Post a pic of your car as it sits currently

[AleroB888]

Originally Posted by AaronGTR

You are getting way over complicated. First off, the MAF doesn't measure air density. It measures volume. The pcm has to add in IAT and MAP readings to that to get air density.

Second, you'd trust driving the car on the street over instrumented testing? How the f'k are you going to measure anything that way? With your calibrated ass dyno? This conversation is stupid.......

..... [It is instrumented testing, just over a longer term, and a hell of a lot more realistic than testing with your hood open and a fan blowing at the front of the car. Do you drive around with your hood open? Good f'king attitude there, guy].....

It's been debated endlessly, and proven many times over, so I'm done with it.

All you have to measure is the pressure drop due to the filter, it doesn't get more simple than that. It's the same principle as measuring backpressure in the exhaust, you just need a good vacuum/pressure gauge. And Mass is directly related to Density here, the cylinder volume being constant.

[H.O. Driver]

Here you go, you can see KmanGT1 car in the background of the title shot and the owner helping her father in law with the exhuast on her car later on...

http://www.highperformancepontiac.co...s/viewall.html

[xUnderCoverHoBo]

Those hood scoops...

[AaronGTR]

Originally Posted by mfuller

That's all I was looking for.
When someone says the stock airbox is garbage, I'd like to see a reason as to why.
I don't remember things to well anymore, so go easy on me if I bring this up again in a year.

no problem man, I just get tired of debating it with people. I've seen too many tests on grand ams and on other cars to even begin to doubt that they make power any more. About the only real question is how much.

Even cars with picky maf sensors like the subaru wrx will make more power with a CAI. Sport Compact Car magazine was well known back in the day for well executed testing and not spouting BS to draw advertisers. They even lost some advertisement over it. Anyway they tested a US first gen wrx and actually lost power with a CAI. The maf didn't like it and it screwed up the afr and made it knock. They took it off and went back to stock, and had it tuned to max power in stock form, then reinstalled the CAI and had it re-tuned to make the maf happy with the new air flow, and it made more power then than it did with the stock intake. Just about every car out there will make more with a well designed intake. What I really wish we had for these cars was one of those dual chamber intake likes AEM made, that used pressure wave affect to increase air speed. It involved some tricky math though to know how long to make the chamber in order to reflect the pressure wave at the specific rpm where you wanted to increase power the most. Far beyond me. Anyway...


On the topic of the K&N filters, I forgot to say... yes, I actually have dyno'd my car in totally stock form with only a K&N panel filter added. It made 146 whp. Most stock grand ams make 142-144 whp (I've seen plenty of them dyno at that). I didn't have a totally stock dyno before that. It was a free dyno pull at a car show that I got. Wasn't going to waste money paying for a dyno when I was stock. What is more likely though? That I had a factory freak that made more hp than most other cars, or that the filter probably actually made the 2-3hp that they are tested and advertised for? I'm inclined to believe the latter.

[AaronGTR]

Back on topic...

This is what I was doing over the weekend. Car has been a daily driver and out of any garage now for almost 3 years. Was out in the sun and crap down in FL, and didn't have any good place to wash and detail it. No time/place to clay bar and wax it. The paint was in really terrible condition. Lots of tiny scratches in the clear coat and oxidation.

So it got washed, clay barred, and went over the whole thing with an orbital buffer and compound, then polish, and finally waxed. Bought one of those new DA power systems from Meguiars. I like it because it's small so I can get areas like the mirrors, and A and B pillars easily. It's just about the perfect width for doing the lower parts of the RK kit too.





It's kind of hard to see in the pic since it's a white car, but there is a line through the middle of the center light reflection on the hood. Right side is completely polished and waxed. Left is untouched. It was much more noticeable in person. The hood had no shine left to it. No wax for two years in the FL sun really killed it.



Went over the windows with steel wool and rain-x too. Still need to do the interior, and polish the wheels. I've found the white powder coat on the wheels is too stained and just imbedded with crap, and normal wheel cleaner won't get it off. Even brake cleaner won't get it. The compound I was using cleaned it up though. Apparently it needs a mild abrasive, so I went and got a mothers power cone, and I'm gonna take them off and go over them all with the compound. More pics to come.

[bricooper78]

Uh, steel wool and rain-x???

[AleroB888]

Originally Posted by bricooper78

Uh, steel wool and rain-x???

One of them "whatever works" deals, I guess.

Caddy air tube in there

[fisdad]

Originally Posted by AaronGTR

Back on topic...

