Denny Kohlman

I was reading in the current issue of Corvette Magazine about battery acid leaking. I had this problem on my 2000 five years ago and it messed up the upper ac vents. Air would only come out the floor vents. The part fix was cheap but the labor not so much. Has anyone else had the problem and is this something to worry about in the future. How many of you use the Absorbed Glass Mat (AGM) battery or do you just take your chances. Does any one know what the approx. cost is of a AGM battery for a 2000? Second, has anyone done any mild mods to improve performance on their vette with an auto trans. Don't want to do anything radical just a little more punch. Did what you do make very much of a difference in straight line performance?

grantv

I'd say most here run AGM batteries.
Any noticable mods (headers, better gears...) will cost you a bit. Do you have a budget?

001pewter

I had the vacuum canister break a nipple and went ahead and swapped the hose on the back of the intake manifold. The canister caused the same problem you experienced. I had some signs of a leaky battery, or I'm assuming leaky battery, I used some rust inhibiting paint over the spot. Not to concerned with a leak, I'll look it over from time to time.

Vetteman Jack

I run an AGM battery in my car - I do not want to run the risk of acid leaking down into all the vacuum lines and computer connectors.

StrangelovesM6Vert

I use an Anti Gravity RS-20 10 lb lithium battery

leadfoot4

I have a 2001, and at the time those cars were being produced, there was an issue with either the side terminal bolts being over-torqued, or the terminals themselves being "too shallow", allowing the bolts to puncture through them. Either way, acid leakage was the result. Once I heard about that, even though the OE battery was only a year old, and up to that point I had no issues, that battery was gone. I've run nothing but Optima batteries ever since.

Denny Kohlman

Thanks for all the feedback. I think I am going to change mine out.

pickleseimer

I ran an acid mat on the previous ACDelco 78PS battery in my '01. When the time came to replace that, I installed an ACDelco 78AGM, and kept the acid mat there for no other reason than it still fit the installation. The 78AGM was $165 shipped from RockAuto.

Route99

Lot of great answers about the battery - and like many others I run Optima.
As far as performance gains, the sky is the limit almost. As the bumper sticker on one of my old drag cars read, "Speed costs money, how fast do you want to go?"
I'm running an A4 but have also done a far amount of work to the car, so part of the answer is not only the budget question that grantv asked, but what your goals are.
If you are just looking for noticeable seat of the pants gain, you could leave everything stock except changing to a lower differential gear (higher number). If you are currently running the 2.73 axle a switch to 3.42 gears is very noticeable; even a move to the 3.15 gears would be felt. If you currently have the 3.15 gears (RPO codes G90 Axle, Rear, 3.15 Ratio; G92 Axle, Rear, Performance Ratio shown on your RPO sheet on the inside of the glovebox door. GU2 indicates the 2.73 diff), then you may want to go up to a 3.73 or lower, depending on the type and amount of driving you do. Remember, though, the higher the number, the lower your fuel economy if that's a concern. Not too drastic a drop if you keep your foot out of it, but...........................
A good tune will provide a few more horsepower, but you can also tune for quicker shifting in the trans; different fan speeds, etc.
Costs: $350-$450 for new ring and pinion. Another $800-$1600 for installation if you don't do the work yourself. (Sorry, not familiar with shops or labor rates around your area, but I know ECS is about $2000 for a complete gear swap including the cost of the gear set).
$400-$500 for a good in shop tune. $150-$200 for a mail order tune.
Another option for your diff gears is to watch the For Sale section. Often members will post complete 3.42 gear diffs (may say pumpkins), for sale. I've seen them as low as about $600 to $1000 or more depending upon age, condition, ribs, etc.
Also, you could look at changing out your torque converter for one with a higher stall speed. With this, when you accelerate hard the engine will flash to a higher RPM and give you greater performance. Cost is anywhere from about $450 to $1000 depending upon the stall speed, convertor size, etc. You'd probably have labor costs again, but unless you are really familiar with changing ring and pinion gears, setting gear backlash and gear pattern, you probably want to farm this job out.
Other performance options will include adding headers, x/h-pipes and cat back exhaust; cam swap; head work; intake; etc, etc. As member BILLCURLEE, 8VETTE7, and others say: "Performance, Reliability, Cost - choose any two."
Providing specific input on what you mean when you say, "improve performance," will help members give you more complete insight.
Best wishes! Larry (Route99)

msandym

Mike98SilVert

Battery suggestions: https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...7-battery.html
https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...rchid=71477080
Headers: https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...rchid=71477125
Tune: https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...rchid=71477133

Ruouthere

leadfoot4

This happened a long time ago, so my memory of the exact details are somewhat sketchy. However, I would think that if you do a search on this site, you should be able to dig up a lot of information, as the topic was highly discussed. I'll take a SWAG (scientific wild azzed guess), and say that it was a questionable batch of batteries, as the issue seemed to me most prevalent with the 2001 model year.