I'm new to the whole car modification world, so please bear with if I sound a little inexperienced and noobish. I have a passion and desire to learn and gain more experience.

So I am looking to modify my vehicle a tad - 1996 Chevy Blazer LS S10 4WD V6 4.3L - to gain some more performance/gas mileage out of it. On one side, changing the Y pipes and such I read somwhere to performance will help, as well as a perfomance catalytic, but then another side is that none of those will help and only an engine swap would.

What are your takes on this? My car has 240k miles on it, runs like a champ still, and has had no issues. I expect to do an engine swap/rebuild sometime in the future with an end goal of *maybe* having a v8 installed.

Thanks for your help!

 

What is your end goal? There are a lot of little things you can do and some big things as well. If you just want to make it a little bit more fun then start with the throttle body mod. Doing the tune up if it is overdue will also help with power and fuel economy. Those are just 2 examples you can even do a CAI with the exhaust if you wanted but I fear both of those will only give you more engine noise not power. Which can still be good if you are into that kind of thing. IF you really wanted to go crazy while sticking with the 4.3L V-6 rebuild the engine raise the compression swap the cam or you could even get a supercharger. The sky really is the limit. Before you travel down that rabbit hole remember More power uses More fuel. You can have more Miles per gallon, or more Smiles per gallon. Good luck and have fun.

 

best bang for your buck would be a better flowing exhaust and a computer tune

 

I agree the tune would be your most bang for your buck but even a full performance exhaust (headers, y pipe cat and tailpipe) will have little to no improvement except for sounding awesome.

 

I have headers, high flow exhaust, cold air intake, high output coil and wires. Didnt really notice much until the custom tune for the performance parts. probably about a 25% increase. very happy with it

 

Start looking at the parts which are installed.

I don't know the 96 but for the old ones messing with the exhaust side downstream of the manifold is a waste of time and money if the engine is not putting out serious horsepower.
The 1st gen to 1994 mounted the V8 Y-pipe, cat and mufflers. So plenty of tube.

The other modifications are to be seen with a critical eye. Unless the goal of any performance modifications is clear messing with individual parts is pretty useless and can even deteriorate performance or mpg. Tuning may be a well planned task to yield the desired outcome.

A couple forum threads make for good reading.

https://blazerforum.com/forum/perfor...s-69167/page5/

 

Might be you already had done your upgrade by now But here's my newly found thing that i am doing ..I have a 05 2dr 4x4 4.3L and i'm having rattling Cat issues with a engine light So rather then just replace the stock since new Cat (its all one long welded pipe to pre cat to cat) I am buying the Magnaflow stainless Complete Cat system MagnaFlow Direct Fit Catalytic Converter - 23139 $379.00 Canadian There's no bigger pipes or anything like that but i will add on a dual exhaust muffler as the cat will handle 300+hp and the muffler even more But i may or may not add ether a supercharger or a V8 As i have already added a upgraded braking system and many other toys