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Originally Posted by mte.smiles
Thanks again Dave. I need to seriously reconsider my hot rod approach. I would like a beefier sound but not the headaches with it. I will at least consider headers and Corsa with a lower thermostat and fan adjustment.
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If you do this stuff, you will also need a tune (imo). I think if you do just those things, plus a set of rear gears, you will have something that is much faster than stock and is approaching the upper limits of what is truly practical and reasonable for a "real" street car. You should also stay out of warranty trouble.
Do you have a stick or an auto? It doesn't matter so much for the '06-7 cars, as even the autos are 6-speeds. Remember that gears are almost the only "free" mod there is, and are probably the single most effective mod you can do. It's torque that pushes you back in the seat, not horsepower. Changing gears *directly* increases the torque you feel in all gears, at all speeds. They have no adverse effects, no affects on warranty or reliability, other than a slight decrease in gas mileage and the need to have the tranny reprogrammed on an auto. Oh, and some gearsets do whine.
Going from 3.15 gears to 4.10 is an instant 30% increase in torque everywhere, all the time. That's just about the same as a 30% larger engine. In your case, that would be like having a 473 ci engine.
If you started with 3.42s it's a 20% increase, or "only" a 436 ci engine. 4.10s turn smallblocks into big-blocks.
If you buy a complete replacement differential from someone like DTE, you can always swap back to your stock one later if you don't like it. That's what I would do. It's not that much extra to do it that way (imo).
Tell us your current setup and we can run some numbers through the spreadsheet to see what the impact on cruising rpms would be.