A Car Noobs Hopeful Reality: Forced Induction

[cdrazic93]

Originally Posted by Boofneenee

you are right.. many of you are right. This is why I am holding off for a few years. Ill wait for the dust to settle in regards to whats out there and this cars ability to be boosted safely. I will continue on reading and educating myself. i will join the cars and coffee and mean some peeps that can maybe show me a thing or two. One of you mentioned that maybe I should consider new suspension and brakes. I think the stock brakes are fine (although reducing unsprung weight helps with speed) but I am intrigued by suspension.

I guess I am at a point now where I dont know what else to mod for performance. I could care less about looks. Tires should also improve the fun

Suspension is a great way to get started with the nitty gritty stuff in a car. As long as you dont buy the cheap chinese stuff, have at it if you go down this path, coilovers look nice like the whole package, but dont neglect damper/spring/camber plate combos.

Use the extra few years to learn up on some of the car lingo, youll become a pseudo mechanic lol

[charged86]

Originally Posted by Boofneenee

you are right.. many of you are right. This is why I am holding off for a few years. Ill wait for the dust to settle in regards to whats out there and this cars ability to be boosted safely. I will continue on reading and educating myself. i will join the cars and coffee and mean some peeps that can maybe show me a thing or two. One of you mentioned that maybe I should consider new suspension and brakes. I think the stock brakes are fine (although reducing unsprung weight helps with speed) but I am intrigued by suspension.

I guess I am at a point now where I dont know what else to mod for performance. I could care less about looks. Tires should also improve the fun

you would be ok with a supercharger kit and a email tune or dyno tune. no more than 10psi

[Boofneenee]

this thread is like a roller coaster of emotion. You cant! you can.. grrrr..

Yea, while a turbo inspires I am leaning towards a SC. Just hate to give up the OFT for ECUtek because I am so comfortable with it and understand it so well. Who knows,, down the road when I am ready to pull the trigger their may be more solutions.

thanks though

[Model Citizen]

how do you drive?

driving style will impact the longevity of your car, especially if boosted.

if you're the kind of person that mostly just dailys and occasionally like to feel the power you will chances are see less issues than the person that floors it everywhere all the time because race car.

Judging by your use of complete sentences and words i'm leaning toward the first category.

[Squishy]

Best advice I can give noting this important piece of information "Over time I expect to burn through more money but I hope not to."

You should stop while you are ahead. The road never ends on spending so if this will affect your choice then know that any FI does not end with just the kit.

The kit will make many things about the car evident in how they are insufficient. Even with a S/C I have found that the clutch is at the edge and does slip now. You will find the brakes must be improved, you will have to improve the cooling for the oil if you even think about anything aside from street driving. You will burn through tires more as you have more fun with the power.

If you are so easily worried then know that you will likely end up saving yourself lots of money and time by just stopping where you are and learn to be satisfied with the car as the package it is.

The grass is always greener on the other side until you get there and see the cons of more power. More parts break. Will it tempt you more and get more tickets on the street? If you keep it off the street then you will see you will spend more money on the track. This never changes in our passion of going fast. Being fast is a whole different thing and $$$ as well.

[Boofneenee]

Originally Posted by Model Citizen

how do you drive?

driving style will impact the longevity of your car, especially if boosted.

if you're the kind of person that mostly just dailys and occasionally like to feel the power you will chances are see less issues than the person that floors it everywhere all the time because race car.

Judging by your use of complete sentences and words i'm leaning toward the first category.

While I opened this thread requested information to benefit my decision making I am trying for it now to be "all about me". I appreciate this post and perhaps others will as well. I do drive like a baby. Never tracked it and never will. I red line maybe.. just maybe once a day because hell, that's where the power is and that's how it was supposed to be driven. With FI I will continue to baby the car. I believe you are right that how you drive it has very much to do with any problems that will surface and longevity of the car.

Regardless of all the caution signs here I am still very much intrigued with the process of going FI. I love projects but I am terrified of problems that will arise.

I still have some conflicting recommendations on oil coolers and catch cans. From my understanding, they are necessary if a person is to fall under the 2nd category as you describe above. I guess my temperature gauge, once FI, will be an indicator as to the need for an oil cooler.

[charged86]

Originally Posted by Boofneenee

this thread is like a roller coaster of emotion. You cant! you can.. grrrr..

Yea, while a turbo inspires I am leaning towards a SC. Just hate to give up the OFT for ECUtek because I am so comfortable with it and understand it so well. Who knows,, down the road when I am ready to pull the trigger their may be more solutions.

thanks though

you and you buddies could definately pull off a innovate system and email tune. Id do that.

