I need some advice for what mods would be best for the cobalt ss turbo. Mods that wont interfere with damaging the car, so safer mods. Exhaust, intake, exterior looks, tunes, and any other suggestions. Thanks in advance.

 

lots and lots and lots of info on here for you. you can do performance mods, appearance mods, whatever youd like.

id say catless dp, intake, and a tune if you want reliability. you want full bolt ons, go with zzp charge pipes, zzp intercooler and then get yourself some 3 bar map sensors as well. get hp tuned on 93 and youll be set.

 

https://www.cobaltss.net/forums/2-0l...-power-316965/

 

what brand downpipe, intake, and catback exhaust would be a good combo. Looking for a good deep tone but not tooo obnoxious. I don’t think I have 93 around close. 91 is though.

 

take a stroll and check out what mr Ecaulk sent you. read that as well.

Catless DP: ZZP/ Turbo XS/ MPX
Intake: K&N SRI
Exhaust: ZZP makes some nice ones but i love my Turbo XS RFL. The RFL is their loudest. The FL many like becuase its not quiet as obnoxious as the RFL because it has 2 resonators as opposed to just one and no muffler like the RFL. MPX also makes a nice exhaust as well.

 

I like the sound of my MPx with a cat and without a cat

 

Ditto, wish I could get one for my Saab also.

 

Op- catless downpipe if you allowed to have them, and a good tune by a trustworthy person. Then call it a day. 91 isn’t great gas so I wouldn’t worry about the rest except maybe getting 3 bar map sensors if you are going for high boost.

 

“91 isn €™t great gas so I wouldn €™t worry about the rest” (not sure what you are trying to say with those weird symbols. Live in Wisconsin, pretty sure it’s illegal for catless. You wouldn’t recommend an intake?

 

You can spend any amount of money you want on modding cars. Factory intake is decent and an aftermarket will only gain you about 5 hp or less. At hp levels you will be able to achieve on 91, the factory catback exhaust flows well enough to not hold you back, as does the intercooler, and charge pipes. If you want reliability then change the intercooler out and charge pipes, but you don’t have to. Get a bigger aftermarket catted down pipe and tune for 91 and you will be fine.

 

Maybe an intake, New downpipe, new catback, and tune for 91. Would that be fine? How do you go about getting it tuned, take it to a shop or buy a device to do it?

 

honestly if you want a reliability and drive the car daily. I would do a intake downpipe and tune. That's it. Don't necessarily need a intake, could do a drop in K&N filter but you get "cool" turbo noises with a full K&N intake. Any downpipe really, would recommend catted if you need emissions. And HP tune.


For the tune you will either need to buy HPtuners and find a reliable tuner. Or if there is someone local you can use their HPtuners cable.

 

Others have already stated good advice and have more experience than I do for sure.

But I did end up self tuning on HPT and that made a huge difference even over the GMS1 tune that was on the car when I bought it.

I have been completely happy with just a K&N drop in filter and the tune, for the power it makes. Traction in 1st and 2nd are gone completely with just that (although I run the factory Conti all seasons since I have winter out here). Car seems strong enough from my experience to trap over 110mph in the quarter mile with just that.

My tune was at 23-24 psi max, so I can recommend from personal experience that I think you should change the upper charge pipe and IC. Not for power, but just because the factory plastic pcs did not last in my case. End tank on the IC exploded after a few months on the new tune. $200 towing bill from that one, and some car rental time (since this is my DD). Then the upper charge pipe cracked at about 6 months. Got lucky and limped to a wal mart for duct tape and stayed out of boost for the week it took to get the new upper charge pipe.

I used ZZP for both the IC and upper charge pipe and was happy with the those.

Just a recommendation for reliability IMHO.

 

does the upper charge pipes and intercooler require a tune? and if I get hptuners would I be able to tune it myself or do I bring it to a shop to tune

 

no you can do full bolt ons without a tune. Yes you can tune yourself, there are a few threads on here or you can go over to the hptuners forum and find tuning threads specific to LNF cobalts.

 

I have some zzp chargepipes and k&n intake I'll be selling soon if your interested

 

My advice is not tuning it yourself if it’s your daily, especially on lower octane fuel. If you push the car hard a poor tune can ruin it quickly.

 

I have the 3-bar MAP sensors and my own tune. I ran a K&N SRI for awhile until I found it ingests way too much hot air, so I switched back to the stock "cold air intake" with the original 2009 paper air filter. It runs much better now, and the MAF data is a lot more consistent/cleaner.

