TLkid87

Any one know when the super charger is coming out


Has any one heard that the 3rd gen TL's can not get headers

dcarlinf1

No

Yes

Hawhyen51

Comptech still working on it .....

Forget the headers .......

anitosi

oh really....so there wont be any header for the TL...so how we boost the HP ( just a litte) after we installed intake n exhaust...is the supercharge is the only option..?

D_Nyholm

Anyone else besides comptech work on these cars? What about Vortech? ATI? Anybody?? Seems strange that you will onyl have one choice for a supercharger!!!

Just get Nitrous!!!

ou sig

3rd gen headers are welded on... haha, but the car is pretty damn fast already so dont worry too much

aw1

as stated above, the headers are welded on and is located in the back of the engine.

give it some time, someone will develope one eventually.

xelvic

If they are welded on how would anyone make a set for us? We would have to cut ours off and then weld another aftermarket one on. I'm game for it but I don't think the aftermarket will touch our headers. I think this because people won't want to spend the money on so much labor. Has there ever been an aftermarket header for headers that are welded on for any car?

aw1

well i never heard of any manufacturer ever welding the headers to the engine...

aw1

http://www.comptechusa.com/store/exh_tl.html

Found this by doing a search... Do they actually have this???

aw1

https://acurazine.com/forums/showthr...hlight=headers


additional info...

aw1

sorry, please ignore my third post. it was for the catback exhaust.



http://www.comptechusa.com/store/exh_tl.html

Found this by doing a search... Do they actually have this???

AcuraTL2k4

There was a article in this months Honda Tuning. I read it at BN. They hooked up a TL and did a 12 hr race. It came in 3rd overall and first in its class. I forget the name of the company but they make a custom header for the TL.

The reason why they welded the headers on is because they could shave off some weight. I think it saved like 30 lbs. I would take those extra 30lbs if we could install headers. Plus who cares about an extra 30lbs when our car is about 3500.

ou sig

Im sure there is a reason other than just shaving weight...but I dont know what it is. I thought the stock TL manafold/header is pretty good, much better flowing than most stock exhaust manafolds.

k6biv

Hello:

According to Comptech they will NOT make headers for the 04TL cause the car is a "Ultra low emision" car. The Air Quality folks show up at Comptech and they have always past the tests. They told me they would not make anything that would lessen the EPA emision rating. I was also told the reason the TL is Ultra low is that it has 3 cats. Two are attached very close to the heads and heat up very quickly which is one of the reasons for the low emisions.

They do make a Cat Back and they are working on the Super Charger...

Tim

crazymjb

What aobut Turbo(sorryif i missed this). Would that be possible to do with this type of exaust system?

Prolanman

The exhaust manifold is part of the head. It is not actually welded to the head.

ONAGER

the headers arent welded on, they are cast as part of the head... so there will be no removel with out extensive work. and there not really heards per say there more like an exaust manifold (a big blocky one at that). this serves a few functions, it is lighter. but most important, it allows the cats to be placed very close to the heads for quick cat light off... this allow them to reach operating temp very quickly and reduces emmision.... most emmissions happen on start up, the faster the cats warm up the better to clean the air.

here is a pic, sorry bout the quality



from the top



from the side

you too can see these by just lifting your hood....

that big bronze thing with the o2 sensor on top is the close coupled cat


the racing tl had "headers" but a down pipe might be a mre accurate description, or a cat delete pipe.... basically instead of the cat being bolted their, a pipe was and it routed the exaust under the car. it freed up the exaust by removing the cats.... im pretty sure prototype racing (and some one please correct me if i am wrong) are the ones who made the pipe. all though great for a race car, this would not pass emissions or inspection. if you live in a state that has neither it would be easier for you, but you would have to make some MIL (CHECK ENGINE LIGHT) eliminaters, as the check engine light will come on since the air isnt being cleaned as it should....

DaveK

Hmmm....How long are these cats designed to last. Something tells me it won't be a cheap proposition to replace those!

crazymjb

At least 105k miles, or at least thats how long till the first scheduled tune up, so it would make sence...

