1997 Eldorado

[dgerardi13]

I recently purchased a 1997 Eldorado. I have been looking around for performance upgrades.. but have been finding them lacking. I'm curious about all kinds of upgrades from chips to superchargers.... any suggestions?

[Bruce Nunnally]

Certainly a free-flowing or performance exhaust is a good choice. For 97 many people find a good cost trade is simply to replace the mufflers with performance units. Others have custom piping done from the cat-back, as there are not off-the-shelf systems available. (If there were systems available, they would be $1100+installation anyway).

There are mixed results on air intake mods. One Reader did very detailed before/after dyno testing of a custom air intake on his Aurora 4L Northstar, and gained hp. Other Readers have tried either a drop-in filter, or a cone filter, and felt that it did not add any hp or acceleration.

The engine compartment of the Northstar front wheel drive cars is very hot due to the packaging, and so one has to be VERY careful to keep any intake a cold air system, and never draw in air out of the engine compartment.

No one has a custom programmer/reprogrammer for the 96+ Northstars so far. Prior to OBDII in 96 you can get a custom chip for the Northstar.

Mark's 99 STS has the most mods and is perhaps the quickest STS in the world, or at least similar in performance to the new factory STS-V. He has: air intake, exhaust, modified torque converter, limited-slip differential, and a turbo system with intercooler. His setup would cost you $15K+ to duplicate, but it did make a very quick car.

See http://www.markonemtg.com/marks99sts and http://caddyinfo.ipbhost.com/index.php?showforum=28

He also uses a custom computer override device.

CHRFab does not make any parts or mods for performance cars. However, they have had good results with port and polish work on the Northstar.