Sunfire Mods

Hi Everyone,

Brand new to this newsgroup (just found it 5 minutes ago!).

I'll admit right now that I'm a total "car ignoramus"... I know little if anyth I have a Sunfire convertible that runs okay. No problems with stalling or electrical or anything like that. I'd like to eek out any additional horsepower I can muster from it, and also "change when it shifts" so to speak (please provide proper terminology if you know what I'm talking about: It seems like whenever I go to pass someone, it never seems to shift down as quickly as I'd like. Overall it seems real sluggish. We enjoy this car for summer driving, and it looks fine.

I will be taking it into the shop this coming Thursday -- I've been told that it needs new air AND fuel filters... hoping this will help. Perhaps spark plugs, too?

However, if there are additional, relatively simple mods I could do myself, and learn in the process, I'd love to try. For example:

I've been told things like "cold air box", and something about changing the size of the tires vs. the rims, etc.

Can a kind soul here shed some light on my options? If I could gain even

10-15 horsepower, and just a little extra pep, that would be great... I know I'm only dealing with a mere four cylinders here, but would love to max it out if I can.

Sorry to sound like such a newbie, and thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

Marc

Reply to
Marc Funaro
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Well to change the shifting, if you have a 4 speed automatic you could get whats called a AutoTransceptor, I Think rksport.com has them, along with a few other places that will be cheaper, it firms up the shift points and the car will want to downshift more when you get on it.

As for more HP, best mods are a CAI, a crank underdrive pulley, they show the best gains for the least amount of money. alot of stuff like special sparkplugs and wires, ECU's and FMU's are just a money pit.

Check out

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for more help, there are tons of people there who had played with the 2.2OHV and the 2.4DOHC motors and will be able to tell you what works. My username on there is Parallax, so check it out.

Reply to
Paradox

The best resource is

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Read, Read, Read

And search before asking, otherwise your liable to get flamed lol

-White

Reply to
White|Phatt

Actually you'll get flamed no matter what you post... they've all seen it

100 times before.

Also try clubcav.com

its mostly for cavaliers, but the motors are the same so they will be able to give you alot of help.

Reply to
Paradox

also go to

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they have the transceptor there for $150.

Reply to
Paradox

Thank you all for your great advice; I will investigate every avenue you have presented.

I know that improving air intake can improve performance somewhat... what about the exhaust system for this car... any advice there?

Reply to
Marc Funaro

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If you're going to replace the airfilter go with something like a K&N. It's a higher flow filter which will allow for better breathing. Same with the fuel filter, look into high er performance models from Holley etc.

On the ignition side you can always upgrade your plugs and wires just to start.

On your tranny question, before you do any mods, just change the fluid and filter and maybe go to a higher grade tranny fluid like from Royal Purple. That way you'll have a better baseline to judge where you want to go from there before spending any more money.

These items won't run you much more than you'd pay to do basic maintenance, but will probably get you that 10 extra horses you're looking for with hardly any work or expense. If you want more after doing these basics, then you will have a better platform to start with.

Good Luck and have fun with it!

Reply to
FBR

BTW; If you're new to usenet, a word of advice, munge your email addy in the header so the spambots won't pick it up. I notice you're using Outlook Express, just go into properties and add something like "nospam" after the @ and before the server name. It'll save you hassles down the road with spam and still let anyone who wants to answer you privately to do so by just removing the "nospam" part.

Reply to
FBR

Since it sounds like this car is meant more for be-bopping around on Sunday afternoons than for serious hot-rodding I'd recommend passing on exhaust mods for now. Down the road if the exhaust needs replacing would be the time to go ahead and maybe put a hipo cat back system on. I'd shy away from putting a header on it too. Unless you do some pretty serious intake mods the stock exhaust manifold will work just fine and give you less problems in the long run.

One more thing I meant to add in my earlier post, when you change your engine oil and filter next time, go to a higher performance oil and filter. Surprisingly enough you can pick up a couple of ponies with something as simple as that.

Once again, good luck

Reply to
FBR

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