throttle body better than cai?

[ohohbeauty]

i talked to my shop guy today cause i want to put in some performance mods, i said cai, throttle body, borla exhaust(dont have enough $$$) and he said that because the car comes with the ram air, there wouldnt be much purpose to putting in a cai. He did say that a better throttle body might be better. Eventually i think that i want both but I'm not sure which one to choose. Any ideas???

[cobrajeff92]

just so u know the ram air is nothing. it was just a selling gimick. a CAI will do a difference. if your looking for the cheapest performance mod i would go for the CAI. get it from either doctorspeed.com or get the chromeintakes ofo of ebay. th throttle body is nice and u should get one but its also a hell of alot more then the CAI. But Ram ai is nothing on the car

[Jchiasson]

If the stock air setup (Ram or other wise) restricts flow to the stock throttle body, it sure as hec isn't going to allow more air in for a bigger throttle body. As with many threads concerning the CAI/Ram setup, start with the CAI and go from there.

[bballr4567]

On any new car I get from now on Im going to be getting a CAI. Its that big of a difference.

Also dont buy a exhaust kit. Go custom all the way.

[ohohbeauty]

would it be retarted to think that buying a K&N filter to replace w/e kind if filter is in there now will do anything?

[04alyGT]

K&n would make a slight difference, but chromeintakes sells their CAI's for about the same price as a new K&N, and the chromeintake CAI comes WITH a k&n already, it would just be smarter to get the CAI.
Also i vote you go back and slap the person who told you the ram air works.

[Jchiasson]

Make that 2 votes on the slap.....
Or try this :kick:

[bandit307]

Yep Ram Air is BS. Not sealed, to many bends in the ducting. It does Nothing. CAI FTW

[Sweet98GA]

just an fyi... a bigger thottle body will not do you any good unless you plan on getting forced induction. I could be wrong since you got teh v6, but I honestly think you'll end up losing low end power as I have. Went I put my car on the dyno the guy running it was saying that I prolly have another 10hp that I can't get to because of the bigger tb. Now that i'm going s/c it will be beneficial, but n/a motors are not pointful. CAI is your best choice. While you are letting more air in, replacing your exhaust manifolds with headers and setting up to a 2.25-2.5" exhaust should give you a couple more ponies to play with, but please understand that "gains of 20hp+" off a cai alone or an exhaust alone are false. you may not even get that much off doing both of those things

[TA^Guy]

Originally posted by cobrajeff92
just so u know the ram air is nothing. it was just a selling gimick.
I wouldn't call it a 'Gimmick' nor would I say it does nothing.

It DOES have a direct cool air inlet.

The problem with the Ram Air is mostly due the small inlet ubing and how many bends it takes to get to the TB.

Not as easy as just slapping on tube on intake to pass manufactures guidelines set by the government. Even the Camaro SS and Firebird WS6 have restriction in their RamAIr setups.

[VanishingImage]

yea,its a tad bit better than the traditional air intake system but not much better either.

A bigger TB can help but theres a line you have to draw to how big. On a NA 4cyl 56mm is probably the biggest you should go and 62mm is prolly the biggest you should go on the v6. This would be for NA motors. Boosted motors,want a hefty sized TB.

[Sweet98GA]

Originally posted by TA^Guy
I wouldn't call it a 'Gimmick' nor would I say it does nothing.

It DOES have a direct cool air inlet.

The problem with the Ram Air is mostly due the small inlet ubing and how many bends it takes to get to the TB.

Not as easy as just slapping on tube on intake to pass manufactures guidelines set by the government. Even the Camaro SS and Firebird WS6 have restriction in their RamAIr setups.

it absolutely is a gimmick... on some v6 gt's there was a badge for H.O. car comes from factory @ 175bhp. Then there's the ram air badging that, guess what, comes from the factory at 175bhp. Then there's just the straight GT which also had 175bhp. Further more, even on a direct setup w/ no restrictions, ram air does nothing (I know this... the aed hood I had was completely functional and did nothing performance wise). The idea behind ram air is forcing air into the motor, to in effect, cause boost. In order for this to happen, the car has to travel well over 100mph to see even 1lb. The only thing it would do is keep air temps down, which a cai does anyway

[spikedsteel]

Im pretty shur we have a big enuff t.b in our cars too unless you are gonna get turbo or something. If you are looking for a little more power for a few buck go with a underdrive pulley they are cheep around the same price as the t.b. You could go with a custom exhaust too no use in spending 800 for one you can just buy a new muffler like flowmaster 80 for 100 bucks, cut off your res and get a new hi-flow cat for 75 and just use the stock pipes as much as you can I was gonna upgrade my se to 2.5 and thats what yours are at already I.I.R.C.