Boartman

Guys,
enjoy the car as it is.Want more power?Get a Corvette.

crazymjb

Corvettes dont handle as well, and cost twice as much. If there are cheap(compared to tha additional 20k for a vette) mods to stick on and give this thing some more power, why not go for it. As you can see from this site most of these acuras are not stock in one way or another(ie aspec, i know its made by acura). Apparently people like to mod these. I do agree that if you are going to be putting on a supercharger, exaust, intake, NOS, suspension, etc. you had better be using it for street racing, otherwise what are you wasting all the money on? Not to say I wouldnt do it

D_Nyholm

Corvette's don't handle well? Mmmmkay.

Allout

Yeah - Vette's struggle to hit 1G Lateral Acceleration. Wish they would figure out where the problem is

apwalsh

Yeah bro, my Tl destroys the C6 in the handling department no problem!

And the Vette can't cost twice as much as a TL and be 20K additional. Please pick one.

Casper42

The Cats arent welded to the headers if I remember right. You could replace them fairly easily.
And Replacing Cats is NEVER cheap. Catalytic Converters are made of several different precious metals which makes them expensive in any car.

subinf

obd2 cats are neverl cheap, and in california there are no aftermarket parts avaliable for import cars so you have to do to the dealer once the warranty is up. i have noticed that the cat life for most obd2 cars is just past the end of the warranty...so you have about 8 years to save up for replacements.

ayethetiense

ok, so if there are 3 cats..... if we take one oput or replace it to a free flowing one... will this release more power? id rather do that then change the actual exhaust... dont feel like spending a G for cmptech nor do i feel like having a custom one made.

i wonder how much we can free up if we take one or 2 cats off. i also wonder if it will change the tone out of the stock exhaust....

i think it would be a great thing, just replace one or two cats with a straight pipe. i know that it wouldnt be ulev anymore, but ya.....

imagine.... its like a better more efficient version of removing the intake resonator on most other cars.... better sound, more air, and cheap.

trebien

This is a 3.2 liter engine putting out 270 HP stock... there is NOT a lot of room for improvement. It's not like there's a lot of power just waiting to be found due to a poorly designed intake or a highly restrictive exhaust. It's putting out ~ 84 HP per liter in it's stock form. Without nitrous or forced induction, there's not a lot that bolt-on mods will get you with this car. If you wanted more power or more ability to modify, just about any other car would have been a better choice. Plus, it's FWD, so increased power will not do any favors for the handling. And you have to wonder how well the FWD layout and tranny will handle the power of forced induction if you decide to go that route...

This car is working to it's maximum potential from the factory. That's a good thing for most people, but a bad thing if you want to mod.

And forget gutting or removing the cats... spew all that crap into the air just to get another 5 HP or so... gimme a break.

Acura_Kid

For some it's not about finding the lost jewel, it's about squeezing out every last fraction of hp/torq just to have more than stock. Letting the engine breathe easier is the only way to achieve this without diving into the motor. NoS is currently the only feasible off-the-shelf solution for getting major hp increases. I don't know what 84p/liter works out to be, but 1.4hp/cu.in. is about the limit one can get from pump gas on normally aspirated motor. Not only does gutting a cat spew all that crud into the air, it will hurt exhaust flow.

To get full potential out of any forced induction it usually requires a larger exhaust, 2.5-3", plus real headers, better cams, fuel map changes, and better ignition. And btw, the current compression ratio is already rather high so forced induction may cause havoc with knock, but a water injector may ease that some.

Yep, the only good way to make the conversion over to a tuned header is to cut off existing and then weld on flange that can be bolted to. Unless someone is willing to go the distance with major engine mods it's not worth messing with.

You can find hi-flo cats for around $65, may not be oem direct fit, you just need to look and you'll find.

crazymjb

Sorry, I was exausurating, its not twice the price. 20k more is about minimum if you have the non navi. (havent double checked on that)

subinf

You can find hi-flo cats for around $65, may not be oem direct fit, you just need to look and you'll find.[/QUOTE]

maybe for you non california people. carb and bar and the epa and all those other emission agencies will not allow a high flow obd2 cat to be installed on an obd2 california car. the car will not pass smog. i believe in other states you can get away with doing this, but i do not believe the ends justify the means. you are removing a cat that costs nearly a grand (at most) for a high flow to reduce emissions for hardly any power gains. doesnt make sense...maybe if you are tracking your car the gains (if any) might be worth it, but overall the removal of the cats is not justified. the fines in CA are steep, both for the shop and the owner, its not that hard to do yourself if you have the equipment, but i feel the entire process is not worth the investment both in time and labor.

