help im a newbie!

howdy,im a hard workin 16 year old with a dad for a mechanic, but have my own skills but no knowledge on these 3.8 s/c v6's. my riv is a 1996 which smucked 5 deer. i got air bags reset and have gotten all body work done and repainted(myself) these are to nice of cars to let go to waste. im in need of help!!! i wanna get 300hp or so out of my riv. any help????? plz! thanks!

Welcome and good luck

Hi and welcome.

300hp huh? Ok. There are a lot of good upgrades and things that can be done. I would suggest doing a lot of research on mods before buying and deciding which direction you want to go in.

For example upgrading the supercharger or removing it and going turbo.

Welcome! 300 HP is a long target. You'll need a well built transmission to go that fast, search for threads about converting the 4T60E to the 4T65E, it's got a few tougher parts but you need a newer PCM and some wiring modifications to make that work.

You'll probably want to go with a cam and GenV blower, if you don't want to IC to hit 300. There are plenty of sites that cater to the series II S/C motor. 3800pro, intense-racing.com, glubgp...

BillBoost37 wrote:

Hi and welcome.

300hp huh? Ok. There are a lot of good upgrades and things that can be done. I would suggest doing a lot of research on mods before buying and deciding which direction you want to go in.

For example upgrading the supercharger or removing it and going turbo.

forgot about that - build a transmission and go with a turbo if 300 hp is your target. That's the easy way, and in the end you'll probably spend less on mods.

so do alot of guys go turbo? isnt a supercharger better cause you dont have to wait for the turbo to spool up

Welcome!

For 300 crank HP (about 250 @ wheels), it can be done safely with the stock blower and bolt-ons: FWI, 3.4" SC, 180 t-stat, AL 104 plugs, 1.9:1 rockers, headers, cat delete, tuner - should easily get you there.

Transmission is always the weak link. Mine went at 150k miles, modded progressively since 35k.

Read though our Series II FAQ in the tech forums. Good luck!

Welcome!

i have no clue how much i'm making , but i have a ported blower , intake , downpipe and tune ,and my car is a whole different animal compared to stock. And all the while still very civilized.

A cam , gen v , injectors and headers will probably get you close to 300whp , which is like 350-375 at the crank ,and your 4t60e , won't like that too much. I've only been modded for 5k miles , but so far she shows no signs of fatigue. ( knock on wood)

You'll need to find a DHP powertuner or someone in your area with one as right now it is THE ONLY tuner that supports 96 rivs... And even then its not a sure bet ,as some versions of the open software will not tune a 96 for whatever reason. I took a chance , and played around with it and got it to work. It isn't hard to get it to work , but it will tell you that it won't work , and you gotta play around with it.


But 300 crank horsepower shouldn't be too much for the 4t60e , as long as you take care of it and don't launch it hard all the time. ( i know i usually don't floor it until about 15-20 to preserve the trans).

Welcome to the Forum

SuperRiv07 wrote:

good luck

.
It can be done I'm sure, and there is all kinds of great help here for MODS!

i wanna try and see if hard it would be to put 2 turbos on there, to prevent turbo lag. one with a smaller spull for the low endpower and a bigger one for the high end power, i think it might work. the supras have twin turbos and the engine is a 3.0. but then again a small block chevy with a 350 turbo trans with a nice rear end to convert it from fwd to rwd would be nice!!!!!!!!

Welcome to the Forum,rivboy..