Increasing my HorsePower

allencochran1989 · 09-26-2010, 06:07 AM

Hello every one i have had my 1999 alero 2door 3.4 v6 for about a year now.. i thought it was going to be a downgrade from my 1999 3.8 v6 mustang, but i was wrong.. so my car is stock at the moment.. i had a few questions far as performance parts for my car.. but i also dont want to spend to much money on the car.. i was thinking to start off with a cold air intake and maybe an exhaust.. i had two 12' subs in my car and decided to take them off.. i also removed the catalac converter so now its strait pipe.. i did notice how my car seemed to pull more. so that being said here are some questions.

1. what small things can i do to get more HP?
2. i race alot and when i race i shift the gears manually from 1-2-3 i always time it right so it never redlines it seems to give me a bit more hp.. is it ok?
3. can i get my car tuned to increase its hp?

i would really appreciate the advice/help.. here is a pic and some new/old vids of my car racing

most recent picture

Links removed by moderator due to violation of site rules

billytheman1188 · 09-26-2010, 06:13 AM

yo....not good man..... just warning you we dont support street racing so you might wanna take those links down.... just saying. Dont take anything too personal and start talking shit when the other members respond to this..... or this will get locked when a mod sees it.

billytheman1188 · 09-26-2010, 06:15 AM

also....not a good idea to shift with a A/T....your not driving a stick shift dude. But whatever floats your boat i guess. use the search button...look up headers for 3400 or something like that..... get an exhaust....pacesetter is cheap but will rust out in a year and a half

borla exhaust is about $700 OR go custom....

get a tuned PCM from wot-tech or milzymotorsports.... i think they both have them. correct me if im wrong people

180 degree thermostat

billytheman1188 · 09-26-2010, 06:27 AM

lvemy3100 · 09-26-2010, 07:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by billytheman1188

also....not a good idea to shift with a A/T....your not driving a stick shift dude. But whatever floats your boat i guess. use the search button...look up headers for 3400 or something like that..... get an exhaust....pacesetter is cheap but will rust out in a year and a half

borla exhaust is about $700 OR go custom....

get a tuned PCM from wot-tech or milzymotorsports.... i think they both have them. correct me if im wrong people

180 degree thermostat

Pacesetter will not rust out in a year and a half.
Borla is overpriced garbage. 2.25" pipe which is basically stock.
Wot does not offer pcms but mpracing.org does.

XanderWiFi · 09-26-2010, 08:07 AM

search for "advice and education" and "headers and exhaust." Those are good starter threads. The CAI was about the only cheaper thing I have...if you want something good, it simply costs you money.

BlackJack · 09-26-2010, 11:28 AM

Welcome to the board. Don't manually shift your auto trans on a regular basis. Do get lots of good performance mods. Don't post stories, images or videos of you or your car involved in a street race. *I removed your stuff in your initial post*

Have a nice time here

[ion] C2 · 09-26-2010, 11:28 AM

Shifting manually will go far slower than letting the transmission tune do its job. Your tachometer is slow as well; you can't trust the reading as a perfect point to shift. The transmission already shifts at whatever the 3400's max point is (on the LD9 it's 6450).

Also "eff I mis-shifted" dude seriously? Slow cars racing on the street..... so cool.

allencochran1989 · 09-26-2010, 01:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by [ion] C2

Shifting manually will go far slower than letting the transmission tune do its job. Your tachometer is slow as well; you can't trust the reading as a perfect point to shift. The transmission already shifts at whatever the 3400's max point is (on the LD9 it's 6450).