ONAGER

there is more to be had, im not saying it will be easy. many manufacturs are pushing this barrier every day, look at the ferrarri, 360 and 430, bmw m3, and our little brother the s2000, it had 120hp per liter stock in the 03 model. but their is power to be had without opening the motor up and without NOS

our exaust although not the best is very good, look at the computech exaust it only adds about 7 hp (and from what most people say that being generous), which means from the cats back, the exaust is pretty good. real headers? ill get to that in a minute. better cams? the tl cams in vtec are fairly aggressive, thats the point of vtec, you have a mild cam for down low, and a racing hipo cam when you rev it out..... also the fuel map and ignition are about dead on from the factory, from the dynos i have seen the computer only cuts timing on top end and lowers the power up top. up 6200 rpm its good to go from the factory. i will agree that forced induction at our compression 11.0-1 is a tricky venture.... i think thats why computech is taking there time in developing it.

now back to the header situation. a quote from honda news.... "A 900-cell per-square-inch high efficiency converter mounts directly to the exhaust port of each cylinder head for extremely rapid converter light off after the engine starts." granted they say its high efficency, but looking at the cell count per inch (900). i can tell you that its really not.... it maybe high efficency when it comes to cats, but it is a restriction when i comes to our car. not only that it mount right to the manifold off the head. this has to slow the exaust down, especially at high speeds... which is why the racing tl did away with it, they didnt care about emmisions, and high up power was more important then anything else....

a pipe in place of the clouse couple cats would add power, how much? i would venture to guess about 5-15 hp on a good day.... and all or most of this would be at the high end... it would be similar to adding short headers to a mustang.... long tube and mid length will add more power, but shorties are better then stock.


i agree that this is the only way around the header issue, but even with a header the gains wouldnt warrent the cost involved in doing this, so unless you race.... also the, pilot heads might fit the tl, or an older accord, these dont have manifold built into the heads.... just food for thought

i would never recomend cheap replacment cats for any car.... because they are just that cheap.... i have seen the media crack and break and get turned sidways in the cat and clog exaust even more, the cheap ones have a lower cell count so they dont scrub real good. and there flow is rather poor as they are not as high quality. and if they do break, its possible especially with how close coupled the stock cats are, for the engine to suck little bits of the broken cat back into the engine... that would be bad.

power to be had in the tl: and these are estamites

headers/downpipe........10......as a rough guess
intake such as aem........8......aem is claiming 16 on top end, ill wait till i see it
exaust computech..........8.......again giving them the benifit of the doubt
underdrive pulley..........4-5......dont know how good these will be long term.
chip (superchip)..........10-15....not on the market yet but coming, and it will be big as the stock tl comp pulls timing at top end

taking the low end of things that could be an additional 30-40 hp waiting to be had.... but some of these parts arent out yet and the ones that are, are expensive....

again these are estamites of what the car maybe capable of....

chusteveb

Any guess as to the power gains from Comptechs SC?

ONAGER

from what i have seen most computech kits out the box are about 5 psi, besides that anything higher and your asking for trouble with engine detonation.

this would be good for about 50-65hp on a stock car... you might get a little more as computech includes there ice man intake with most supercharger kits. what im waiting to see is if computech includes a chip. tuning is the most important aspect of a supercharer install, especially with an engine with a 11.0-1 compression ratio... i dont think i would be real happy with having the stock computer, keeping everything together.

if you have the headers (down pipe), full exaust, undrive pullys you could add upwards of 80 hp to the car.... the downpipe and exaust get real important with forced induction. that would be about 350 crank hp and just under 300 to the wheels.... then again you have just dropped a huge chunk of change...

trebien

Having worked in the performance field for a long time - you're dreaming.

