I'm on a little budget and looking to give me bone stock 88 coupe auto a little wake up call. I have a chance to get an edelbrock 3890 upper/lower/injectors and fuel rails for a third of the price (used obviously). Is this a good setup? I only drive the car once in a while and don't race unless some bonehead is persistant in a rusting. Combine this with the Magnaflow cat back and K&N filter in putting in , will it be a SOTP notice? If so , what gains am I looking at? Any help recommendations? Thanks.

 

For a car driven daily and never really raced, yes its a fine setup to try. You should noticed some difference when its all done.

Will there be a cam change done or are you keeping that stock? Stock exhaust manifolds as well?

 

Going from a 4-yr-old memory, I'm thinking the Eddy part is 3860...not 3890.

Combined with a cat-back, you should notice the difference...though the injectors probably aren't necessary and the fuel-rail is the same as the one on your car.

 

The Edelbrock TPI manifold is the 3860. If you can get the manifold and runners at a good price, that should add some power. You can also do some port-matching of the stock TPI setup to help with flow.

If the car has the original injectors, I would suggest replacing them with the Bosch III injectors from Jon at FIC

A good exhaust system will certainly be a help. You may want to consider headers if that's in the budget. The Hedman Elites are available with either AIR connections or without.

A good tune will be very helpful too but it would be better to do all of the mods you want and then get a tune.

As far as the K&N filter, I don't believe that it will help much if at all. Decent paper air filters are cheap; I just replace the one in my '87 each year. Opening up the filter lid may help, but you probably won't "feel" anything with either one.

 

I have a chance to buy the intake , top and bottom , injectors , rails complete for $600 off a local guy selling. Was thinking this would be better spent than exhaust as far as noticeable power goes? I will eventually do exhaust also. Budget is tight and I don't want to waste $600 on an intake that will start throwing codes or make the car unreliable. I use it with my wife on weekends once in a while to cruise. I'm looking to wake it up so when those stangs are toying with me. Would an airfoil help with the new intake? Thanks for the help.

 

The Edelbrock manifold and runners are available at Summit Racing and together they would cost around $1000 Edelbrock says that either piece (or both of them) will not cause any issues and the computer will handle everything. All of the other stock components on your car will bolt on with no problems.

I would start with the Magnaflow system, see what it does, then go from there. I would suggest headers next, then the intake. The stock TPI really won't allow the engine to rev much past 5500 and by then the power band will show a signifigant drop. L98 motors make their power in the mid-RPM ranges.

My '87 has these mods: bored .030 (355cid), stock-style pistons, intake runners port-matched to plenum and intake, ZZ4 cam, balanced and blueprinted, lightweight flywheel, Hedman headers, true dual exhaust with an X-pipe and low-restriction mufflers. It still needs a tune but HP is right around 300-315 at the flywheel. Given the stock '87 is rated at 240 HP, that's a decent increase. It will spin my Hoosier A6 slicks in 2nd gear (4+3 trans).

I bought the car with those mods except for the headers and exhaust. I would expect that the other work (done professionally by a local Corvette shop who owned the car) would have probably run anywhere from $2000 to $3000, maybe more. The work was done some 8-9 years ago so chances are that the costs will be higher today for the same work.

Stay away from the airfoil and other similar gadgets. The don't work at all and are a waste of money.

 

My 2cents and advice would be to keep your current set up, save your $600. Replace the front y-pipe with one that deletes the pre cats, update your main cat if it has never been changed, get new mufflers and get the 3 piece March Underdrive Pulley Set.

Later on, when finances allow, you can work on a larger port intake. For now just shift at 4800rpm if racing on a closed circuit and those would be the optimum shift point for your set up.

 

Ok. I hear all these people that say to "tune" . What exactly does that mean? Obviously not a tune up...lol

 

Modern, computerized cars have "smarts" that control the motor. You'll see it referred to as the ECM or ECU (electronic control module/unit).

Basically, it's got "burned-in" programming though the parameters it uses can be altered. Injector size, Timing, AFR, idle, cold-start-up, torque-converter and other functions can be controlled by changing parms.

That is called tuning. It's "tuning" the performance to be optimal. Whenever you change injector size, cam, ci, etc...you will need to "tune" your ECM so it controls the motor correctly.

FYI: There is a percentage error built it -- that's constantly correcting/fine-tuning the results. The computer especially uses intake air and exhaust oxygen to monitor if more/less fuel is required. A knock-sensor tells your motor to pull timing.

Because there's about a +/- leeway of 10-15%, you really have to be fairly close for it to run correctly.

MAF-controlled motors are typically more forgiving of changes without getting into programming. We say programming -- though it's more a matter of supplying number/parms for a "baseline".

When your ECM goes into "fault-mode", it is forced to use the baseline w/o much/any feedback. That's another reason things need to be close.

 

OK , I understand , so then when you have a "custom chip" burned to a stock motor , how does that "free up" horsepower? How much can be unlocked from a stock motor?

 

Stock, not much, few hp at peak and you won't notice it. Even though GM is conservative with the stock tuning you need more air into a TPI engine.

 

Also what people mean when they say tune is that when you make changes tot he engine you will benefit from a tune which will change the fuel mapping. Mass Air Flow systems can accept changes better than Speed Density, but both can benefit from a tune. And my advice is to get a dyno tune for the best tune.