New S/c Regal Owner Here!

[wolfmann442]

I picked up a 2000 GSE regal today.78K miles,loaded up,very clean,and very stock.I dont know where to start on mods,or where to buy them,so any help would be greatly appreciated.

p.s. this is my daily driver so i am looking for mild mods.


Thanks,James

 

[gs462]

INTENSE-Racing.com - G8, Grand Prix, Bonneville, Regal, L67 3800 Supercharged Performance Products. look at the power packages they work.

 

[TurboGA]

I picked up a 2000 GSE regal today.78K miles,loaded up,very clean,and very stock.I dont know where to start on mods,or where to buy them,so any help would be greatly appreciated.

p.s. this is my daily driver so i am looking for mild mods.


Thanks,James

3.5 pulley, 3" downpipe, cold air kit. You should pick up around 30 hp and still be very reliable for daily driving. Make sure you always use super unleaded.:smile:

 

[wolfmann442]

3.5 pulley, 3" downpipe, cold air kit. You should pick up around 30 hp and still be very reliable for daily driving. Make sure you always use super unleaded.:smile:

Do you have to tune these cars like the newer ones?What does "sport shift" do?

 

[gs462]

you dont have to tune them with minor mods. the mods listed above with a pcm reflash will make a very nice difference in the performance of your car.
the sport shift button firms up the shift and also raises the shift rpms.

 

[murphinator]

a 3.5 pulley on a regal gs without tuning and full exhaust is a recipe for knock & chipped pistons -especially #3

by full exhaust I mean either a powerlog/ported rear mani/downpipe or headers which would replace all those items and additionally a 2.5 or 3" full catback- heads to tailpipe.

regal gs is the only L67 car that came with a single muffler that is very restrictive - every other l67 car got 2 mufflers

i suggest you join the forum specific to l67 regals - redirect

I am a moderator over there and could link you to several threads with pics of chipped pistons from lack of supporting mods

as far as very basic mods to start out with 3" downpipe and a 4" intake ( fwi or cai) will wake the car up nicely , my wifes gs ran 14.4 @ 96 with just a 4" FWI and no track prep

trust me on this leave the pulley swap for after you have educated yourself on the mod recipes for these cars and when you do remove the stock pulley replace it with a modular system so you can change sizes at will - you could even run a stock 3.8 size and at the track with unleaded race fuel drop to a 3.6 or with a few minor mods and race fuel a 3.5

 

[gs462]

I've had 3 s/c cars and all of them had 3.4 pullies and no problems, but here we have sunoco ultra 94 octane maybe thats why.

 

[troGNman]

Congrats on the purchase! My '00 GS (almost an "E") served me well over the six years that I owned it. On various road trips it would pull down 33 mpg with the a/c on. When I had the Eric Schertz tune, we had it rigged up to the shift button.

I bought it lightly used with 16K and traded it in with 130K.

 

[TurboGA]

I've had my setup for 2 years not one problem. I always use 93 octane. If you have access to 93 or 94 octane the 3.5 pulley would be fine. If you don't then stay with the stock pulley or a 3.6. For sure a 3" downpipe and cold air will help. I still run the stock pcm. The shift mode button is for a firmer shift and you use it when you want the max performance shifts on your car.

 

[murphinator]

I am curious about a few things with you guys running 3.4 & 3.5 pulleys with few supporting mods.

do you have regal gs's with the single muffler or gtp, ssei etc ? they will tolerate more

are you regularly scanning for knock ?

or are you running at higher altitude ? which will allow smaller pulleys than typical

 

[gs462]

I had one GS and 2 GTPs I have an otc 4000 i used to scan for knock but not always just now and again.

 

[machinegun]

I can say that intense seems to run a nice place. My dealings with them have been excellent to say the least. Their prices are pretty darn good too.

For basic mods, Well I first use an APC universal cold air kit to build my cold air kits for customers cars. Although a little ingenuity is needed it beats the 300 plus dollar kits. Sounds good too.

If you can do it get one of the intense pulley kits. The 3.5 will make a world of difference. Then find your local good GM tuner and get a tune on that. You will make good power, get better fuel mileage and be able to eat mustangs for brunch. All this while having all the comforts of home including heated seats.

One more thing, my 99 GS has these mods and my customers cars do to. My car has 214,000 miles and I still go to the track with it. While not the fastest car it runs low 13's and hope to get in the 12's with exhaust and more tunning and smaller pulley

Hope this helps.

Also ask for Todd Allen at intense, let him know that Jim Pliss from New School Performance sent you.

 

[machinegun]

for the questions on the knock.

I use HPTuners and wide band and do scan for knock.

I can see knock at 4200, but WB shoes me at 11.2. So I am not sure if this is false knock or real. I need to investigate more. I know my blower is making alot of noise so I am thinking once I rebuild with new bearings and coupler I want to see if the knock goes away. I have just about taken all the timing out along with a stock size pulley and still getting knock. I think the the blower maybe making the noise. Once I get this eliminated I am definatly going to a higher flowing exhaust. I can say though that I have tuned the GTP's and they seem to tolerate timing in the upper RPM range a hare better than the GS. However I can not conclusivly state that the exhaust is the cause of that.

