Its really tickin me off. A friend of mine has a 97 grand am(not gtp). according to the books i should be able to beat him on a 0-60 and a quarter mile. yet ive raced him a bunch of times ...he's barly ahead of me. Off the line we're even and then he speeds up im jus behind him. The front of my car is right next to his door. Any ideas on anything i can do to beat him. Im puttin in a new aem airfilter soon....but thats after i get the leak in my head gasket repaired(leaking oil...suprise suprise). i always use premium fuel 2. i heard that makes a little bit of a diff. Also when we race ive tried it on sport mode and tried shifting through the 1st 3gears manually, but still no luck. im lookin for anything that i can just midify easily like $20 er somethin like that...Thanx

Well...

Turn off A/C, Turn off Traction Control, Turn on Sport mode.

Keep the rpm's up when your about to go - The the intake system opens up fully at 4k rpms, the closer you are to that area, the better. This car isnt geared for off the line as well as the grand am may be. Its for top end.

We're pretty much spot on for 0-60 times , and 1/4 mile. 97 vs 97 atleast.


Im kinda weary on what an airfilter may do, another member is going to compare for us (hopefully). Upgrade your sparkplugs during the time you fix the valve gasket/cover problems- to Bosch dual platinums... more spark. Whens the last time the car has had a tune up?

I know how fast those little Pontiacs can be. It was fun running with mid to late '80 Trans Ams back in the day. Top end was another story though.

Leave the spare tire at home, take out all the unnecessary crap from the trunk. Race alone. when you have 3 buddies with you that can add up to 510 lbs if they each weigh 170 lbs or so. :)

Already did most of what u guys said. I took out the spare(46 lbs), emptied out the trunk, turned off a/c, turned off tcs, turned on sprt mode, and raced alone. We start off from a stand still when we race, so the 4000 rpm thing wont work(crap!!). Also u said the catera is best @ top end....welll we got up to 120mph, and the distance between us was the same. I think i was inching up though, however, he disagrees lol. In the meantime im planing on doing those sparkplugs. Anybody know where i can get them cheapest. THanx again

I got mixed up it's a grand prix, not grand am.ive smopked tons of grand am's sry bout that

What year Catera do you have exactly?

The cheapest place is to go to your local autostore, like AdvanceAuto or NAPA..

NAPA's Price(forexample) - 3.99 rounded to 4.00 x 6 - $24.00 plus tax. There is also +4 Platinums, and those are $5.99 so 6.00.

Generally this will be the same for any store you go to. I know thats the same at Advance also, i checked.

I like the Bosch plugs because many people get good results, and we put them on our truck after a tune up... it was a lot better. There are other platinums and dual ones too.. like Autolite.. but theres not much price change.

AND.. whens the last time you've had a tune up (only answer if its a 97-99)

I got mixed up it's a grand prix, not grand am.ive smopked tons of grand am's sry bout that

Thank the gods... I was about to say... even a Catera can't be that bad.

Of course, a non-GTP Grand Prix isn't really that fast either...

1997 Cadillac Catera 8.5 16.5

1973 Pontiac Grand Prix 455ci 7.7 15.8
1981 Pontiac Grand Prix 14.9 19.9
1989 Pontiac Grand Prix SE 9.7 17.1
1989 Ponitac Grand Prix Turbo 8.2 16.3
1990 Pontiac Grand Prix STE 7.7 15.6
1991 Pontiac Grand Prix STE 8.7 16.5

1991 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP 8.4 16.3
1997 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP 6.6 15.00
2000 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP 6.8 15.1

My catera's a 97. I had a tune up 6 months ago...what diff will that make. Jus it doesnt make any sense how he beat me he's also got an extra hundred lbs. in his trunk cuz of his subs...!!!! grrrrg i tjus makes me mad. But hey that awesome for the plugs. Im gettin those 4 sho.. thanx again guys...any other hints r appeciated

97' Grand Prix Weight: 3414

97' Catera Weight: 3770 , 200hp and 192 tq.


He must have the GT with the 3.8 (195 hp 220tq) , the stock engine is a 3.1 160hp 168 tq

Its the weight thats killing the race and the grand prix's slight torque advantage.

If you want to do something more, you could try an airfilter but it may not make much difference, the sparkplugs should do something... atleast. It just depends on how far you want to go, with doing the only performance options there are right now in the US (besides exhaust which is too expensive for you).