This is what I was doing over the weekend. Car has been a daily driver and out of any garage now for almost 3 years. Was out in the sun and crap down in FL, and didn't have any good place to wash and detail it. No time/place to clay bar and wax it. The paint was in really terrible condition. Lots of tiny scratches in the clear coat and oxidation.

So it got washed, clay barred, and went over the whole thing with an orbital buffer and compound, then polish, and finally waxed. Bought one of those new DA power systems from Meguiars. I like it because it's small so I can get areas like the mirrors, and A and B pillars easily. It's just about the perfect width for doing the lower parts of the RK kit too.





It's kind of hard to see in the pic since it's a white car, but there is a line through the middle of the center light reflection on the hood. Right side is completely polished and waxed. Left is untouched. It was much more noticeable in person. The hood had no shine left to it. No wax for two years in the FL sun really killed it.



Went over the windows with steel wool and rain-x too. Still need to do the interior, and polish the wheels. I've found the white powder coat on the wheels is too stained and just imbedded with crap, and normal wheel cleaner won't get it off. Even brake cleaner won't get it. The compound I was using cleaned it up though. Apparently it needs a mild abrasive, so I went and got a mothers power cone, and I'm gonna take them off and go over them all with the compound. More pics to come.

THAT IS ONE CLEAN ASS RIDE! Did you smooth down the side skirts? And is that the razzi spoiler on there?

[young gun]

Originally Posted by fisdad

THAT IS ONE CLEAN ASS RIDE! Did you smooth down the side skirts? And is that the razzi spoiler on there?

RK sport sides, and molded in Razzi spoiler.

Also curious as to the steel wool on the windows?

and C3 stingray??

[[ChaosweaveR]]

Nice to see one of the fastest GAGTs still getting love and still around.

[TDavis]

Steel wool on windows will remove contaminents that are on the window. Pretty much like claying version with a window. Any glass cleaner with some steel wool will work well

Example: You can see how darker and dirtier the right side of my rear window is before I took cleaner and steel wool to it, its like hard water stains that magically get on my windows out of nowhere.

Left side is after I was done.

[TruGreenGAGT]

your missing part of your tint.

[Smithkid21]

Originally Posted by TDavis

Steel wool on windows will remove contaminents that are on the window. Pretty much like claying version with a window. Any glass cleaner with some steel wool will work well

Example: You can see how darker and dirtier the right side of my rear window is before I took cleaner and steel wool to it, its like hard water stains that magically get on my windows out of nowhere.

Left side is after I was done.

Originally Posted by TruGreenGAGT

your missing part of your tint.

When I had my Grand Am tinted, I had a piece of black vinyl placed over that on the outside. Made the look more complete, and stood up well during the 3 winters I had it.

[bricooper78]

I can't see a difference, I'm sure that's another one of the "in person" things, that pics just don't get.
so I assume you've got to do that fairly lightly, so you don't scratch up your glass, right?

[TDavis]

Originally Posted by Smithkid21

When I had my Grand Am tinted, I had a piece of black vinyl placed over that on the outside. Made the look more complete, and stood up well during the 3 winters I had it.

This. Waiting to put a piece of black vinyl on it, rather have that then having them tint over it and making it look like sht with the bubbles on the dot matrix.

[TruGreenGAGT]

ah them dots. mine has lines, so all is tinted 5%

[Shade2012]

The previous owner literally spray painted mine black. It actually worked pretty well. The guy that tinted my back window was so confused when he went to do it.

[locoman99]

Just to be clear you cant use any steel wool....only 000 or 0000 courseness.

[AaronGTR]

Tanner got it. It's basically like a clay bar for the windows. You could actually use clay and detailer spray just like on the body, but since glass is harder than clear coat you can just go over it with steel wool and it will clean off the stuck on stuff regular glass cleaner won't get. Just to be clear too, you can use any old fine steel wool from the hardware store like you'd get for scuffing furniture stain or varnish. Been doing it for years and it's never made a scratch. Glass is actually harder than iron, and only certain kinds of steel are harder. No steel wool should be hard enough to scratch glass. A fine wool just works best for removing tiny surface contaminants. I clean them w/glass cleaner first, use the steel wool dry, wipe them down again, then apply rain-x and buff. Always leaves them super smooth.

[MAC the KNIFE]

I've tried claybar, ultimate compound and a yellow cutting pad on the PC to remove the water spots on glass. didn't make one bit of difference, but now i know what to do!
steel wool. thank you!