hey i was just wondering if anyone knew of some adjustments or little things i could do here or there to give my car alittle more power, without getting into the $$. I have a 1991 5.7L Z-28 with TPI and Flowmaster exhaust. if anyone knows of anything it'd be much appreciated. thanks.

 

i'll tell ya 2 things
1) do an intake, pretty cheap, just build your own- i'm figuring you have the dual inlet type thing so get some k/n filters (not too much) and chop up the box or whatever, someone else will help on this
2) search the board, way too many times has this been asked

o, one more thing...
welcome to the board, and nice car

 

www.thirdgen.org

go there and go to the tech site... do all the free mods you can find

http://www.gmtips.com/3rd-degree/dox/tips/tips.htm

another site i have book marked

and visit www.tpis.com if you haven't heard of them

 

1) yeah thirdgen.org has plenty of good mods, however some of them are done the hillbilly way with cheap a/c ducting or so. i gained 3 tenths from making my own ram air. thirdgen.org has the article on how to. but i used stiff bendable rubber instead of the cheap sdtuff that guy used. he has a good diagram drawn to understand the concept. oh, and replace stock filters with K&N's for 50 bucks. well worth it and they last forever.
2) do a throttle body bypass. this gave me a tenth or 2 direction are also on thirdgen.org and this is a very simple task
3) if you're up for a real task, there are 2 walls in the plenum behind the throttle body killing you throttle response and hiding some power. u can grind these down to nothing with a dremel and cutting bit. be careful because it cuts alluminum fast. just make sure u stuff a cloth in there before grinding it down to keep metal slivers out of your engine. u will hafta remove the tb to do this as well as some things connected to the tb. (tb=throttle body from now on) lol also, to complete the porting, smooth out any rough edges u can reach around wher the runners connect. u will want a bit less rigid for the dremel for this task.
4) set your TPS a little higher with a digital volt guage if u have one. this will dump a little more fuel in
5) if u want start spending some cash, u might want to consider some headers. edelbrock tes. those will cost $330 or so, but worth it to me.
6) if u have the skill and will power, u can replace the cam. it's cheap, but difficult to do when the motor is in the car. ideal cam for a stock 350 will have specs close to the stock LT1 cam or regular LT4 cam (not LT4 hotcam)
7) rear gear swaps is another eye opener. an slp takeout posi, used and good condition 3.42 gears with rebuild kit cost me about $300, but you'll need around another 200 to have them installed. gears make all the difference if u have 2.73's now
8) back to being cheaper, a goos used aluminum driveshaft off ebay or whatever (around 70-90 bucks)will up the car and add some rear wheel hp. not qite sure for how much but u can feel the difference in my car.

 

Have you play with your timing at all? Try it it might help. Do you have a gear in the car? That is a cheap mod. Is the car auto or stick? If it is a stick a better clutch might do the trick, if it's an auto a shift kit. That is also inexpensive. If you tell me more i can give u lots of cheap stuff 2 do it all depends on how far u want to go.