The wife wants to mod the Cobalt for her birthday, and we have about $200-$300 to spend, labor included. Unfortunately, neither of us are in the physical shape to do any major work on a car, though we could probably swing installing an intake or something along those lines.

So, what would be the best first performance mod on a completely stock '09 SS for under $300?

Muffler delete is out - she doesn't like the sound. She likes custom exhaust, but prefers exhaust to sound deeper and less thrashy. On any other car, I'd probably have the stock muffler cut off and replaced with a Magnaflow (or something similar), but I'm not sure we would see a benefit on this car?

Something that increases sound would be great, just not to the level of irritation.

Any input is welcome. Thanks in advance!

 

any performance mod you buy is pointless without a tune. the TC's come with a "learn down" feature where the ECU detects changes in the system and compensates back to near stock parameters and power output. i think the best thing to do would be a tune

 

Trifecta budget tune or a hptune. Keep it mild and the car will be lots of fun. No physical work required! Only thing is if u mod later you'll have to get a retune.

 

My understanding is, doing a tune first is silly because you base the tune on the mods. Even if we don't get a big performance boost, that's fine, we'd still at least be a bit closer to a tune making sense.

 

You can do any first. To a bone stock car you can up the boost and still hit close to 300whp. I think I've seen a sheet of a stock LNF getting over 300 with only a tune. You tune for mods to get the most out of them.

 

Ah, I see what you're saying. I'll take that into consideration. What would your answer be, though, if we go off the assumption that a tune will come later, after we have at least a few mods?

 

best bang for the buck, d/p, intake, then a hp or trifecta tune. For your budget and ease of mod, id say tune!

 

I have a catless down pipe for sale will give you the deep growl your looking for 120 shipped

 

I don't want to go catless. The car has an aftermarket warranty, and our county does emissions testing.

 

Tune it.
300whp/300wtq with no mods on a good tune....gl

 

Yea a trifecta tune would be easy and right around there. HPT is prolly better but tougher to get since you need a suite or need to know someone with one and you need a tuner too.

 

Tune and an Intake. More turbo noise (wooooshhhhhh) and you get great gains. Total install time ~1 1/2 hours for an average person.

 

Trifecta tune via Bad News Racing. Free updates for minor mods. Trifecta tunes are very easy to put on and remove too since you don't have to have someone else do it, just hook your laptop up to your car.

 

I'd buy an intake honestly. you can put them on with minor hand tools and the turbo sounds so sweet after it

 

These are my suggestions

A) Tune
B) K&N SRI

 

for $300? Just tune the car. You will never regret doing that. If you bought an intake, the car wont be any faster but make more whistle noises. Tuning the car with bone stock parts will be alot of fun. 20psi is great. 24psi is even better.

Worried about breaking stuff? stick with 20psi tune.

 

No u do tune first, cause ur other mods won't gain u anything. If u buy the cable with the tune, all ur tune adjustments for mods are free

 

Here is my 2 cents. If u want something ur notice when u drive, get trifecta at 22 psi, buy cable with it so every other retune is free then. it's safe. Been using it for years. After that when u have money get intake and downpipe first. Then replace ur intercooler and charge pipe so u get ride of all the plastic bs. Been know to crack. That would be best route I think

 

the TurboXS GT Exhaust is EXACTLY what you described... very low rumbling bass sound. not trashy at all. your wife would love it !

it does have something similar to a magnaflow as well.. it's really quiet tbh..

you will see benefits from the catback exhaust. turboxs saw about 12whp gains from the catback. even on the stock tune.

 

If u want ur powerband to look like an etch n sketch then go trifecta or get a good hpt tuner to hook u up.

 

Forge Bypass valve will increase sound! Don't get the VTA version, unless you tune it of course, you'll throw a CEL, but the standard one is a little louder at $144

You can take my route and go canned tune! What I did was buy the ZZP ECM Tune! It's only $200 if you return your stock. It's not that cheap if you keep both like I did.

 

Any dyno graphs of this?

 

yeah... my trifecta tune comes in STRONG at 2500 RPMS... full boost by 3k rpms. and hold that boost until redline....


unfortunately i let everyone and their grandmother drive my car. even people i just meet lol... one of my buddies with a 997 turbo launched my car. and i smelled nothing but burnt clutch when i was behind him in his 911.. ever since that moment if i go above 15psi under 3.5k RPMs i will slip

 

That's not true at all, my dyno graph looked perfectly linear when I had trifecta!

 

People will always come up with new reasons to bash trifecta