Free or cheap mods for 1997 3.8L Bird

[FirebirdGIrl]

Please help! I did a search on here and found a few things but a bunch was contradicting to the year...

[chevcamaro18]

youll probley wanna do exhaust or intake first. exhaust you will notice a difference. You can find some systems for a cheap price. Most really cheap things you wont notice any gains anyways =)
just do a search on exhaust and intake

[Nachius]

Something you can do yourself is probably a SLP Cold Air Intake.

Kinda hi priced if you buy it from SLP but its a good mod to start with next would be exhaust!

The free mods as far as those go the only thing I've done without too much trouble is air silencer removal and Iat sensor relocation!

Both of those are pretty simple as well!

[FirebirdGIrl]

What do those mods do exactly?

[97Pcam6]

You could remove your MAF screen if you want, its a very contraversial topic, i did it personally but its nothing you can really notice. You could custom make your own cold air or ram air system but it takes some time and planning. Removing the air silencers would allow more air into the engine thus gaining a little power. It also would make the car louder hence the name "air silencers". I would do the SLP cold air intake and then a full catback.

I am currently selling GM 3.73 gears and the scu2000 which would be a good cheap start for your 97 bird. I am guessing you have 3.08 stock and bumping it up to 3.73 would make a very noticeable difference in acceleration. The scu2000 would correct any problems such as the speedo problems that a gear change or tire change would originally throw off. Good luck. [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

[Jack]

Nice car...it is identical to mine except I changed my wheels. Definately do the intake and exhaust, they open up the engine nicely.

[img]graemlins/toto.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/fluffy.gif[/img]

[FirebirdGIrl]

Fill in the blank for me:

MAF = ?????

[Firebrd9783]

Mass Air Flow, its the screen that your air intake system is hooked to.

You can do the Free Ram air mod which is good, i can show you how to do that... that works best with a cold air intake or FIPK. Exhaust is probly the one of the best you can do other then Supercharger or turbo. I recomend Flowmasters, cuz I love mine, but I also hear Loudmouth's pretty good on our v6s and its pretty cheap. 160 thermostat is only around 10 bucks(won't notice a differencs though).

Apperencs mods....Brake drums and caliper painting is good, interior painting, theirs a guy on here who is good with custom boxs for stereos....i can't think of much right now, but if you want, email me and I can probly think of alot more later, hope I helped.

[black97cam]

FirebirdGIrl:

First thing I would do if i were you is find out what gears your car has.

For free or cheap mods:

Remove the air box and get one of those APC Cone filters from Pep Boys and put it where the airbox would connect. Ask XDamxIncX about that one.

Also Nikon showed me this neat little trick on how to "advance the timing". You get a little resistor and plug it into your AIT sensor (the little plug that hooks into your intake box). I was told that this tricks your computer into thinking 52 degree air is being taken into the intake. Im a bit sceptical on this one.