Like I stated, everything is working pretty well stock - there's not much more available without opening the motor. And you talk about higher outputs for other engines... Sure there is. But that's with forged/specialized internals and different camshafts and valvetrain components, higher redlines, etc. I doubt the "breathing" accessories on the engine would net much more than 15HP tops. Even if you have plenty of air coming into the engine, it can only do so much with the stock valvetrain inside. If there was so much more to be had with simple breathing accessories, they'd be out on the market.

chusteveb

I def agree to the issue of importance placed on tuning. Maybe AEM will come out with an EMS for our TL. Tuning aside, I wonder how much boost the bottom end will hold. I bet with such high compression not too much. Maybe Comptech is done with the SC for the TL but since they always offer upgrades to their SC, they are working on a high boost pulley, etc. Maybe they are uping the boost till the motor gives, lol, then we will know the limits of our motor.

chusteveb

I'd be happy with 270-300hp to the ground!

ONAGER

how so? im not pulling some super large #s out of the air.... look at mustangs, you can pull huge amts of additional power from "breathing" accessories as you put it..... and theres noting fancy about them... even with there stock and less capable valve train.... mustangs can pick up 30-40 hp with just headers and a full exaust, bassani makes some kick ass stuff....

now, granted our cars are nothing like a mustang, and acura has designed them pretty well from the start. BUT the had to make conssesions on many aspecs... first and foremost emissions. jlucas (hes one of the honda people responsible in putting the tl on the podium at thunderhill) has told us the stock tl exaust has 2 flow restrictions.... one at the close coupled cat, and one where the two banks meet each other.... for the tl race car they had the cat delete pipes (header). and a modified exaust. he said they picked up some decent power.... now im not going to tell you any #s but i used 10 as a ruff guess... which in my opinion isnt over the top..... especially since true header setups have shown 20-30 hp increase on other tls. there is some gain to be had there

many on the board have shown 7-8 hp increase with the injen intake, aem's dyno is showing 19.6 at its highest and 16 at peak.... and all though i would love to belive these #'s i dont, which is why i said about 8 in my previous post, or about what others are reporting for other intakes.

dynos have shown the tl pulls timing above 6200 rpm, temple of vtec noted it.... which means that with a chip and some tuning we can get some additional power. pulling the timing at top end is awful for power production. temple of vtec thinks there maybe 15+ hp hidden in there. i put 10 again as a guess.... and most cars will gain hp with a chip, many right around 10hp.... again not to far fetched if you ask me

the pulleys and exaust have both shown gains around what i have stated, wether they are worth the cost (comptech exaust, cost almost 1100) i dont know....

and yes i understand the sum of the parts is sometimes less then what they can do singularly on an untouched motor.... and since i said that these were estamites and on the low end on top of that.....

trebien

Well, a stock mustang drivetrain has a lot more room for improvement compared to a TL. The stock mustang 4.6L puts out 300HP - that's only 65HP per liter. Imagine if the TL only put out 209 HP from the factory (65HP per liter) - there would be a lot more room for improvement.

Like I said - the TL has been out a while, so the aftermarket has had plenty of time to make parts for it. Truth is, they don't because there just isn't much to be easily done - kind of like the current M3 engine - it's tweaked.

Also, consider this dilemma: Don't you think that Acura would like to do everything possible to lengthen the life of the $90K NSX that's 15 years old? It's so outclassed right now it's not even funny. But it only gets 290HP from the factory 3.2L - and you can bet your ass that the engine is maxed out, because that poor car needs every HP it can get right now to compete.

I'm not trying to piss in your cheerios, but you are expecting a few simple bolt-on breathing mods to get the engine near 100HP/liter... not going to happen. Forced induction would work, but you would need lower compression, so probably head spacers would be in order. If I know Acura, that engine bay is probably pretty tight, making a FI application hard to fit. And then you get into torque capacity of the transmissions/drivetrain/FWD/etc. This is my dilemma - I like the luxury aspect and fit/finish, but I wish it was more sporty. I don't mind modding, but this car is very difficult to mod efficiently.

Anyway - you have every right to dream and hope that it does happen - just be realistic so you're not disappointed. Good luck.