Oh my above post I meant high 13's and going for low 13's, that is what I get for talking to too many people at 1 time. Sorry about that.

Hope this helps

 

[wolfmann442]

Thanks for all the replies!Here are some pics:

 

[murphinator]

looks very clean !

If you dont care for body color grille on the white car I have a black gs grille for $30 shipped

 

[Tricked-T]

murphinator

You have seen my posts on other sites about the L67 in my 89 Lesabre T-Type. I am using a single muffler set up (like an f-body) along with these mods:
Re-Programmed PCM (needs to be done anyway)
Power Log and rear ported man
Ceramic Coated Cross-Over Pipe
Down Pipe (3in with high flow cat)
3.4 Pulley
Shift Kit
Xp Cam
Heat Shield for the intake or some other kind of Cold air set up
180* thermostat
Autolite 104 plugs
Terminator muffler
Double roller timing chain
105# valve springs and modded retainers.

Do you think I will run in to issues with the knock. never knew that the one muffler set-up caused problems like that.

Oh and on the subject of tuning. I see you use a HP tuner, but I don't have that kind of cash for the program and a Computer. I was going to have ZZP or maybe intense do it but if I add anything down the road then I need to send it again. I wish SCT made a plug and flash set-up like they do for my friends mustang. You tell them the new mod and they send a file in an e-mail you download it to the unit and plug it in to the car and poof tuned... that's how he put it at least.

Anyway I like the new regal, nice cars. Good luck with it.

 

[machinegun]

Well the SCT live wire kits can do as you describe. The only difference between that and say HP Tuners is that you can make chnages on the fly and specifically to that car. From a tuners point of view I have tuned a few cars, many of the cars have the exact same mods. However they do not have the exact same tune to get the same performance / hp / tq. I know it seems like the same car with the exact same mods should run exactly the same, but that is not always true. So your friend with his SCT can say send in a request for a 4.6, cold air kit and flowmaster exhaust. He will get a tune that was done on a car with those mods. That tune will be close and will make the car perform better. However what does not get taken into account most times is,altitiude, fuel available in the area, overall climate and other items. I think SCT does have a good kit in the Live Wire and do beleive they have a good overall account of the standard mods and as much produce a good product. Me I prefer to tune my car and customers cars. It is a little more expensive but usually the rewards are worth it.

I will say that that is almost an exact copy of my car. It looks alot nicer than mine does. I did however buy a super high miler with some needs for only 500 bucks. I love your car. Looks good.

Save for the HP tuners, You can get the personal kit for like 350. I would however go for the pro, the wideband makes all the difference

 

[murphinator]

tricked-t , machinegun answered your tuner questions very well.

as for your setup causing knock there is only one way to know for sure and that is to scan regularly - remember HPT has a scanner as part of the suite so before you drop $200ish on a scanner consider another $300 will get you the standard suite.

you could also buy hpt vcm scanner and later upgrade it to include the editor - it will cost you more that way but would budget out the purchase

where your car is going to have an xp cam you should be fine with a 3.4 , cams allow smaller pulley sizes since they bleed off some boost from valves being open further & more often than on a stock cam

being cammed really leans you towards needing the tuner to get it all running properly though

what does your car weigh ?

 

[Tricked-T]

The car weighs 3300 plus my at 200lbs.

As for the tuner. What operating system does it require. We have a lab top for our GN with direct scan on it but it uses an old windows system.

I will be honest I have never tuned a car. Our GN has the direct scan, but I have not messed with it much at all. How hard difficult is it with the HP tuner?

I also talked to some friends (with F-bodies) and they say that a shop here in ST.Louis called Performance by Joe is excellent at tuning their cars. I think I will see what he can do for my car for the initial tune until I can get the HPT. If not intense or ZZP.

 

[murphinator]

there is a steep learning curve to get good with hpt , not bad to learn the basics.

you can also get help from the best 3800 tuner shops out there and email them scans and your tune ( bin file) which are easy to do then they adjust your tune based on the scans and histogram data contained in the scans and e mail it back to you and you just write their new calibration which is pretty easy

here is a copy & paste from HPT about the system requirements:

VCM Suite System Requirements

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HP Tuners VCM Suite has been designed to work with Microsoft Windows® 98 SE, ME, NT4, 2000, XP or newer.

Minimum

* 400 MHz CPU
* 128 Mb RAM
* Microsoft Windows® 98 SE
* Serial Port* (Version 1 Serial Interface Only)
* USB Port (Version 2 USB Interface Only)

Recommended

* 800 MHz CPU
* 256 Mb RAM
* Microsoft Windows® 2000/XP
* Serial Port* (Version 1 Serial Interface Only)
* USB Port (Version 2 USB Interface Only)

*If you are using a Version 1 Serial (RS232) Interface and do not have a native serial port you can use a USB to Serial adapter.

Use only quality USB adapters such as the SocketCom PCMCIA card adapter or Keyspan USB-Serial adapter (part # USA-19HS).

Use of poor quality adapters will result in poor performance, data corruption or Windows "Blue Screen".