confused new guy

[demonlefty11]

well my birthday is comin up and i know i wanna do somthin with my car. i already have some stuff picked out for the appearance of the car, but i was wanting to look at some things to enhance the performance. ive looked on the internet and in magazines all day and it has just made me very confused. i dont know what half the things they say mean! so could one of you guys tell me some things that would bump up the performance of a 98' v6 firebird? thankyou

[TraceZ]

I'd focus on the handling of your V6 car. If you want a really powerful car, you are best off buying a V8 car. The V6 F-body handles really well with the lighter motor up front, I'd recommend taking advantage of that with some suspension mods to make it a real corner burner. You could upgrade the brakes as well.

If you are really interested with making it more powerfull, a supercharger will have you keeping up with the stock V8 cars.

The basic way to get more power from any engine is to get more air through it. Think of your motor as a big air pump. You can upgrade the exhaust and air intake with bolt-on parts or dig into the motor and rework the heads & intake manifold. Forced induction (FI) like a turbo or supercharger are the ultimate in pushing more air through the motor.

A nitrous oxide kit would be quick and easy, but only provide gains when you hit the button.

[Dave M]

TraceZ pretty much covers it. Most people start with a Cold Air Intake (CAI) and/or a cat-back exhaust. Rear gears would also liven the car up a bit. There is at least one person on this board who has supercharged their 3.8, and done gears as well. She can probably tell you what worked and what didn't for her.

[demonlefty11]

ok this is bothering me no sites give prices for superchargers. how much does a supercharger cost to have put in?

[DeWynter]

ok this is bothering me no sites give prices for superchargers. how much does a supercharger cost to have put in?

$3500+++ installed, if you can find a shop near you that wants to tackle the job. It really comes down to what they know and how long they have to work at it to get it to run right.

[demonlefty11]

ok few more questions, sorry what is a cat - bak? and what do you mean by rear gears?

[TraceZ]

A cat back is a bolt on exhaust kit. It involves first removing the stock exhaust and replacing it with larger better flowing pipes and muffler or resonator. It is called a cat back because it replaces the exhaust from the catalytic converter back to the exhaust tips.

Rear gears are the gears inside your rear differential. By changing the ratio of these gears you change the amount of torque that gets to the rear wheels and what RPMs the engine will run to achieve that.