Quick question. I have an 06' 2.2L LT. A few appearance minor mods in it. I want the SS or other exterior look/body kit and a little more performance. Should i go ahead and bother to modify the engine (i.e. bolt on parts) and ecterior body or just wait out a year or two and upgrade to an SS or SS SC?

 

buy my car... well take over the payments... i owe 19,000 and i'll throw all the mods in

 

I don't think you should waste your money on a 2.2. Just save it for the SS/SC and mods.

 

X2. Plus the cost of parts alone on the SS kit is about $2000. On a 2.2, I think rims, tires, stereo, dvd player, stuff like that is more in order. I would not spend the money on power upgrades because they are not going to yield you that much power. More importantly, (and I know I am going to get flamed for this) the 2.2 just does not have the internals to support any modifications.

 

Yea thats what ive been doing. So far everythig ive put into this can be removed and put into another one (stereo and lights).

Im not big into modifying engines tho (Mainly cuz i dont know a thing). Hers the thing tho, the SS SC has a 2.0L, the SS a 2.4 and mine a 2.2. If say hypothetically i recieved a SS SC' supercharger (just the supercharger) and attach it to the 2.2 or 2.4, wouldn't it be quicker than a 2.0L because the engine size is bigger? Or is the actual engine itself not going to hold up?

Thanks for the advice btw.

Lol. Cant afford that right now. I have to get some equity in this car frist. I swear...if I had know about this site b4 i would have looked to buy a used one. Or at least waited a few more months and get the SS.

 

You'd be looking at a fair amount of custom work...I don't follow the 2.2/2.4 forums so I'm not sure, has anyone even tried this? I doubt the SC would even fit properly without a special adapter plate, your PCM isn't designed for boost, you'd need custom tuning..internals would likely not hold much more then 5-6lbs of boost without upgrades.

If you were going to go custom FI it'd make MUCH more sense to go turbo....don't get me wrong I like the SC but SC kits are harder to piece together then turbo kits are.

Price vs Performance...you may be better off waiting until you are in the position to just buy an SS/SC. If you piece a turbo kit together and put it on your 2.2 when all is said and done your reliability *is* going to go down and since you said you're not big into moding engines, everytime something needs tweaking you're going to suffer downtime..not to mention pissing away your warranty on a new car.

 

Yea forget that idea. Cant afford to keep fixing things. I had an 89 acclaim which was in the shop every 2 months. Never again. Looks like ill be all show and *no* go for the next year or so. lol. Its all good. Its still a fun car to drive. Thanks again for all the advice.

 

And the SS/SC jackasses rear their ugly heads......
Spending money on a 2.2l is NOT WASTING HIS MONEY If that's what he WANTS to do and what works for him, then it's all good.
The 2.2l engine is one of the most popular sized racing engine on the market. there are more mods for 2.2l engines already out there than the 2.0l SC ecotec will ever see.

I swear to god you guys **** me off so bad.

To answer the original question though, If you really want the look of an SS/NA or SS/SC with better performance than a stock LS/LT model, you probably ARE better off saving up and upgrading. You could pretty easily and cheapily get better performance from some boltons for the 2.2l, but the SS body parts are expensive as hell to order.

Props to Spoony for good information. The only turbo and SC for 2.2l cobalt are custom fabbed. They're are some on the market that will fit the engine, but won't fit under the hood. Give it some time and Alpine and Greddy will spit one out.
They're are just recently turbo kits out for the 2.4l.
However on BOTH engines you can bet your ass that they void the warranty. The SS/SC doesn't suffer from that problem.
Good luck with whatever you decide to do

 

FYI, There are other things to consider when looking to upgrade:
SSS/c= Premium Gas ALLL THE TIME!!!!!
What is it gonna do to your insurance?
How much will you loose on our car?
Can you afford the Tickets, Trust me you'll get them.
How much more will your payment be.
Can you afford new tires, every year


I know there more but think about it.

 

Good points, I'd kill for LS/LT insurance

 

Yea tru. Insurance is only $100 CDN per month (Under parents insurance of course). An SS i can get for about $150 so thats not a big problem. They are all valid points. With me its mainy the thought that if i needed to get up and go in an instant i could, other than that im not racing anyone. lol. Like i said im not really big into modding engines except the lil bolt on ones that wonr void warrenty. Truth be told when I test drove the SS and compared it to the LT I didnt feel a whole lot of difference. Yes i know its 148hp to 175hp. But we'll see. Im always driving and already above 28000km from last july to now. lol. Once the 3 yr warrenty is up, its time to trade up.

