Hey guys, I'm new to this site as well as Acuras all together. I just picked my 05' tl 6spd up last Friday. I like the way it feels and it has good power stock- All that is on it is a CAI- brand unknown and a-spec quad exhaust. Like I said it has good power and feels good but to me you can never have too much power and I've been looking at the following mods and I want to know how much hp to expect with all of the mods together and if I should leave any of it alone for reliability or if it's simply not worth the money. I also don't want the car to sound like a piped civic or something off of fast and the furious.

1- I have a CAI, all I know is that it's black and I'm thinking of changing it to a V2 AEM.
2- I plan on keeping my exhaust unless there is something far more superior.
3- Pre cat deletes
4- 3rd cat delete
5- long tube j-pipe
6- hi flow converters- if they make them
7- light weight crank pulley- leaning toward stock size because like I said- I want to insure reliabilty.

Should I add anything else, leave anything alone and how much hp / seat of pants difference should I expect with all of these mods all together over stock?

 

Well, if your're doing 3 & 4, then 6 is moot. Either you've got cats or you don't.

Look here for what you might reasonably expect: https://acurazine.com/forums/showpos...97&postcount=1


Worth it? No one can answer that but you.

What's an "a-spec quad exhaust? Do you mean ATLP?

 

Thanks bearcat, I was confused on the cats, I thought precats would be before the cats, my fault! I've been doing research but I guess I'm not fimilar with the terms yet. And type-s quad exhaust.

 

Right.

Headers are cast into the block. From there, there are two primary cats, front and rear bank. These are the "pre-cats".

Then, J-pipe --> 3rd cat --> resonator --> mid-muffler --> y-pipe --> mufflers --> tips.

http://www.acuraautomotiveparts.org/...s=&view=normal

 

Ohh, and bearcat u probably know my car better than I do- I bought it from mmade! So is the type-s exhaust sufficient? I don't know what kind of cai is on her.

 

If it's a CAI, not a short intake, leave it. They all do the same thing with little to no hp gain. The only thing different between brands would be the sound it makes.

 

Don't waist your money on another intake! Why change it with something else when you have the same thing? The type-S exhause sounds good when the third cat, j pipe are added and adds some pretty good gains. I told you my thoughts on the lower pulley.....it adds power but what is going to save the lower half when the lower half takes a miss? Wait till the weather gets a little colder and see how that car changes. Acuras never had good power in the heat....thats been proven by many people on here. You racing that car with 217k on the clock? Watch that clutch!

 

Yeah, I've seen that car once or twice.

Leave the intake, just keep the filter clean.

Type-S exhuast is good. I swapped my J-Pipe, dropped the 3rd cat for a race pipe, replaced the stock resonator and deleted the mid-muffler. For hacking a stock exhaust, it sounds pretty good and the J-pipe did add a few HP.

Next step up is an after-market cat-back exhuast. Lots of choices, but you'll get a little more HP, where hacking the stock exhaust gets about 0.

Pre-cat deletes are a pretty big gain. Re-do the whole thing from the pre-cats all the way through an after-market cat-back exhaust gets you the most gains.

 

Not really , a cai is good for mids and upper rmp gains if position right aka in fender by wheel, 2. A short ram is good for lower rpm gains which works from the heat around the engine bay. At the end of the of the you'll get about 5 maybe 6hp on a short ram and about 10-20 on a properly position cai. As far as brands go their not all the same it really depends on their filter and what it is made of. Some wear faster than other and filter out dirt different but I can tell u injen makes a good cai.

 

You're going to get at most 1-2hp on any CAI. A short ram intake is going to be sucking in hot air from our engines, and will be loosing hp. This has been discussed many many times here.

 

x2.

only 1-2hp. No where near the claim of 10-20.
heck the j-pipe made 15hp

 

aright dude, but remember with a little custom work and relocation you can get more than 2

 

The "problem" is the TL/TL-S already have a pretty efficient stock intake.


http://www.hondanews.com/channels/ac...-tl-powertrain

 

The CAI is such a HP dissapointment.......In my mind it sometimes felt like it took away on hot days because the thing was sucking hot black pavement air. It makes the engine sound good when the V-tech kicked in but that is about it. Anyone who thinks you get a 10-15hp gain out of this has stayed up too late watching those infomercials!!!

 

Hey Jon, you found me! Lol. Thanks for chiming in! And don't worry, I'm not going to race her, she wasn't made for that. She has plenty of power now, I just want to mod her some and hey, the looks are done so all I can do is give her some extra horses. Like I said at the top, I don't want to do anything to sacrifice the reliability of the car, and believe me! I do watch the clutch! Where I live there are lots of hills and stop lights/ signs on hills but I'm as easy as I can be on it. I'll probably wear through breaks allot faster than usual cause I don't down shift near as much but that's ok.

Now, as far as the 2 mods that caused the most of the discussion thus far. 1- the cai. The reason I questioned changing mine out is b/c a couple of guys on here a/b their aem v1 to their aem v2 and said the v2 is noticeably better than the v1 so my thoughts were if its better than a v1 then how much better would it be than mine. As far as sound I prefer the stock so no more hp than they make I may even go back to that. Like I said at the top, I don't want it to sound modded, I know it will sound nothing like a stock tl but I want to keep it sounding like a sports sedan and not a car off of f&tf.
Now 2- is the pulley, I don't think I would even consider the underdrive because of voltage and incase of a misfire although it would be awesome for the car to turn up that much faster- that would mean vtec in that much quicker. The 1 I was considering is stock size which I don't see as to were I would gain much from it anyway but I'm new to this and going off theory and not experience so I put it out there to see what you guys thought.

 

like others have said you will not tell any difference from the various CAI out there. the 1-2hp difference is not even measurable by a dyno or a butt, its below the error threshold of a dyno.

the pulley is in no way compromising the reliability of the motor, again this has been discussed many times. engine is internally balanced. once again your only talking about freeing up and not really making additional HP and its once again immeasurable on a dyno since its such a small change and primary increase is in the low gears

 

You gain because the UR "stock" pulley is 1lbs.
the stock pulley that came on the car from Acura is 8lbs.

 

Just an FYI...

I just did the OE diameter UR crank pulley. OE (8th gen Honda sedan J35Z2) was 88.46oz, UR was 18.28oz. Almost 4.5Lbs off the rotating mass, and still stock diameter for charging, A/C, and P/S. Trust me, it works. Well.

 

Mmmm, purdy.