Just not fast enough

[GotMy81@16]

I need a way to boost my horsepower!! I hate admitting to people that im only pushin 190 when they are expecting upper 200's!!!
What is a good way to boost it?
Expensive or non, anything is fine!

 

[photovette]

I put a Grooms Engines 355 Performance Plus engine in my 1977--only set me back $2200 installed--plus the motor comes with a 'no questions asked' lifetime warranty. The best part is it'll smoke it's tires and shove your butt between the seat cushions. My wife's scared to drive it now--enough said?!


http://www.groomsengines.com/index.html

 

[MoeJr]

I am assuming by your user name that you are still in High School. I am figuring 2200 bucks may be a bit steep so here are my suggestions. First off you need to put a real dual exhaust on the car with 2 hi flow cats. You will need to check your transmission cross memeber to see if it has the 2 holes in it for the duals to go thru. Mid America has some nice dual exhaust systems for your car that will look stock at the back but give you more bite. Their chambered exhaust for the 68-82 is awesome sounding as I put one on a friends 74 Vette. You want that put you back in the seat feel and the stock rear gears are not going to cut it as I believe they are 2.87's. You wanna get them up to around 3.55's. Those 2 things really wake the car up in the seat of the pants feeling. Lastly if your car runs really well you can do a simple cam upgrade. With 3.55 gears you can use a cam that is computer friendly as I know 81 is first Vette with computer. A cam around 214 intake duration at .050 and 220 or so exhaust duration at .050 will work nice. Make sure you get new lifters and valve springs. Also along with that cam you will wanna upgrade your torque converter to somewhere around a 2400 stall which will get you off the line faster. you can do this over time and start with exhaust and gears first then the rest. Hope this helps.

Moe

 

[Glensgages]

... and the stock rear gears are not going to cut it as I believe they are 2.87's. You wanna get them up to around 3.55's. Those 2 things really wake the car up in the seat of the pants feeling...

I went from 2.87s to 3.73s in my other-wise stock '82 Cross-Fire:
ETs went from 15.704 @ 86 to 15.003 @ 90+.

Short of N2O, you can get better performnace up-grades for $600, altho your mileage will suffer, and you have no emission-Nazis to contend with.

 

[goingballistic]

Stroke It.............

 

[mike weyman]

she'll take a 100 shot of nitrous.

 

[Stallion]

Be careful and do your homework before you start putting laughing gas in her though. It's not hard at all for you to crack a piston with that stuff.

 

[Bob_K]

First off you need to put a real dual exhaust on the car with 2 hi flow cats.
Moe

Don't bother. 2 high flow cats is just as illegal as no cats. Either keep (or upgrade) the one or dump them both. Getting rid of them may not be an option depending on what local inspections you have.
It really depends on what you want the extra power for. If you're just worried about what others think, I'd say do nothing to the car because you're already happy with it. If they don't like it, they can buy one and dump money into it to make power. If you want the car to be quicker, you really need to know how much quicker to decide what path(s) to go down...i.e. performance rebuild, supercharger, etc.
A cam swap is realatively inexpensive. I'm not a big fan of nitrous because it's long term costs can get up there when you have to keep refilling a bottle.
If you have money to burn, I'd go with this:
Bore .030 over and stroke to make 383
Forged crank & pistons
AFR 195 cc heads
XE 268 or 272 cam
Intercooled ATI centrifugal Supercharger
Weiand Stealth Intake

You'd make more power than you know what to do with. More than enough for bragging, drag racing, and lots of speeding tickets. All for the bargain price of $6000 or so (just a quick estimate without looking up any prices)

 

[photovette]

You know, the reason I went with the new engine is because my old motor died. However, there are advantages of putting in new instead of screwing with the old motor. I think with the money I spent, I got far and away the best bang for the buck. PLUS, the new motor takes regular gas, it has a parts&labor 18 month warranty followed by a lifetime replacement warrenty. And it is FRESH!

By the way, I put true cat-less duals on 2 years ago--that was the second best thing I did to the car.

 

[GotMy81@16]

Thanks for the replies, keep giving me ideas. I had talked to someone else about putting duals on and after researching it I realized it was illegal where I live. Honestly is this something to worry about? Bob K can you explain what the cam swap will do for my car? (power wise)

 

[Tanreall]

Intercooled ATI centrifugal Supercharger

This is the way to go check out there website and request a catalog

http://www.procharger.com/


I'm going to get one for my 89 soon I'm thinking low 12s with just the supercharger.

 

[MoeJr]

If you cannot put a real dual system then have a custom front y pipe and rear y pipe made and use a high flow converter. Cam swap can net you 10-20 hp depending on the other mods. A good free flow exhaust and cam change with proper tuning can yield up to 50 hp. On the stock Qjet it is real easy to change the secondary rods for more fuel at times of heavy acceleration. Once you start modding the car you'll hafta up the fuel flow.


I am not a big fan of superchargers on cars that didn't come with them. They must be tuned perfect or serious engine damage can result. Just my .02

 

[Bob_K]

It depends on what cam you go for. Basically, the cam is the brain of the engine. It tells the valves when to open and close, as well as how far to open. A good cam that is smog legal everywhere would be the Comp Cams 268H. There are others that would give a little more power or a little more torque, but for an otherwise stock vehicle it looks like a good balance. I would call up Comp Cams (http://www.compcams.com/) or Crane (http://www.cranecams.com/) and tell them what you have. See what they recommend.