Also "eff I mis-shifted" dude seriously? Slow cars racing on the street..... so cool.

im not sure if thats correct.. because me and my bro... he has a grand am gt.. when we raced we would stick side by side.. when i would manually shift i would always pull ahead of him at least a couple of cars

alero_bmxer · 09-26-2010, 01:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by allencochran1989

im not sure if thats correct.. because me and my bro... he has a grand am gt.. when we raced we would stick side by side.. when i would manually shift i would always pull ahead of him at least a couple of cars

dude just stop while your ahead. you will get no where arguing with c2 or anyone on here for that matter especially about street racing

03Sleepr · 09-26-2010, 01:20 PM

Add more stickers, and a big ass wing.. It adds tons of HP, just ask your honda buddies...and its just as cool as street racing

billytheman1188 · 09-26-2010, 01:21 PM

[ion] C2 · 09-26-2010, 01:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by allencochran1989

im not sure if thats correct.. because me and my bro... he has a grand am gt.. when we raced we would stick side by side.. when i would manually shift i would always pull ahead of him at least a couple of cars

Well guess what, I AM sure that is correct. Until you've delved into the electronics and programming behind how the car operates and have compared the readings from the PCM compared to the readings on the gauges, you have no clue... I've adjusted the transmission tables to increase the shift pressure moderately and lower each shift time to an average of 0.100 sec. My car shifts precisely at the point it is set to, every time, quicker than anyone could throw their hand forward and wait for the transmission to respond to that movement and decide that upshifting is a good idea at that moment.

Car lengths and "sticking side by side" on the street are no accurate comparisons.

BlackJack · 09-26-2010, 01:47 PM

Ok, enough with the flaming. Just suffice to say, C2 is correct that the transmission tune knows when to shift for an even mix of performance, streetability and reliability. Key on the last point there. If you want the transmission to do it's job more effectively in a performance manner, you do so at the expense of reliability

Your transmission tune is the point of focus. In order to properly have raised shift points, you have to go into the PCM via one of the two tuning devices out there:

DHP PowrTuner: Out of business but you can still find em used. Though they don't like to work on Vista. Price will vary based on the desperation of the owner to sell.

HP Tuner: Expensive, but effective for tuning ( I still don't think I understand the credit system very well)

WhiteV6 · 09-26-2010, 02:04 PM

WOT-Tech will offer OBD2 tuning on the store later this year. Currently, custom tunes are taking more of my time so that I can show off complete WOT-Tech builds.

But an HPT setup from me, and I also include support. I won't do all the tuning but I can certainly help. We are working on some files to get people started. I HIGHLY recommend buying the HPT setup.

Credits are either 2 for a car, 4 for your car and year (so 2003 alero, any of them, but only 2003 aleros, not grand ams or malibus). You get 8 credits, so enough for 4 cars or 2 year/make. Other vehicles cost more credits.

Cliff8928 · 09-26-2010, 08:57 PM

Just one clarification on the HPT.

You can do one of 4 things when you read in a PCM.

Do not license - Costs nothing but it's read-only.

Single Vehicle License - 2 credits, Read/Write privileges for ONE specific car/vin

Unlimited Year/Model License - 6 credits for the 4-cyl, 4 credits for the V6, Read/Write for any car your year/model/engine group.

Unlimited vehicle group license - 70 credits (V6), Unlimited Read/Write priviliges for any vehicle in the engine group. (not available for the 4-cylinder models)

You can upgrade to higher levels with a 75% pro-rate on your existing credits.

BlackJack · 09-26-2010, 10:16 PM

and it's $50 per credit (but 8 credits are included) right?

03Sleepr · 09-26-2010, 11:04 PM

yea, But if you buy the credits in bulk the price drops..but its rather high numbers before the price drops

BlackJack · 09-27-2010, 05:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 03Sleepr

yea, But if you buy the credits in bulk the price drops..but its rather high numbers before the price drops

If I read correctly, yeah, the credits are the same price from 0-99. So it will take awhile to get to that bulk-discount.

XanderWiFi · 09-27-2010, 05:52 AM

Ouch...you really put yourself behind my friend. Ion is in the process of helping me re-tune my PCM with an HP Tuner and is a vast source of all things Alero.

Some life advice: anytime you show up to a new group be a little humble until you know your way around.

Purpose of the 1-2-3 gears is for towing correct? i always found them being limited to be handy when going up snowy and icy roads to keep from up-shifting and slipping. Just my experience though. And does shifting into neutral to coast help reduce energy and gas use? Random thoughts.