 

All I'm saying is I love my 2.2L It's a great platform for me. Suits my Driving Style Perfectly. Would I like more HP, hell yeah. But I wanna move out on my own soon so trading up isnt going to happen for me. I have all the suspension mods, Minus Coilovers, a few Engine bolt ons, and i have great plans for the motor(damn tuning software). Plus right now my track times are better than most of the SS S/c's that show at the track, (cant drive). Plus your from CND so your going to need rims and snow tires unless you have a beater for the winter.

Outta Curiosity how old are you?

 

Yea im kinda in that same boat. Im 22 turnung 23. Gotta get snow tires for next year (although this year wasnt all that bad, but a couple close calls). Exterior wise all i want is the ss front bumper. Can always find a rear bumper and sid skirts to match it (dont like the plastic around the fog lights). I doubt there will be times i'll even reach 160km/h. I dont even get up to 140km/h most of the time lol. Im mainly interested in acceleration. Wich mods help that out?

and yea...what are these Stage 1-5 everyones is doing? Those work on a 2.2?

 

Ehehehe here we go

/popcorn

 

^^ Yup.

 

get the SS/SC...if u can drive stick ...get it or even the SS/na

 

But of course...lol. I cant imagine my LT as an auto. Stick is too much fun to drive. My gf thinks im nuts sometimes cuz everytime i downshift and hear the engine begine to whistle while passing another car i have a big ass grin on my face.

 

"IF" you plan on keeping your car any length of time, and "IF" reliability is of concern to you, don't mod the 2.2 as it will hold up MUCH longer if kept stock. IMO, if you REALLY want a faster car, trade up if you can afford it. Just my 2 cents.

 

Gas:
Premium gas all the time isn't true, you can run regular you just get less performance. The car will just pull timing

Insurance:
Very true, depending on your age/record this may put your insurance up a bunch...one thing to keep in mind however.
I've heard of insurance companies voiding insurance claims on highly modified cars, most aren't going to care about an intake and exhaust, but throw a turbo on there and they may void your claim based on the fact that you're insured to drive a 145hp Cobalt and you're now driving a 220hp+ cobalt...I'd ask very specific questions to my insurance company about this before modifying and getting "SS/SC performance at LT rates"

Tickets:
Been driving this car for almost a year and don't have any. I had an 01 Prelude before this and had none driving that either...drivers get tickets, not cars

Tires:
Going into year two and these tires will at least last me until the end of this season...you only need new tires every year if you're doing burnouts etc all the time, otherwise there's no reason you can't get 2+ seasons out of a set of rubber.


There's really no magic here, you can choose 2 of the following:

Cheap / Fast / Reliable

 

Next time i go to get serviced ill see how much they want for their GM parts and if those will increase the trade in value.

 

Doesn't matter, you won't get your investment back on those. Let's assume you put $1300 into GMPP intake/exhaust/manifold. I can guarantee you it won't increase the trade-in value by even that much. You certainly won't get an increase that's more than what you paid for the parts, because in reality the amount of used-car buyers who want a modded Cobalt is a very small percentage of the market... they will have a MUCH easier time selling it if it is mechanically stock.

 

Here's what happens to the 2.2 when you put a alpine turbocharger on it.

https://www.cobaltss.net/forums/show...=motor+fixable

 

Yeah, there's no way i would be doing anything that drastic to this car. Im already at 38000km and i bought it last July (too much driving). Plus, i only have the 3 yr / 60000km warranty. So looks like a year from now ill be in an SS (maybe SS SC if im in a better financial position).

 

If you want better acceleration, Intake and Full exhaust are the way to go.

 

ok dude you are realling pissing me off. i really dont want to go into this but you need to calm down and think before you say ANYTHING EVER AGAIN. maybe you shouldve put "Here's what happens to the 2.2 when you just slap an Alpine Turbo Kit on it without internal modifications." stick that in your pipe and smoke it

any car can be a show car. its imagination and money that will make it stand out. you could look at it from this point of view... the 2.2 could be a very class base showbalt with a little kick. the 2.4 a little more sporty and a little more kick. 2.0 the boosted show car. its what you want that makes the difference.