[Model Citizen]

Originally Posted by Boofneenee

While I opened this thread requested information to benefit my decision making I am trying for it now to be "all about me". I appreciate this post and perhaps others will as well. I do drive like a baby. Never tracked it and never will. I red line maybe.. just maybe once a day because hell, that's where the power is and that's how it was supposed to be driven. With FI I will continue to baby the car. I believe you are right that how you drive it has very much to do with any problems that will surface and longevity of the car.

Regardless of all the caution signs here I am still very much intrigued with the process of going FI. I love projects but I am terrified of problems that will arise.

I still have some conflicting recommendations on oil coolers and catch cans. From my understanding, they are necessary if a person is to fall under the 2nd category as you describe above. I guess my temperature gauge, once FI, will be an indicator as to the need for an oil cooler.

We're in new england, as such we benefit from not having much more than a handful of "hot" days to deal with.

My catch can is a vta one made from a can of nair, zip tie mounted to a bookend under the battery. I have maybe $20 invested in it. Prior to that i had made a recirculating one of pvc. However it did not handle hot day autox well and cavitated. You should have a catch can. You do not have to spend $300+ on one.

My oil cooler is an 08+ sti sandwich plate (tab needs to be cut off base) that i got cheap on ebay and gave about a week of ultrasonic cleaning. Its fed through a couple custom t fittings in my radiator hoses (i bought new perrin ones to cut up). Before the hose cost i was around $100 deep.

I like the oe sandwich plate design for a new england non race use oil cooler.

Daily driving it warms the oil faster and provides a noticable difference to recovery times. its also perfect for autox with my oil temps typically hitting 235-40 during a run and quickly recovering to the 212 range in paddock. It is a bit weak for track use, but makes enough of a difference that i have no issue keeping it on the car long as it is only 20-30 minute sessions being run. In heavy use running the heat on full with vents out the window does make a noticable difference with temperatures seen.

The other advantage to the oe type oil cooling is that oil stays in the plate. Hoses are only uses for coolant. I'll take spraying coolant over spraying oil any day of the week. Ive seen firsthand 3 air oilcoolers leak (fitting tightness or hose off) on these cars alone since the spring.

I'm still on my stock clutch.

On legal roads i drive slow and sane unless the power is needed for getting out of the way (merging, etc). On a course i drive as hard as i am capable of doing for the given conditions.


Anyway point is the ancilary items to going fi don't necessarily have to cost an arm and a leg. Personally i think a $400 dual catch can set up is silly for anything other than astetics, and a $600 oil cooler in new england is complete overkill on a street car let alone the extra points of failure an air-oil cooler introduces.

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by Boofneenee

this thread is like a roller coaster of emotion. You cant! you can.. grrrr..

Yea, while a turbo inspires I am leaning towards a SC. Just hate to give up the OFT for ECUtek because I am so comfortable with it and understand it so well. Who knows,, down the road when I am ready to pull the trigger their may be more solutions.

thanks though

If you get the Jackson Racing Supercharger with their tune, then you just put it on and you're ready to go. It has minimal maintenance, and the lack of issues in the owner's thread pretty much says it all.

[bakerr6]

Originally Posted by charged86

i saw the words limited mechanical knowledge and budget. Two things that don't belong in a NA to Boosted car project.

I want to add boost. Can someone tell me how to turn this damn thing on?

[Model Citizen]

Originally Posted by bakerr6

I want to add boost. Can someone tell me how to turn this damn thing on?

Turn it to 11

[nos145]

ptuning or wait for the new french turbo to hit the forum

get all the goodies that ptuning will recommend.

Save up for another year and you will be in 10k range. this puts you into safe/prof install/ full system range

[rb6freak]

Originally Posted by woode

Half the fun for most of us is working on the car, planning it out, driving it, breaking it, fixing it, etc..

Well spoken words. As much as I hate it when things break (which they do when you track your car), I do enjoy working on my car and making it better each time.

Originally Posted by Boofneenee

With FI I will continue to baby the car.

You might think that, but once you feel that boost in a twin, it is game over. I average 185 street miles on a full tank, and that is trying to be conservative.

[jflogerzi]

IMO If you want more power, but it stays strictly street, get a different car. Find a nice CPO with a V6 or factory turbo. For the street this car is plenty fast for "normal" driving with proper bolt-ons and a tune.