Upgrades for 3.5l V6

[NewMonte]

I like the 5.3 liter swap. There are more mods for it, too. my tranny is built to hold it as well so all id need is a new engine mount, the 5.3l chip and the engine right? the thing is I d need a new exhaust system, the 5.3l SS model has twin exhaust, my rear end is only designed for one anyway. The 3.8 supercharged would be cheaper up front but still has less mods in future. In the end im debating..do I even want to modify a front wheel drive vehicle?

[hrcslam]

Originally Posted by NewMonte

I like the 5.3 liter swap. There are more mods for it, too. my tranny is built to hold it as well so all id need is a new engine mount, the 5.3l chip and the engine right? the thing is I d need a new exhaust system, the 5.3l SS model has twin exhaust, my rear end is only designed for one anyway. The 3.8 supercharged would be cheaper up front but still has less mods in future. In the end im debating..do I even want to modify a front wheel drive vehicle?

It'd be fun and a good experience, but you may not want to in the long run if you plan on getting rid of the vehicle eventually; you'd never get your money back out of it.

Knowing that Pontiac is dead in a year and a half, you could get a G8 and play with that, or a Solstice GXP if you don't need a back seat. Hey with Saturn disapearing from GM too you could buy a Sky Redline, all of these vehicles will be worth a fortune in about 25-50 years. Especially the Kappa twins (Solstice and Sky). Not many were built and both companies will not be around any more. I wish I had the money to park one for 50 years and make a quick mil or so.

[NewMonte]

A car friend I was talking to said GM vehicles are going to be selling for pennies, and with the news earlier today I think even from dealers they will be trying to sell them to at least break even, so I was suggested to find something dirt cheap and just work on that on the side. Chipping is also easy and cheap to do to it, although I don't know how to go about it. I would imagine you need a lot of technical knowledge to edit the chips if you have one of those devices to plug into it.

[hrcslam]

Originally Posted by NewMonte

A car friend I was talking to said GM vehicles are going to be selling for pennies, and with the news earlier today I think even from dealers they will be trying to sell them to at least break even, so I was suggested to find something dirt cheap and just work on that on the side. Chipping is also easy and cheap to do to it, although I don't know how to go about it. I would imagine you need a lot of technical knowledge to edit the chips if you have one of those devices to plug into it.

You could look for a custom tuner in your local area or online. Or you could buy a hand held tuner. The hand helds are preprogrammed tuning modes you install by just plugging it in and following some onscreen directions. Custom tunes will either send you a reprogrammed ECU based on what you tell them you want or the will have you send yours. Either way will cost you roughly the same amount. The custom tune is better for performance while the handheld tuner will allow you to reprogram the ECU to stock.

[NewMonte]

You can't do everything the chip maker will do with a handheld unit? I thought they let you have full access to everything on the chip, since shops use them to run diagnosis' of cars.

[hrcslam]

Naw, the handhelds are preprogrammed, so they will allow only what is pre-installed onto the device. The custom tune is open for whatever you want. Personally, if your worried about a warranty, I would buy a second ecu and have that one performance tuned, then swap them out for warranty covered work. But, I'm not worried about a warranty so I am evetually going to tune my one and only ECU.

[NewMonte]

Someone told me recently that their chip learned how they drive and eventually limited the engine. Is this true? What I want right now is for my car to shift more appropriately. Sometimes it feels like when I floor the pedal it should go into 4th but it just stays in 3rd and crawls up a hill. The engine can handle some more speed, it feels like the shifting is holding it back.

[hrcslam]

Some vehicle will adjust to your driving habits, but the hinderance would be minimal if at all. Flooring the vehicle should create a downshift, not an upshift, depending on your speed. So if your doing 75 on the highway and you hit a 30% grade you should be in third to make it up the hill with minimal loss in speed. After the hill it should upshift back to 4th. You should be doing right around 2200 to 2600 rpm at 75 in 4th.

I'm not sure if your vehicle has it (I would doubt that it does) but GM likes to protect transmissions from self distruction caused by the rediculously smooth shifts that most Americans want. These shifts cause the clutches to "ride" (like riding a clutch in a manual) between gears to create a smooth feeling, it works. But, it eats the clutches up like no tomorrow. GM's fix was to detune the engine during these conditions. They named it Torque Management or TQM. If your vehicle has this and you're not worried about warranty issues, you can have a tuner delete TQM then up the line pressures and quicken the shift times. This will give you the performance feeling shifts, but they will always be there and the smooth shifts will be gone until the tune is removed.

