if ya had money to spend which item would you get first. the intercooler or the k tune first. and what is your reason behind it.?

 

Get the hardware first. Software will be tuned later to give you the best gains. That is the theory...

 

I kindly disagree, Get Ktuner where you will feel the gain right off bat, than get the hardware. ask anyone who has ever modified cars....software is the first mod to ever be done.

 

I am on the software side of the house especially when it comes to turbo cars. Typically it is far and away the best bang for the buck and easiest to do. Last street car I built got almost 100 hp from the tune alone. Then I had to start chasing the expensive and/or time consuming stuff to swap out. All with far less gains than just the tune did for me.

If it were any order I'd go:

Tune
Downpipe (if the one from the Civic will work)
Intercooler

If you do some data logging you might find out how good/bad the stock intercooler is. I haven't gotten around to checking it yet as I don't want to be disappointed. There are always to try and improve the stock intercooler.

You really need to think about what you are trying to do holistically rather than bolting on some parts with no clear end goal in mind.

 

im not trying to go crazy stupid cause it is my daily car. i just want a lil bit more pep. i live in ny so the emmissions portion of a state inspection. machine has to get plugged into the obd. just wanna be able to keep it reliable. thats why im wondering if these 2 go hand n hand.

 

I would just go the tune then. Would likely get all you need. Can put it back to stock for the emissions testing if you need to.

 

i appreciate all the insite from everyone.

 

There is a new downpipe with catalytic converter for our car as advertised on this forum (thanks for your R&D and advertising here) that is really tempting for me, but I already did the K-Tuner and need to go to Stage 2 whenever I get the courage to hook it up to my Windows 10 image on my Mac. I will probably have someone do it, as last time it cost me over $400 to replace an ECU that didn’t need to be replaced...thanks Acura of Tempe.

What I really want are lowering springs...1.5 to 2” would be perfect. If y’all find that, please send me a super-fast message so I get them ASAP.....OK, I am being dramatic....I use that in sermons too...gets those good Lutherans to wake up and listen!

 

how do you like the k tuner is there an immediate difference in the car? is that all you have done so far on the car?

 

Thanks for your interest. I noticed an immediately a lot li. The throttle sensitivity an alert feeling . More in the morning.,

 

do you have the intercooler also or are you just using the k tuner?

 

It is my understanding that all RDX’s of Generation 3 have an intercooler below the main grille. The throttle response is more sensitive and there is no more lag for the turbo to kick in. I am amazed at how fast this transmission runs through the gears.....we have 10 of them! Stage 2 install is next. Maybe when it cools off in the Fall.

 

sorry for the confusion what i meant wad by did you upgrade the intercooler wuth the prl intercooler that is available for the car.or are you still using the stock intercooler.

 

I've read his posts because I am interested in his ktuner, and he never mentioned upgrading the intercooler.

 

OK, that makes more sense to me....no, I stayed with the stock intercooler. As I mentioned, there is a company that builds the down pipe with catalytic converter (high flow) which in my understanding will make some positive effects in the turbocharger. I confess that I am not anywhere near the knowledge of turbochargers than I am in other areas of my interest.

 

yeah i comtemplated on the whole high flow cat.i dnt want to run into issues with inspections or check engine lights for oxygen sensors it will have a change for the good for the t/c. takes away the restrictions. i hope these perfomance companies will develop a intake setup to give it some sound.

 

Does it void the factory warranty if you install an aftermarket intercooler? I am interested in the PRL Intercooler and watched a few YT videos where it’s installed on the 2018 Honda Civic SI 2.0T. Removing the front bummer clips is a PITA but the Intercooler install is straight forward (remove 4 bolts).

 

I don't really want to go down the "will it void your warranty" discussion. From a purely engineering perspective there is no downside to putting on a better intercooler. Cooling the intake charge more effectively only has positive benefits. The rub will come if you are running more boost that the intercooler can more safely allow you to do. Not to mention the stock intercooler, if like the Civic, is a piece of crap with plastic end caps.

Acura's assumption would be that the reason you dropped in the better intercooler was because you did other mods that necessitated it. That is where you might have issues. There isn't an automotive engineer that could with a straight face tell that a better intercooler somehow caused some problem with the engine.

I don't know if Acura put any temperature and pressure probes before and after the intercooler to see how effective it was. We could at least have some insight to what difference is making and if we can measure pumping losses across it as well.

 

you do have to modify aka cut( notch it) the metal beam. the actual bumper cause it will rub against the intercooler.

 

They will have to "prove" it caused an issue with the vehicle. I will guarantee you that if there is any sort of issue with the turbo or engine, you will be fighting tooth and nail to have Acura fix it with an aftermarket intercooler. They will blame it on higher IATs causing issues with the turbo/engine. Whether or not it's true, that's not on them. As much as it may suck, I don't blame them ... from their perspective, why the Hell would you expect them to replace something when you tampered with the overall system. They poured thousands of hours into engineering and you replaced it with a product that had the entire engineering prowess of, "well, it fits!" ... I wouldn't warranty something either by those standards if I was a business owner.

