I spoke w/ the wifey last night and it seems that she's pretty open to me pumping more money into my truck (she said that she'd rather see me spend the money than on beer ....but I will still do that too).

Keep in mind, I live in California, so I have smog issues to contend with ...

Heads - I need some recommendations here ...never looked into them and don't know what to start looking at. I'm going to wind up taking it to a shop to do ...would a machine shop be the way to go, or a mechanic who does mainly performance mods? What is the average cost - parts and labor?

Shorty headers - I'm probably going to go with the Doug Thorley shorty headers. Smoke talked about tri-y design and I did some research and it seems that this is the way to go. Thorley uses this design. If you know of another manufacturer, then please step up.

Price - about $600.00

3.73 gears - I'd like the 4:10's, but that's overkill for me and would slaughter my gas mileage.

Price: $1400 installed

Pulleys - Seems to be a very easy mod, and doesn't cost much. The painful part will be getting the right size belt. Someone else gave me link in the past to a vendor who has these, but I can't find it.

Edit: Found the link: Thunder Racing has a bunch

Price: about $200

Cam shaft - This one will be trickey since I live in CA. I haven't been able to find a manufacturer who has CARB certification, but most will say thatsome of theircams will pass the sniffer. That makes me very nervous since I don't want to get the truck retuned, put the camshaft in, get it all dialed in, and then have to rip it out.

Price: $?

Breaks: I'm going to need new breaks really soon, so I'm looking into a few options. Need some ideas.

Anything else that you guys can think of - outside of a supercharger of course.

 

Hmm ...just spoke to a guy at a local shop about the smog issue ...he said that I should just get a PO box in Nevada and register the truck there. lol

I might have to look into that.

 

For the brakes, you can go cross drilled and slotted rotors. Braided stainess hoses would be nice too but they might screw with the anti-lock I dunno. I'd go with a Crane Cams Truck Cam, a mild one. Other than that I don't know.

 

I've searched for braided lines and cn't find any....info please.
South Bay - I hate superchargers. I have a question about CARB to STS Turbo. Used Z06 heads and cams should be readily available. If they can afford one they can afford to put aftermarket parts on. There was a set at a local shop here, heads and cam, for $400! They will work but you will have to change injectors and upper intake along with a few other parts.
Brakes - don't buy hard pads/shoes. you get more dust from a softer set but they don't eat your rotors as fast. Pads are cheaper than rotors.

 

Down here in the bay area, they do that load test smog thing. That is the only thing that I would worry about. Mainly becouse of the increased amount of fuelthat you will be putting through the engine for the performance. It should burn better, but with the injection I don't know what it will do for sure. Can you find a shop that is a little more leanient on these things?? I know of one over here that is ok. but it is only one guy. As far as brakes go, you don't have bigger tires so you sholdn't need anything special, save that money for the other stuff. headers will help and shouldn't effect the smog sh/t. Get matching heads and cam, that will be the best thing to do to make sure that they will not conflict with each other. Why not a supercharger? they make a lot of power for really reasonable price. Espectially after the other mods that you plan on and have done.

 

I'm shying away from superchargers/turbo's at this point because my research has came up with mixed info ....the thing that concerns me is that I will wind up killing my truck. I plan on keeping this truck for years and years ...and depending on how good my kids are, I may pass it onto them.

Someday, I might ...but with the mods that I'm looking at doing, even if I get a supercharger, I won't have to do many additional mods ...or remove some of the ones that I have installed.

 

No, look at the Magnachargers. they are basically a blower that only acts like one when on the gas. Any other time (ie around town, idling) it is in bypass mode so it is like it isn't even there! It will also come with new bigger injectors so that helps also. All the ones that I have seen have been whole kits that guys have put on there vehicles. And they love them.

 

Yeah I wouldn't boost it if your looking for it to have a long healthy life span. You can get plenty of power naturally aspirated and still be reliable. Also, Doug Thorley doesn't make shorty tri-y's.Those are just regular shorties like the Gibson, Banks, Hedman, Edelbrock shorties.... they are all the same. Everyone I've talked to on Full Size Chevy says not to buy em for our trucks. Apparantly the stock exhaust manifolds flow so well on our trucks that the gains are hardly noticeable. I have been stewing over whether or not to get shorties or long tubes for weeks now and there still are a couple people out there that have em and say there are some gains. But it sounds to me like the gains are hardly worth $400-$600 when you can get long tubes for about the same price on Summit Racing and have an exhaust shop put em on for you for about $100-$200 and be pushing out very noticeable gains.

Also, if you end up doing the pullies let us know! I was thinking about doing those and I forgot all about em until you mentioned em. I might do them on mine if they make a decent difference.

 

front braided lines you can get from Russell part number 672490 for about $81.99 which is a 3 line kit since you have drums in the rear. As far as a cam, I am not aware of anything out their that will pass CA smog

 

http://www.dougthorleyheaders.com/

Bottom right ad ...unless the add is misleading, but I've seen plenty of sites that talk about Thorley headers using Tri-Y.