I'm trying to put together basically a timeline on modding my 2003 ss Jeff Gordon edition to be a fun daily/track car and im struggling to figure out what to do being my first car. I plan on improving steering and handling before adding any major power and already plan on getting coilovers and a sway bar. And getting a standalone ECU to future prep but for actually adding horsepower idk where to start. My engine has 160k on it and I don't want to blow it up to quickly so I want to add power safely and am willing to pull out the engine to build it up. I Just want to know a good place to start

Picture of superior (it's named after the color of its paint)

 

Big power is made with boost. Turbo or top end swapping a supercharged 3800. If you must do something now, just put a nice intake arm and filter on it. Otherwise, save your money for boost.

 

Top swap is probably what you want to look into to add power at first.

ZZP has a ton of stuff for our cars including the ability to tune the PCM. You usually dont go standalone ECU with these cars. Of course you can, but theres really no point for your goals.

Dont forget front AND rear sway bars AND bushings.

My suggestion if you must do something now would be a fenderwell intake and u-bend delete. Maybe a tuned PCM to make the car feel better. The PCM... If you really plan on adding boost, wait for the PCM until thats done.

The coilovers and sway bars will get the car to sit right and have the adjustability you want. Dont forget to look into tires to make use of the suspension upgrades.

 

What kind of track racing are you talking? 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, autocross, road race?

If the plan is to seriously get into tracking it regularly, I'd suggest 2 things:
1) Reconsider the starting platform. Outside of bracket racing, these aren't going to be competitive in any real racing. The transmission is also notoriously weak and there aren't really a lot of good options. I see you've already listed several grand in mods, before you spend the first dime - Id strongly consider looking into a different platform to race on and keep your monte nice.
2) If you're dead set on racing the monte, I'd buy a separate stock daily driver first. A few one off track trips is one thing, but if this is truly going to be a street + track car, you'll regret not having a beater for when stuff breaks.

Id read up on modding the engine before you start buying stuff like this. Virtually no one runs a standalone as theyre extremely expensive (and labor intensive) and tons of power can be made on the stock pcm. No doubt they have benefits, but for the 3800, a standalone is in the hardcore mods bucket - when you've already got a seriously big build.


Edit - admittedly there are low buck options like Megasquirt, but thats more for people doing swaps into vehicles that are starting at ground zero on electronics like dune buggies and such. Ive not seen anyone run one as an upgrade to a stock pcm.

Not blowing it up is as simple as following good modding practice, as with any engine. Make sure it has good parts, no knock, and plenty of fuel and it'll be fine. The downfall to stock 3800s is a thin upper ring land - if you start getting into too much boost+timing for the available octane, you'll start chunking pistons.

Also, building 3800 bottom ends isn't really a thing either. The stock bottom end will handle more than the most robust 4t65 you can buy right now, and frankly the failure rate of built bottom ends is far higher than stock. Given how plentiful these are in junkyards, theres plenty of good stock bottom ends available.

Id start at the end goal and work backwards to develop a mod path.

For the engine, what kind of wheel horsepower are you wanting to make at the end of the day?

My general thoughts:
-NA: stock only. Id never put a dime into NA 3800s for power gains. Intake + exhaust for sound is one thing, but bang for the buck is terrible for adding power. For the price of a few mods, you can do a top swap that gets 10x the power gain (being fecitious, but not much).
-SC / top swap - up to about 250-300 wheel depending if E85 is available or not. Given this is mostly stock parts, adding the blower is dirt cheap and it responds well to mods on the entry level side. They can certainly do 400+, but as above the bang for the buck tapers off quickly as the M90 gets pushed outside of its comfort zone.
-Turbo - anything beyond the top swap power level. Its not uncommon for used turbo kits to go for $1500, so thats about the breakeven with a top swap + mods around the 250ish wheel level. Also a good alternative to SC if you want an easier external-only mod (as the top swap is pretty labor intensive tearing into the engine + adding mods on top).


As far as swapping engines, there's not a whole lot of good options:
-L67 (supercharged 3800). About the same outcome as the top swap. Youll make a little less power due to lower compression, but get a little stronger bottom end (not that it really matters, the L36 is strong enough for most anyone). But a turbo on your current 3800 will make more power with way less labor.
-LS4 (FWD V8). There have been a handful of people do this, mostly for the uniqueness. Makes 300 crank horsepower which you can easily get with a modded 3800, but the aftermarket is a bit more tricky. It is an LS, so there's certainly a wider array - but there are a lot of caveats as most external stuff wasnt designed for the FWD configuration. Unless you're just trying to be different, the 3800 will make more power than the stock transmission can hold anyways, so even though modded turbo 5.3 LSs have been proven to make silly power - you've still got to have a way to put the power down and a transmission that doesn't fall apart. Admittedly the 4t80 transmission swap is a lot better vetted on the LS4 side though, not that its a magic bullet either.

That's about it for well documented swaps. In theory a 60* engine like the 3900 is viable, but the aftermarket there is big step backwards from the 3800.

 

Honestly it will spend most its time on the road but for l learning and safety purposes I'll bring it to the track so I can learn how to handle the car especially after adding a lot of power. I'm waiting to make 325+hp but that's wishful thinking. I did look into an ls4 swap and came to the same conclusion of its not worth the effort and money when you can get the same power out of the stock engine. Thank you all for helping me. I'm fairly new to all this and the only engine I've ever taken apart was for a high school class and made for gocarts. But there is only one way to learn this stuff and that's to do it. I will look into a top swap and turbo. Again thanks for the help!
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Doesn't have to be a wish - that's well within the range of an intercooled Z3 turbo kit. You can get a used turbo for not much more than a nice set of coilovers and be at the power you want immediately.

That's my only other caution - once you've got a final target in mind, I wouldnt waste a dime on any small mods in the interim to hold you over. I see lots of people 'just do this one cheap mod', and before you know it they've got a couple grand into it, don't make anywhere near the power they wanted, and most of the stuff isn't compatible with their long term goal.

Thats the other benefit of the turbo - the engine stays 100% together top to bottom - you're just taking off the exhaust and adding this in its place. A little tubing routing for the IC, but from a mechanical aspect its a walk in the park compared to something like a top swap where you tear practically the whole engine apart.

 

where can I buy a used turbo kit? I looked (not for long) and couldn't find anything. Thanks for the help!

 

Keep an eye out on all of the various big 3800 boards. Grandprixforums, 3800pro, etc. Also on the 3800 Facebook groups - 3800 Marketplace, 3800 Performance, etc. The monte is on the same 2nd gen w body chassis as the grand prix (which was more numerous and tended to be more modded), Impala etc - so don't pigeonhole yourself to just the monte forums.

May not find one immediately available, but they seem to come up fairly regularly- at least a few times a year.