That being said, I have nothing against modding. I have a 2005 Pontiac GTO with supercharger, cam, heads, CAI, full exhaust + tune making near 600rwHP. Once I threw a cam + tune in there, I had absolutely no expectation for GM to give two shits about me as a consumer of theirs if the motor went out.

 

It can be an uphill battle for sure when dealing with warranty issues that the dealer or manufacturer claim are as a result of mods. Went down that road with Audi even though I never modded the car. They claimed that because there was a loss of 12v power to the ECU that I was swapping in an aftermarket ECU. Car was in the dealer 7 times because it threw a CEL quite often and usually it resulted in the car coming to a stop on the side of the road. Think how happy I was when it was -20F and the car coasts to a stop on the freeway in the middle of a snow storm with 3 young kids in the back.

Yet Audi refused to take care of the issue. I called every rep imaginable within Audi. I had bought 8 Audi cars in the 5 years prior to that and spent almost 500k with them yet I was stil being hassled that the issue was my fault. I started lemon law proceedings in the state I lived in. Call the state attorney general and Audi was still resistant to fixing my car or giving me another one as they claimed it was my fault. The state AG said take it to Audi one last time before we drop the hammer on them.

They still couldn't find the issue. They brought my car around from service and as I got in the check engine light came on again. I had never touched the car and no way I could have swapped out the ECU in 30 seconds while the car was still running. Game - set - match. Audi folded like a wet napkin and bought my car back at full price even though it was about 18 months into ownership. The miserable way they handled it up that point meant I never bought another Audi since then. I patronized the other German car companies instead. I was totally innocent and had firm ground to stand on and it was still a royal PITA.

As for mods breaking a car, of course they can. When down properly and appropriate care, the car can have a long and healthy life. Case in point is I am still driving a highly modded VW that making almost double the horsepower at the wheels than what it was originally rated at the crankshaft (without any drivetrain losses) and the torque is more than doubled. Over 170k miles, 18 years old, numerous hours at the track, autocross runs, drag strip and just generally fun driving. It still has the original ultra high performance clutch I put in it. My son is driving it now so I am not sure how long it will last in his car but for me it was flawless. I put it together with great parts and never abused it. Always gave it the maintenance it deserved and changed the oil every 5k miles or less with top grade oil. Sent the oil out for analysis and they figure the motor is still looking good.

 

Yuck. Sounds like a miserable ordeal. What kind of car was it? If it was anything S or RS, I'd presume the dealers simply assume everybody mods them and deny their warranty claims. The problem is, there are scumbags out there who do stupid sh*t to their cars, blow them up and try to pull one over on the dealers rather than being accountable for being idiots. It makes life harder for the rest of us who simply want companies to stand by their products. But, people are scumbags, not much you can do about it. I vividly remember when I used to work in a shop getting relayed a message about an angry customer who said the oil filter I put on his wife's car caused a catastrophic engine failure and Toyota wouldn't warranty even with the extended warranty because it wasn't one of their filters. He was gonna sue and he demanded we replace the engine on our dime, blah blah blah. Being the assistant manager at the time, I got delegated the responsibility (joy) so I drove to the Yoda shop to tear them a new asshole since they were literally violating the Magnuson-Moss Act (this is actually what the law was enacted for, aftermarket replacement parts ... not the assholes who think tacking on giant turbos and then blowing up their motors thinking the manufacturer still has to warranty the engine). Sat down with the head service tech and cordially asked him what was the deal with the Camry and saying the filter was at fault, ready to pounce, and the service tech gave me a confused look and responded that he never said the filter was at fault. The customer had driven the car into oblivion. There was no actual oil left in the engine and the entire internals were caked with sludge. The car overheated and the cylinder head fused to the block and when they removed the oil filter, it was completely caked. They were denying the warranty claim based on exorbitant evidence of sheer neglect on the customer's part. Car had less than 60k miles. He said he knew better than to blame a goddamn oil filter on a catastrophic engine failure of that magnitude. Cool.

Went back, called up the customer and the second I said I talked to the head service tech at the dealership he had his car at, he hung up the phone and refused to pick up again. So, scumbag wanted to pull a fast one and thought we would just replace his engine because Toyota wouldn't. In short, I hate people.

 

do you have a 2019 RDX or a 2020? i been hearing they still havent released a tune for the 2020 RDX. thats why im asking.

 

There is a tune now from Ktuner for the 2020. At least one of the ECU software numbers.

 

I'm in no rush. Not touching anything on the car until it's out of warranty. Also gives time to see if there are any transmission issues that arise from the power bump. I rummaged thru an Accord forum to see if any of them were running into problems with the AT-10 speed and stumbled across a thread arguing about an oil change causing a 5MPG drop and a bitch-fest about why the oil filter was changed at the time of the oil change when it was only Service A. I quickly realized absolutely no intelligent life lived there so I promptly left.

 

if you can, please provide a link for this tune since i been searching every where and on ktuner's website and haven't found much info.
only thing i saw was them stating they havent dyno the rdx yet to post numbers up

 

It isn't on the site yet. It is out though. They apparently can send it to you.

 

fucking penny pinchers. yeah intelligent life is gone. whats crazy is that if they didnt change the filter the guy wouldve been pissed off.