So after owning the car for about 3 weeks, i have finished all my major power mods. I now have an AEM intake, XS headers, and a Bomz crank pulley.

I got them all done within the last 4 days, so I should expect the full gains to be evident in a week or so. Surprisingly enough, the gains that i felt the most was the crank pulley, followed by the intake.

Headers felt like a lot of sound, but i did not really feel the power till at least 5k rpm. The crank pulley seems to have smoothed the power ouput too. Not sure how thats possible, but thats what it feels like.

I am considering doing some ground wires, and wanted peoples opinions? Anyone gotten them done? Noticed any difference.

Also, what other mods can people suggest. Whats your favorites?

 

Suspension mods.

Nos?

wheels.

supercharger/turbo?

 

sc/turbo is too much... unless you're THAT serious about racing...

slow down on the mods... u're going to get bored..

 

I already have chrome wheels stock, so I don't have that much interest in changing them. And s/c or turbo is too much, this is my daily driver.

 

You can never have too much, even for a daily beater.

 

Wow, nice progress in a short period of time.

Time for a drop.

 

Sure ya can. If it's daily driver and you plan on driving it in the winter your in trouble. When I supercharged my SHO and pushed over 400HP at the wheels you start to lose your daily drivability. 2nd gear starts all the time as 1st is useless, not a chance you can drive it in the snow, etc. If it wasn't a daily driver then yes, there is no such thing as too much power.

 

nice, but i'm shocked that you think the CAI made more of a difference than the headers

 

And why is it going to take a week or so for you to notice the full gains? That makes zero sense. You install 'em and you've got more horsepower. Nothing else is going to change.

 

Hey thats exactly what I did in the first month of owning my car, bad ass. Accept I went with the Injen CAI.......

 

It may take the ECU a small amount of time to get used to the easier airflow with the headers, and also a small amt of time for the ECU to realize that the crank is spinning faster; to fully feel allllllll the gains

 

Small amount of time meaning 3-4 WOT runs. Not an entire week.

 

The ECU isn't reading any increase in the "ease" of airflow. You make more power with in increase in efficiency. If the motor can draw air in easier and exhaust it out easier then it will make more power because the combustion process is more efficient. The ECU isn't adjusting for any of that.

You aren't introducing more air into the engine; the engine is only going to pull as much air as it needs at a given rpm. The addition of an intake allows the air to enter the engine easier. That's it.

The ECU also has no clue you changed the crank pulley. The lightweight pulley is less drag on the drivetrain and thus it can spin more efficiently which equates to more power.

 

MARYLAND REPRESENT.!! lol

 

I mean it's pretty simple really. And a smaller/lightweight crank pulley doesn't the crank spin any faster The crank spins the same speed at 2,500 rpm with a stock pulley that it does at 2,500 rpm with a aftermarket pulley. It's more efficient and thus the motor makes more power. Efficiency is also gained by underdriving the accessories so that they don't spin as fast and thus they don't rob as much power.

 

According to the UR installation sheet, thats an incorrect statement.
But I see what you're saying...thats just what I've read..?

 

Well I don't know why it's on the UR installation sheet. The engine is spinning the exact same way as it did before the install. The pulley is simply lighter and therefore the engine is more efficient. Additional gains come from spinning the accessories slower per any given engine rpm which also increases engine efficiency.

The ECU is measuring and/or controlling dozens of engine related functions none of which have to do with the size or weight of the crank pulley.

 

The pulley is also smaller...

 

I said that.... multiple times.

The smaller pulley causes the accessories to spin slower than they would with the OEM pulley and thus more horsepower is achieved through greater efficiency.

 

hey just making sure, dont get bent out of shape; you didn't say it anywhere here ^^ and I believe in another thread you said that you thought it was larger and turned slower...

 

 

hi i wanted to know where you got your Xs headers from because i cant find them anywhere not even ebay please help me guys...

 

There's another thread around about how they got taken off eBay. Goto their website and you can email them to get them.

 

Where did you get your headers i cant find XS anywhere not even on ebay!

 

Guys in response to the ECU tuning itself to the mods, it is true. When you change how the exhaust flows, the A/F ratio gets somewhat changed. In order to take full advantage of the mods, you have to wait until the car sets the correct A/F ratio. This is the same for both headers and intake, although the crank pulley i am not sure about.

 

see mrsteve, i'm not an asshole!

 

No. That's incorrect. Why does the AFR change? Based on how the exhaust flows? The flow of the exhaust leaving the cylinders has nothing to do with combustion mixture within the cylinders. Absolutely nothing. The ECU runs a program to adjust fuel/air to a set desired AFR. It doesn't matter what intake or headers you add. The ECU will still want to run the AFR at WOT it was programmed to do.

You aren't introducing additional air into the motor. If you were it would be forced induction. The ECU is constantly adjusting AFR based on IAT, throttle posistion, load, etc. If you had to "wait until the car sets the correct A/F ratio" every time one of the variables changed the car would never run correctly.

The ECU is programmed to run a certain A/F ratio at WOT. (It happens to be around 12.4:1 until VTEC where it dips to 11.8:1 and then rises back up to around 12.4:1 at redline.)

Without messing with the ECU you can't change the amount of fuel and air is being mixed on a N/A set-up. The intake and headers don't add any additional air to the motor. The intake air is slightly more dense because it is slightly colder but the ECU makes instantaneous adjustments to the fuel mixture to compensate for the slight increase in dense air (and thus you make more power). However, the vast majority of the gains achieved from installing an intake and/or headers are through increased efficiency.

 

The increase in exhaust flow will cause the ECU to spray more fuel instantly. The increased efficiency will cause the air to flow at a higher rate and thus fuel will be delivered at a faster rate. Nothing needs time to change. This car doesn't have a carburetor from which we need to make adjustments. They are done automatically and instantaneously by the ECU. There's no waiting period of days or a week.

If that was the case every time you drove your car at night (since the air is cooler and denser) the car would need to deliver more fuel. But if it took days or weeks to adjust to the denser air the car wouldn't run properly the next day when the air warmed up and was less dense.

 

I agree with you, up to a point. While the car does make instantaneous adjustments, it also stores information based on how you drive it. This information is used to adjust the ignition spark tables. These take several days to adjust, because the driving does change based on these mods.

 

How is driving changed based on the installation of intake/header? Because you go WOT more often? That's nonsense. The ECU is programmed to keep all it's values within a certain optimum window. It adjusts values based on variables presented. If the changes required become too drastic (i.e., too much fuel, too much timing retard) a CEL will be thrown and a code will be stored.

Ignition is also adjusted immediately to prevent detonation.

Have you actually had a chance to ever tune one of these ECU's? You can make changes immediately to ignition and fuel.

Ignition is going to be changed just as quickly and monitored just as frequently as fuel trim. If ignition wasn't changed there would be detonation and knock constantly.

The only thing that may be required with the ECU is the idle learn procedure and that's only because the position of the IAC valve is stored in the ECU's volatile memory because the position of the IAC valve is different for each car. Optimum values for ignition timing and fuel trim are stored in the hard memory of the ECU and can not be erased or re-programed. Therefore there is nothing for the ECU to "learn" because the ECU is not capable of altering the optimum values on it's own. It's just impossible. It can make changes based on variables present (IAT, manifold pressure, etc) but the adjustments are made constantly while driving and do not take any significant time to take effect. The signals can only be altered with the use of a "piggy-back" style controller.