Help on deciding on a performance chip or cold air
 

hello, looking for help with some mods for the 3800 for a 2001 monte ss.. people that have possibly installed some of these products on there engines.

thanks

If you look at the top of this section ("Engine & Transmission"), you will see a thread that is stickied (there forever) that has just about everything that you will need to know about moddifying your 3800. Since you didn't see it, here's a link to it:

https://montecarloforum.com/forum/sh...ad.php?t=24896

Also, there are no "performance chips" for our 3800's. You must have a programmer that retunes your PCM.

Hope that helps!

Getting an aftermarket PCM will give you more gains than a cold air intake...

This is what I did on my 2001 SS. I am old school I made my car breathe better fist ( CAI / and Exhaust to support all future mods) and then did the Pcm once I knew what direction I was going with my car so I only had to do the Pcm tuning once .

No use tuning a car with all OE parts. It comes pretty damn close to what you would want stock with all stock parts. Cold air intake, platinum plugs with 8.5mm wires, breathable exhaust would be my first mods. Once you have these installed and feel that you can tune the car in to those mods feel free.

Not entirely true. You can set the car up to run with more timing, less torque abuse management, and optimize it to run on premium. I imagine that's what nitehawkcjb means. Otherwise, I would definitely do any mods you plan on doing before having the pcm tuned.

I'd stick with stock delco wires if you need to change them out.
Our stock ignition systems are pretty damned efficient, and aftermarket brands don't offer any advantage and are likely to fail.

I also disagree- the factory tune is very generic to run fine in any climate, on any engine that comes off the line (remember, any manufactured part has tolerances- so even though all the parts bolt together the same from piece to piece, different pieces may be better or worse for performance), and not need retuned for the life of the car (ie timing isn't so high that the car knocks like crazy once it gets a little carbon buildup on the pistons).

Not to mention, there are many factory features that a person may want to have changed (IE torque abuse modes, top speed limiter, timing optimized for premium fuel, etc).

Being an 01, his car should have platinum plugs from the factory. I'd also stick with stock plugs and wires both- aftermarket plugs haven't shown to make any measurable gains (outside of going copper and matching heat ranges on boosted engines)- and stock wires are by far the most reliable (also- no measurable power gains from aftermarket wires).

Yes, it's exactly what I mean. If you aren't going to mod the car very much, go ahead and get a PCM - timing will be raised, shift points, transmission pressure, etc, and you WILL see larger gains than just an intake. Now if you're going to mod the **** out of the motor, I'd wait until you change something significant (manifolds, headers, heads, cam, rockers, etc).

first what are you looking for new headers intake and a ubend delete? if you are planning to do some thing like that a tune will help when you get them done and if you are planning on getting better valve springs to a better cam as well a new tune will help. but if you are doing a basic upgrades. i would do the breathing first then get the pcm tuned because there are places where you send in your pcm in and get it back retuned but it will be down for a week or two. also there are a hand held tuners and also look for a dyno shop and you can tell them what you are looking for more specifically. what i mean better shift points to bumping up the speed limeter to get the timing more fine tuned