said in my first post, with just a few mods my car was decently quick. High 11s for a stock motor was very good back on the day. Still quick today. A Yank 3600 torque convertor took 0.8 seconds off my 1/4 time. Every LS1 should have long tube headers and a lid. Start there. An underdrive pulley added decent power for the price. Roughly 10rwhp. Ls6 intake is next. All those mods are very simple . LS1 is a stupid simple motor to work on. What kind of hp are we talking here? the headers add? The lid adds? Meh. Doesn't really matter. I dynoed around 330rwho before the stall (which would have dynoed less) and was fast. But usually headers ~25-30, Lid ~5, pulley ~10 talk to me about cams and hp. We can talk about cams after you add the stuff already listed are you just trying to chase dynos or be fast? |
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EVERYTHING has to work together or you are just throwing parts at it. I would check the LS forums first. It depends on what you are trying to do with it and how fast you can afford to go. The more you spend, the more modified it gets, the more maintenance it will requires. Again...depending on how fast you want to go requires devotion, research and time. Trust me I know
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Don't take this the wrong way but you sound very new to this. So with that in mind I'd stick to free mods and basic level 1 stuff.
1. Get a lid. SLP or something similar hell just get a used one off Craigslist for $50 or less. 2. K&N air filter 3. Car back exhaust. Magna flow, corsa, GMMG, etc. stay away from the SLP loudmouths as it will make you deaf. 4. Any other free mod except removing the MAF screen or cutting out the air box base (all that does is get you a dirty ass air filter) - search ls1 free mods to see other stuff 5. If a stick get a shifter 6. Ls6 intake 7. If you have an auto being that you have a base trans am you may have 2.73 gears which if you do these have to go. Check your glove box to see what GU RPO code you have GU4 is 3.23 GU6 is 3.42 can't remember the code for 2.73. If you have 2.73s start looking for a 3.23 or 3.42 rear end from another 98-02. The above should be good for about 380hp at the fly wheel. |
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Cheap, fast and reliable.
Pick any two. That said, a programmable tuner is a good first step. With a stock LS1 motor, you can tweak the timing a bit and tune for 91 Octane to gain a bit more power. Add a wideband O2 sensor and some basic bolt-ons and you'll have a nice little bump in power and a solid foundation for future, more extensive mods. (ability to tune for new cams, porting, power adders, etc) |
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EVERYTHING has to work together or you are just throwing parts at it. I would check the LS forums first. It depends on what you are trying to do with it and how fast you can afford to go. The more you spend, the more modified it gets, the more maintenance it will requires. Again...depending on how fast you want to go requires devotion, research and time. Trust me I know View Quote I want to be fast enough to beat a 2014 Honda Accord grocery getter! that's how fast. |
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Wrong forum, go to Ls1tech.com and read, read, and read.
Shaving time off 1/4 mile et; high stall torque converter is best bang for the $$. Don't go too cheap, FTI, Yank, Vigilante, Circle D are all good weekend warrior converters. You may not like it much at first on the street, feels like driving in loose sand. HP bang for the $; N2O. Pill it til you kill it. If you do the work yourself, you should be able to do headers, cam, & converter for $3K. You're not going to like a healthy cam with the stock converter idling @ 1K rpm Enjoy |
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How much are turbo's and what hp do they add? View Quote I've been tinkering with LS turbo set-ups for a while. I have yet to ever buy a "kit". I like cheap power. Back in the day turbos were all pricey. Now they can be had for very reasonable. I got the 68mm on my 5.3 over 5yrs ago for around $500. Add a gate for a Hundo or so, a bypass valve, inline pump, piping, clamps, silicone hose, bigger injectors (I run LS2's at stock pressure, a buddies truck sports LS7's running about 70psi static) & some form of tuner. I use An HP Tuner but EFI live or similar will work. All said if you do it yourself you will be right about on budget. 9psi in my rig pulls about 45lb/min on pump, my buds truck has seen over 62lb/min at 15psi on E85 with a 72mm. Try getting close to that with an NA bolt-on motor. Juice is pretty reasonable to begin with until you factor in years & years of bottle refills... Then you see it's not so cheap. |
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I had a 2000 SS Camaro LS1.
I removed the honeycomb thing from the MAS house or throttle body, can't remember which. I did the free ram air thing, removing plastic to allow more air. I bored out the MAS and throttle body. Edlebrock headers, found a deal on shorts but should have gotten long tubes. Y pipe open cut outs before the muffler. 4.10 Richmond gears. And........I ran with no air filter, never had issues. The headers plus open cut outs helped and sounded awesome 4.10 gears felt better than the 75 shot of NOS I had on it. |
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Stickers. Edelbrock, Crane, etc. Each one will increase HP by 2-5.
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Research your headers! I had a 97 WS6 ram air Trans Am with LT1 and a 6 speed manual. Prior owner put crane roller rockers, larger edelbrock throttle body, and edelbrock short tube headers. I could not keep plug wires on the car. I tried high temp wires, boot covers, braided aluminized wraps, header wraps. Nothing could fix the 1400 degree problem on the right side, specifically # 4 and # 6 cylinders. The car spent more time in my garage than on the street. Sold it after a year with exhaust manifolds reinstalled.
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I want to be fast enough to beat a 2014 Honda Accord grocery getter! that's how fast. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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EVERYTHING has to work together or you are just throwing parts at it. I would check the LS forums first. It depends on what you are trying to do with it and how fast you can afford to go. The more you spend, the more modified it gets, the more maintenance it will requires. Again...depending on how fast you want to go requires devotion, research and time. Trust me I know I want to be fast enough to beat a 2014 Honda Accord grocery getter! that's how fast. I have an '02 Z28 with mild mods and raping accords isn't an issue. Not sure if you're serious though. You can run 12s with a stock LS1 with good tires. |
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I have an '02 Z28 with mild mods and raping accords isn't an issue. Not sure if you're serious though. You can run 12s with a stock LS1 with good tires. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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EVERYTHING has to work together or you are just throwing parts at it. I would check the LS forums first. It depends on what you are trying to do with it and how fast you can afford to go. The more you spend, the more modified it gets, the more maintenance it will requires. Again...depending on how fast you want to go requires devotion, research and time. Trust me I know I want to be fast enough to beat a 2014 Honda Accord grocery getter! that's how fast. I have an '02 Z28 with mild mods and raping accords isn't an issue. Not sure if you're serious though. You can run 12s with a stock LS1 with good tires. Ok...recommend some tires...I'm all ears |
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