[bballr4567]

A bigger TB is a good buy for these cars. Considering that they will give the car about the same power increase as a custom exhaust at around the same price you cant really go wrong with either.

[Brandon]

there was only the h.o. or the ram air v6..... you either had one of those or you had an se...

[VanishingImage]

if you get a aftermarket air intake setup and exhaust,yea a slightly bigger TB might help but go too big your going to lose power because the motor can only take so much. Just have to find the engines cfm rating and stay in that range otherwise,like I said,go to big you'll lose power. Just like exhaust pipe size,go too small your restricting power,go to big you'll lose power.

[bballr4567]

Oh yea. You got to pic what is going to go good with your car.

[TA^Guy]

Originally posted by Sweet98GA
it absolutely is a gimmick... on some v6 gt's there was a badge for H.O. car comes from factory @ 175bhp. Then there's the ram air badging that, guess what, comes from the factory at 175bhp. Then there's just the straight GT which also had 175bhp. Further more, even on a direct setup w/ no restrictions, ram air does nothing (I know this... the aed hood I had was completely functional and did nothing performance wise). The idea behind ram air is forcing air into the motor, to in effect, cause boost. In order for this to happen, the car has to travel well over 100mph to see even 1lb. The only thing it would do is keep air temps down, which a cai does anyway
The "V6 HO" and "RamAir" both had the same air inlets.

No, it's not RamAir as it was back in 1969, but it does bring fresh cooler air in than most typical air inlets on most any other car on the market. Basically it's a more restrictive CAI. The only reason why a aftermarket CAI is better is A) no baffles or water diverters, and B) Small restrictive tubing with several bends.
Originally posted by Brandon
there was only the h.o. or the ram air v6..... you either had one of those or you had an se...
Absolutely correct.

[99blackSE]

I think CAI and exhaust for sure. I would look into the DHP PCM before the throttle body, or a MMS pcm or an MP Racing one. After that I think headers would be much better. Spend the price of 2 throttle bodies (or a little more, not sure) and get 15 whp or more, probably more than twice that TB would get ya for sure.

[TA^Guy]

I agree, a full exhaust system would have much mor eof a performance impact than a larger TB.

[VanishingImage]

also I think the only reason the hp rating was the same for all the 3400 with out without the Ram Air,they designed them so they all had the same hp/Torque. The Ram Air was probably not just a sales gimmik but it wasn't surely something would be a whole lot better.

[thegrimone]

I think that the ram air is useless, but what you paid for is the styling, the GT bumpers and badges (lol) rims and the drive ratio the 5 more HP was just a small offering. its more like the ram air edition not so much useful, since with the right part numbers any SE owner can go and get the parts to put ram air ducting on a SE, hell most people on here with CAI will give you the ducting, we have no use for it anymore.

[ohohbeauty]

well being a complete newb with this stuff i understand some of it. It is a ram air V6 and since all of you seem to agree on CAI i think thats the direction I'm looking at. I'm looking at the one on doctorspeed, and about those PCMs, are they hard to set up or are they the ones that are pre-set and all you do is "plug it in"??

I appreciate the help

[slowbird]

PCM is a good upgrade aswell.

I have the Milzy one....it works good...you plug it in where your old one goes and you're good. Sometimes you have to do this Security relearn thing which involves trying to start the car...then letting the key turn back to on...then waiting 10-15minutes and trying it again.

no biggie.

[SappySE107]

How many of you making comments on the stock "ram air" setup have read a datalog from a stock grand am with ram air setup? Its getting cold air. A better cold air intake would be the way to go but don't tell me that ram air option is worthless because its getting cooler air than my 91 grand prix gets.

If you are going to claim 62 is the largest you should go, I would like to know how you came to that conclusion? GM uses a 65 on their 3500. Larger plenum can use a smaller TB but the 3500 is bigger yet also uses a bigger TB. I know 70 is difficult for throttle resolution (touchy) and 65 is fluid like stock. Given these things, I recommend 65 max for 3400 and 3100. 62 would be a good size for 3100 but the only reason 62 is stuck in everyone's head is because it was pretty much the max you could put on a gen 2 2.8/3.1. That carried over to gen 3 3100/3400 even though they are higher revving motors.

[litdevil316]

il stick with my 62mm over stock. and tho i have no near by dyno (then or now) i did notice a little bit of improve ment in the car. only thing on the car then was custom WAI and my old APC fart can. then i put the 62mm on with its matched intake manifold. of course, now with all the motor work i have, its benefiting from the 62mm alot more.


stock vrs 62mm on the 2.4L LD9
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h291/crazyeyez1502/TBssidebyside.jpg
(ignore the date on the pic was june or july03 by the time i got it on, ordered it like may/june03)