Hickey:

Check out this link for help putting together your gameplan:

http://intense-racing.com/recipes.html

Good luck!

Scott

Check the site again. The Ceramic Coated Ported Manifolds are $395. The regular porteed manifolds are $250. I would also recommend 3800performance.com, but some of their prices are a little high (sometimes they are 1 dollar or 2 more)because they are a 3rd party vendor.

Breathing on your Bonnevile and Scott Cook/Intense Racing
 

Scott knows all about making current generation Bonnevilles fast - as you can see from his signature. He also designs, makes, and sells the parts to make it possible.

I have 2002 SSEi - plus a 2001 Grand Prix GTP (which has same engine in a lighter car).

The best bang for buck is probably a smaller supercharger pulley - specifically 3.5" or 3.4" vrs the stock 3.8". This totally transformed my SSEi - and made it as fast if not faster than my GTP (which was stock at the time). I believe the estimates are 3-4 psi more of supercharger boost and additional 25HP and 50 ft/lbs of torque at the wheels!

My next recommendation would be stickier and wider tires. This will let you make better use of your existing power - and improve braking, cornering, and handling. You can probably spin the stock tires accelerating, or lock them up braking. This means there is existing horsepower and braking power that is going unused!


The stock intake and exhaust system breath pretty freely on the new SSEi - especially with the boost of a stock or 3.4" pulley.

My next recommendation would be higher lift roller rockers and pushrods. These will let the engine itself breath better especially under high boost and at higher rpms. They will also increase durability and efficiency of engine - by reducing friction. The result is a quicker reving smoother engine with much more mid range and high end punch. Scott was the first to offer these for our engine. SLP also now sells a set - which is lower lift (less potential power).

I have the SLP set - but this was in part due to warranty and installation reasons. SLP has an install center a hour or so from my house.

Anyone who says OHV engines can't rev or aren't smooth has never driven either an LS1 (Vette/Firebird) or a 3800 powered car with rockers and rods!!!

You can follow-up with headers and maybe a cold air intake. The SLP intake and headers for GTP should bolt right on. The TOG/Thrasher headers will also "bolt-on". However, the Thrasher intake requires some cutting to fit different shape of engine bay in Bonneville. The SLP intake also looks stock, and they will cover any voided GM warranties.

The thrasher intake does sound really good - and may potentially breath better, but this probably isn't an issue unless you putting out horsepower like Scott:)

Yes, this is very very true. But, there is not much Scott can do with $500. He sells mainly big items, and those cost a bit more money. If you would've said you had a grand instead of 500, I would've refered you to Scott.


Yes, I agree that the best bang for buck is the pulley, but it will not make an SSEi as fast as a stock GTP, and it isn't good for 25 horses & 50lb ft on most cars. The boost will go up 3-4psi, but with a stock SSEi, you will almost definately get KR with a 3.4 pulley, which will slow you way down. It may give 20 horses and 30 or 40lb ft, but that is if anything an overstatement. You will be glad you got a pulley when you get one though, and it WILL definately transform your SSEi.

I do think thatt rockers would be an awesome idea, and with the mods i listed in the post above, they would make a considerable horspower difference, but they don't fall within your pricerange.

Actually the thrasher intake would make a significant difference when running any pulley smaller than stock because the stock intake is actually pretty restrictive. You don't need to make the power that Scott is making to need a better airbox.

streetracer - although the SSEi may have felt a lot faster with a 3.4 Pulley than your stock GTP, it was not. It was all the extra torque that the SSEi had that made it feel faster. We though our SSEi was so much faster than my dads GTP when it was stock, but on the way home from picking up the GTP at the dealer, we raced GTP vs. SSEi, and the Stock GTP beat the SSEi to 60 by a couple cars with the mods in the sig minus the rockers and the AFC.

dbkt2
 

I never got to race or time the 2001 GTP (stock) vs the 2002 SSEi (with 3.4").

However, the SSEi hud certaintly seam to climb faster than GTP after pully swap. I would imagine there can a big difference between cars - due to the differences in KR people experience. Do you have the 3.05 final drive ratio in your SSEi?

I agree the the Thasher will give you a performance improvement vs stock. My comment was in terms of comparision with SLP CAI. I believe the Thrasher has a higher potential flow - but they but will flow more than stock engine or even midly moded engine will breath.

In term so cost, a pulley and puller will run you under $200 shipped. The SLP rockers and pushrods cost me $800 installed.

My CAI cost me $300 installed. My headers were $1100 installed.

Your best bet for $500 is probably do it yourself pulley and CAI, and maybe PCM. Too bad there isn't a DHP chip yet for 2002 and 2003 SSEi:)

You can't go wrong with a 3.4" pulley and some sort of CAI set up.

Yes, the SSEi feels much faster, and I would've bet a LOT of money that the SSEi was faster than the stock GTP, but I found out otherwise on the way home from the dealer. Depending on conditions and the variations in cars the SSEi could be faster than the GTP (like if the SSEi got almost no KR with a 3.4, and the GTP happened to be one that gets KR with the stock pulley), but if so, it wouldn't be much faster. It takes quite a bit of work to get SSEi's into the low 14's whereas some GTP's run low 14's stock. As far as I know 3.05's were never availble on a 2000+ SSEi, I am pretty sure they are only available with the 2.93's, but 3.05's wouldn't make much difference over the 2.93's anyways, so it doesn't really matter.

But, to my suprise, when following the SSEi to and home from MIGPC Mod Day today in the GTP, the SSEi was quicker than I expected. Now that we got the KR problem resolved (Yay! No KR on 92 octane pump gas!!!), and got it tuned correctly, it actually took quite a bit of pedal to keep up with it in the GTP. From about 0-30 the GTP and SSEi are dead even (due to Tire Spin in the GTP on the skinny stock tires and what seems like unlimited traction in the SSEi because of the wider tires and taller gears (due to taller tires)), after 30 the GTP starts gaining slowly until about 50, then it just pulls on the SSEi bad and the SSEi doesn't stand a chance.

So what was the trick to resolving the KR problem ?

Was it the rockers or the mini AFC or combination of both ?

It was a combination of both. The engine didn't flow good enough before the rockers, so it made too much heat, causing KR. So we put in the rockers, and it flowed a lot better so less heat was made, but because the rockers added power, more fuel was needed, so the car started running VERY lean. Since it was running lean, it was getting KR because there wasn't enough fuel, which was causing hot-spots in the pistons, causing KR. So, we installed a Mini-AFC and after getting it set properly, the KR is gone. Since it wasn't running lean before the rockers, the Mini-AFC wouldn't have done much, but the rockers didn't do much without the Mini-AFC.

I'd be interested to know what kind of performance numbers your SSEi is getting now with the rockers and mini-AFC compared to mine.