Hey everyone, so I just sold my old wheels and now I have a little extra money to do another mod to my monte. But I need some opinions. I had an idea of wanting to do a performance mod (more or less) since I have already done a visual mod to my car with my new wheels. I was thinking of either doing a CAI or doing something with my exhaust. With a CAI, are they pretty easy to install? and also if I go the exhaust route I can't really decide what I want to do. I want a little more volume and a deeper tone, originally I thought about doing a Magnaflow Cat back exhaust, but I have heard very mixed reviews. Some people like them and some people say that for the money, they just aren't worth it. So I then thought about just going with a new set of mufflers and tips. I was originally looking at the Flowmaster super 44 series. And I have heard a lot of people tell me that Flowmasters are really loud and have a bit of a drone to them. So now I am thinking of just deleting the muffler and going pipe all the way to a 4" tip. My question is, would you get a lot of drone if you go that route as well and do pipe all the way back with no muffler? As far as an exhaust/muffler, what would you guys recommend? I am looking for something that has some decent volume, for those who have heard an 06' SS stock, I want more volume then that. But I also want a deeper throatier sound. I apologize for the wall of text haha. Just trying to get some information, this is my first car that I really care about enough to want to do things to so I am new to the whole modding world. Thanks for any help guys.

 

straight piping the car makes it way louder than just some volume and tone. flowmasters dont sound good one the ls4. spintechs do. i would do a shift kit and a trans cooler instead of the cai. cai is a ridiculously easy install, but they are all overpriced.

 

I had thought about doing that as well. but later down the road I plan on buying a really nice beefed up trans that is made for racing and that can handle larger horsepower gains. So until I decided if I want to get into something like that I don't know if I want to go that route just yet. If I were to straight pipe do you know if that would give me a lot of drone, or is the drone not to bad doing that? I am just trying to run through all the possibilities before I make a decision. I will also take a look at some spintechs.

 

well im straight piped now. i think the drone is livable. when youre in the lower rpms with all the windows closed it gets annoying. open the sunroof or crack a window and its fine. trans cooler at the least is a good investment and it may help that trans last i little longer. its not hard to do and is cheaper than a pair of mufflers. if you straight pipe youre going to want the shop to make a new y pipe for the car. i believe the y shrinks down to 2.25 inch.

 

I love my Magna flow cat backs on my 06 Monte (LS4 v8) I also deleted the resonator

 

Do you have to get into the trans to install a cooler? and also I am now looking at some spintechs that I think sound pretty good. I may try those out.

 

thats a good question, how would one add a trans cooler?

 

no you dont have to go into the trans to instal one. i dont know how good of a mod this is for 3.8 cars but its definitely top of the list for ls4s.

Transmission Cooler - MUST READ - LS1TECH

 

I also just thought about getting a tune. Would you guys highly recommend having something like that done. I pretty much have about $500 that I can spend on my Monte so I could even do a couple different things. There are just so many things I want to do haha

 

id save the tune for later. if your still running dod it would be recommended to tune it out. oil consumption and once you do an exhaust it sounds horrible. they can raise your line pressure with a tune and change your shift points as well. both would be a plus. the only downside is that the tune will probably eat up all of that 500, and thats with out doing any actual mods to the car. i think the move would be to save a couple hundred more, get a ls1 intake, everything needed for that swap, trans cooler, shift kit, and then get a tune. the ls1 intakes are affordable, well more affordable than the ls6 and hands down is the best mod for the ls4 aside from a turbo. you could always get a handheld tuners. idk if the new diablos like the trinity or what not have trans support, but i know the predators dont. there was another company that made one that also had trans support but i dont recall the name. either way theyre expensive, and a dyno tune would give you better results. except that youd wind up having to pay to have it tuned again once you put an intake manifold on the car.