Personally I like the performance shift feeling, and the smooth bull poop sucks. I am looking at a tranny tune with TQM delete, plus an actual shift kit from B&M. But, this will have to wait till I have money of course.

[NewMonte]

I thought it would shift up to go up a hill...higher gears mean less strain on the engine because it has higher RPM, just like a bike. When I floor it, depending on my speed, it might shoot in RPMs and I get to fly down the road, other times it feels like I'm racing in a tractor.

[hrcslam]

O.k we got our lingo confused. Down shift means a lower gear, which is actually higher gearing (exp. 4.10:1 is a lower gear than 3.73:1) So first gear is lower than 2nd, but the gearing "numbers" are higher. So when you're going up a hill and the rev's go up, you down shifted.

Question, when you are doing speed, let's say a constant 45mph you should be in fourth, and you floor it, it drops from fourth to third and goes (sometimes second is engaged right?), but from a stop it feels like it bogs out, then feels stronger as it gains speed and rpm then feels weak at every shift right? If your car does this then it has Torque Management and you are feeling the effect of this "wonderful" programming from GM.

Sometimes you will only down shift one gear and sometimes none. If you are doing 35 mph and accelerating at half throttle, but then floor it your tranny will not down shift as first gear is maxed out by this point and you are probably already in second.

I did a little research and it looks like your Monte does have TQM (Torque Management), removing this will provide some rediculously awesome improvements in the "seat of the pants" dyno without ever touching the engine.

[NewMonte]

I'm kinda confused now. I know a 4:1 gear ratio is much higher than a 2:1,. for example. My car has like a 2.85:1, 1.30:1, 1:1, then an overdrive gear of like .75:1 (Juts kinda guestimated to the extreme on those numbers) When climbing a hill you say it's supposed to drop down to the lower (bigger) gears? Shouldn't it go up to the higher (smaller) gears? I need to learn a bit how it shifts and when it should do it, so I can understand how it is accelerating better.

[avro206]

sell it and buy a performance car with aftermarket support.

3.5L is bread and butter engine for base level cars. 95% of people who buy them just drive them. They do not modify them. There is no money in the aftermarket to R&D and market parts.

[NewMonte]

Originally Posted by avro206

sell it and buy a performance car with aftermarket support.

3.5L is bread and butter engine for base level cars. 95% of people who buy them just drive them. They do not modify them. There is no money in the aftermarket to R&D and market parts.

I just bought it. Haven't even made my first payment on it yet. The engine is a nice one, though, and it's a fun car to drive.

[hrcslam]

Originally Posted by NewMonte

I'm kinda confused now. I know a 4:1 gear ratio is much higher than a 2:1,. for example. My car has like a 2.85:1, 1.30:1, 1:1, then an overdrive gear of like .75:1 (Juts kinda guestimated to the extreme on those numbers) When climbing a hill you say it's supposed to drop down to the lower (bigger) gears? Shouldn't it go up to the higher (smaller) gears? I need to learn a bit how it shifts and when it should do it, so I can understand how it is accelerating better.

We are both saying the same thing, just in different ways. The Higher gear ratios are actually your lower gears (downshifting), the Lower gear ratios are your higher gears (upshifting). So when accelerating or climbing hills, you will down shift to a lower gear, but a higher gear ratio. So yeah. I just got confused from how you were saying it.

And your guestimates are pretty close. Except for O.D, I believe fourth gear in those trannys are something close to 0.69:1. But, could be completely wrong. Hey the O.D in a T6060, if I remember right, is something like 0.57:1 in sixth (dual O.D). Crazy huh? That why the Vette, at 430hp, will put out an EPA of 25hwy (if I remember right), but there are reports of Vette owners actually getting over 30 hwy in these babies. Ohhh yeah, GM doesn't know fuel efficiency huh. Not one other car on the planet even comes close to this.

Sorry about the rant.

[NewMonte]

After this Chevy I am now in love with GM engines. I always wanted a vette. Just wish GM didn't spread themselves out across so many brands. But yea, so I def wanna try the TM removal. Gotta get a custom chip for that?