I honestly didn't feel the 3-bar MAP sensors were all that necessary. The stock "2.5" bar MAP sensors would be good enough up to about 21 psi, more than enough for most applications. 22-23 psi is getting close to the limits of the stock piston ring lands from what I've read. The 3-bar MAP sensors will allow you to see the boost spikes though, as they will read data out to about 28.8 psi. But just to play it safe, get the 3-bar MAP sensors and the plug-n-play harnesses.

I'm currently running a 22 psi tune with 25-26* timing at WOT using E30. The LNF is different from Fords, as there's no stoich entry to change. I totally forgot about this and just ran E30. I went to look at my fuel trims and saw the ECU just compensated for it as it is well within the 15%-25% for which the ECU can compensate. That made a huge difference in power output. I do the same now on my 2014 SHO as it is speed density and the ECU compensates for E30 fuel. Both cars have factory widebands, so the ECU even compensates for the fuel trims at WOT as it always runs closed loop.

My main issue now is lack of traction in 1st and 2nd gear especially at the drag strip. I don't like having to swap to drag radials at the track but that may be the only solution.

Other mods I'd recommend are the Powell engine/trans mounts as it helps reduce the nasty wheel hop during launches, and the Powergrid front sway bar endlinks.

I still can't find a good solution for the horrible headlights on our cars. The 9007s are garbage and LED retrofits won't work properly due to the reflector/cup design. I had H13/9008 LED retrofits on my 2007 Mustang that looked damn near OEM with the sharp cutoff and everything. The 9007 LEDs on the Cobalt looked like garbage. I found the LEDs need to be inserted deeper into the reflector cup, but none of the aftermarkets allow you to adjust for that - they only rotate which does nothing.

 

That's way too much timing. Way. Too. Much.

Also, if you're letting your trims hang out at +15-25, that's absolutely terrible. You're not leaving much headroom.

OP,

ZZP intake tube, catless downpipe and a custom HP tune would be your best bet. I'd highly suggest contacting someone competent who is actually versed with DI and torque based GM controllers.

 

Actually my fuel trims aren't at 15-25, I just said that the ECU can compensate for that much. Anyone that ran a K&N SRI without a tune would have seen about 10%-20% lean. E30 is usually about 5%-7% leaner from what I have seen on the SHO and LNF. The wideband closed loop system sees that and compensates very nicely. On the SHO's smaller GT1549 twin turbo setup, I run out of efficiency at 5500+ RPM so the fuel trims drop big time (not enough air, too much heat). Even running straight E10 fuel, I've seen fuel trim variants between 1%-5% on its own. And I used an Innovate wideband to double check as well.

I'm running up to 25*-26* at WOT on my SHO as well as the LNF with E30, granted the SHO is only at 17 psi of boost. Knock retard is non-existent with the ~E30. Someone did a test with full E85 on the SHO and was only able to get about 25* timing at WOT with stock boost levels, so that's pretty much maxing out the engine output.

The Cobalt's stock intercooler is big enough to cool down the MCT/IAT2 at the dragstrip, whereas the stock intercooler on the SHO has a rough time coping with anything higher than 15 psi of boost. So that helps with the Cobalt big time.

No one is forcing you to run that much timing, it's just that something we found as a sweet spot for GTDI engines using mid-2000s Bosch controller tech.

 

No, that's not correct concerning the K&N. That's an invalid blanket statement and plenty of data on this very forum to show otherwise. Stop with your SHO, it's irrelevant to this discussion. It's a completely different engine/setup/controller.

I'm very familiar with what E30 can do. Again, your SHO is irrelevant to this discussion. Just because someone was able to squeeze out 25-26 degrees of timing on ethanol, doesn't mean you're going to realize anything from it, aside from too much cylinder pressure. Ringlands? Pfft... Who needs those? Not only that but because it works on your TT V6, it must somehow work like magic on a turbocharged I4, right?


Has nothing to do with forcing me to run anything nor would I be ignorant enough to want to. It's a recipe for disaster and so is your statement that you "found a sweet spot".

 

He ain't lying either... I love the sound of my bypass valve with a K&N cone. It's loud in every gear. I love it!

 

okay so I have gotten a few answers that were different and I would like to know what is the best bang for my buck and reliability. Don’t care TO much on how much Horsepower I will gain, But I want some hp gain.

What intake and why or why not?

Downpipe? Catback?

charge pipes or any other little parts I should replace that may go bad?

Consider that I preferably want to fill up on 91 octane and want a protune on 91 octane.

 

My thoughts exactly!!! 25-26* of timing on e30?!?!?! holy **** batman!!! on e47 im only running 22* lol

 

Id go with a Full zzp package if I was in your position. Catless downpipe catback exhaust with resonator delete K&N intake and charge pipes. then of course a tune. HP tuners seems to be the easier option unless you have access to a dyno.