What to do to my car for performance...

[Mr. SHO]

Start out in drive. Once you hit 2nd gear, drop the shifter to 2. Then you can shift 2-3 manually. Every time I try to shift 1-2 manually, there is too much lag time (I don't have a shift kit--only a chip.) However, the 2-3 shift is very nice and crisp.

 

[Ian Macoomb]

The reason that I shift 2-3 manually but not the 1-2 shift is that the 1-2 shift occurs at about 6800 rpm (depends on tranny temp) but the 2-3 shift occurs well short of that (6200 rpm IIRC). Holding the 2-3 shift to about 6700-6800 seems to give me slightly better ETs and slightly better traps. This may be because I've shifted the torque curve a bit by ditching the resonator and 3rd cat?