Hey guys,

Im a new owner of a 2008 Acura TL 3.2L and its bone stock, driven by and old man for only 50,000 miles in california. Im curious as to what are the best mods to do right off the bat to make the car perform better?

First I did some research and it looks like this car has 3 cats and 3 mufflers!? sounds way to restrictive to me and my state doesn't have emissions laws so my first thought for that was to get an exhaust system that would free it up to breath a little better.

Considerations:

1. I dont want the noise to be loud or unique im fine with the car being quite all im looking for is a gain in performance.
2. how much WHP can i expect to gain from one of these systems?
3. will i need a new ecu for the exhaust and are there issues with O2 sensors that i will have to deal with the car throwing codes?

any other early on mods for performance would be great. please let me know if you have suggestions, Ive only ever owned diesel trucks so im new to the car world.

Much appreciated folks!

 

modifications are very personal/subjective.
the best mods are the mods you think are the best, whichever they may be..
you are leaning towards performance, let me tell you...this is one of the hardest platforms to make power from.

your first bullet point; if you want the car to breathe better, you're going to make the car louder. ie; removing the cats will make the car louder and sound uglier...
2; not much hp can be had from freeing up the exhaust..perhaps 15whp at the most by going catless.
3; no, you dont need a new ecu or a tune because there will be no codes thrown.

plus, you have an automatic...the archaic 5 speed really saps the power out of this car.

with all that being said; there are high flowing cats available...so you dont get the ugly sound and get a little horsepower from, but not much.

all in all; you'll spend thousands to make your car sound uglier and maybe a little bit quicker.

this car shines up top, in the upper RPM range...which is a drastic change from the down low torque of diesel trucks! however, you are limited in 4th gear...because of the sucky auto tranny.

I say; you should mod if you you want to mod!

 

Save your money and keep the car well maintained; as Justin has already said, you're going to spend thousands to get virtually nothing extra in power. As for your cats, please leave them in place or replace them with high-flow cats, I value the air we breathe and by going cat-less, you'll be polluting that air more than 100 other cars combined.