I want to vent about all these so called mods every one is doing to ther trucks. I just got rid of a 95 z28 Camaro with 97000 miles on it. I bought it 4 years ago. It had a lg motorsports air intake with k&n filter and a flowmaster muffler.
After fixing the famous sb chevy intake leak and replacing the distributor cap thats located under the water pump and the wires and plugs that you can only get to from under the car, the car ran pretty good.
I joined a few f body web sites to learn more about my car. What I learned was if your going to race your vehicle some of the mods that people were doing might or might not help. But you almost allways have a negetive effect from a mod somewhere else.
GM just came out with sb about over oiling k&n filters, saying the can screw up your maf and they would not honor your waranty if this was the case. I put a stock air intake an filter on mine and found it ran an idled better than it did with the performance unit on.
A lot of the crap people are pushing out here is just that crap. It offers very little value on a daily street driven vehicle, especially thos with obd2 computers. A good quality synthetic oil like moble 1 and a good single three inch cat back exhaust are probably the only two things I have seen people benefit from on a daily street driven vehicle. Just my opinion, and you know what they say about those.

 

I'm somewhat in agreement on this one. I've owned a 1996 Chevy Z71 that had the K&N fuel-injection performance kit, high performance MSD plug wires, a Hypertech programmer, and I took the mechanical fan off and installed dual flex-a-lite electric fans. Out of all that stuff, the K&N did trash my MAF sensor, the plug wires failed after about 20K miles and caused an intermittent no-start problem, and the hypertech tuning was great at first... but then gradually tapered off to the point where the truck had more power once I removed the hypertech tuning and put the OEM program back in. The electric fans did seem to help a lot though. The truck always ran cool, there was a lot less noise, and I did gain a bit of noticable power from it. Basically, for the amount of money you can spend on a cold air intake, it's really not worth it. As for computer tuning... that seems to be hit or miss. Exhaust seem to be a good investment, but even those have their ups and downs. Different gearing and superchargers are probably the best all around performance enhancers... although they're the most expensive as well.

 

So we are talking about a Chevy's... nothing to do with Dodge? I'm a tad confuzzled on this one... LOL! Let me know!!

None, not one, of my mods have messed up my truck, caused an error or anything... so I'm wondering if it's a GM thing or what...

~Amanda

 

The problems spoken about were some of several reasons I only considered a DCX product for a go-fast, user friendly, sport compact. Mopar makes almost every mod you might want to add to a SRT-4, from performance air filters to exhaust systems. Add in the Stage upgrades and you have a vehicle that can't be much improved upon unless major engine work is involved...[sm=smiley5.gif]

 

And thats another thing! G.M., Chevy in particular builds some smooth powerful drivetrains, but they put in cheap gaskets and electronic and electrical parts.
I know of at least 4 people at work that own chevy trucks from a 96 Taho to a 02 Silverado all under 100,000 miles and every one has either a oil leak or an electrical problem or both. One of the dumbasses just bought another one, an 04 Sububerban.
You can have problems with any vehicle, but G.M. more than anyone else builds problems into thier vehicles that run in productioin for years. Look at the 68 to 82 Vette brakes. How about the Vortech and LT1 intake leaks, or the W body cars of the 90's with 4 wheel discs, I was part of a class action law suit against G.M. regarding those brakes.
There will probably never be anothe G.M. vehicle in my driveway again.

 

Nor mine, unless one was given to me. Then it would stay there long enough for me to sell it, CHEAP!![:'(]

 

I can only speak of the experiences I had with my Chevy, since I haven't really had my Dodge long enough to buy any mods for it, let alone see how long they work for. In general (not specific to Dodge, Chevy, or Frud's), I've heard that K&N's like to take out MAF sensors. The MSD plug wires I had... I don't know. Maybe I just got a bad set from MSD. As far as programmers go, like I said, it's kind of a toss up. I did notice that as time went by, it felt as though the truck was "re-adapting" to the new program. Then once I took it out, I had a whole lot of power again. I guess what I meant by my original post, was that for $300 for a Hypertech unit, another $250 for a K&N CAI kit, and $100 for plug wires, and $400 for electric fans, I should've opted for a supercharger. I would've been much happier, and maybe would've had fewer problems. It just seems like I spent a bunch of money for minimal gains... but, maybe it'll be different with my Dodge.

 

I hear ya. My SRT-4 is the only "modern" car I've ever considered putting any major mods on simply because it was designed and built to accept them, hence the name a "tuner's car". A lot of cars and trucks out there are engineered well enough, but aren't designed to handle additional power and/or mods. They work best with the parts that are already in them, anything else is a "step down" despite what the aftermarket makers try to tell you. Yes, some mods are good, for some cars and trucks. But not all.[sm=smiley14.gif]

 

I'm wondering if GM's MAF sensors are not capable of handling all that added airflow from the K&N CAI. I know of several people with mass air on their fords and the K&N CAI and they never have any problems as a result. Maybe GM's mass air isn't designed for the added airflow. The oil stays in the K&N filters, however as mentioned before if they filter is over oiled it can become an obstruction to the air flow, my dad over oiled the K&N on his Cuda and it wouldn't run for sh*t. After I cleaned it and re-oiled it properly, it ran great. My thought is that either GM didn't make the mass air to handle the added air flow or it's over oiled filters causing the problems.

My Roadrunner, '88 Shelby Z and R/T all had K&N filters and the R/T had CAI, none have ever had a problem with any of it and they only gained from it. I will be getting the K&N Typhoon CAI for my SRT-4 here in the near future.[sm=smiley2.gif]

 

Good to run into you again, 71RoadRunner. Question: How did the K&N filter get over-oiled? Did he use the spray oil??