New ts.... making plans
 

So I picked up a ts a week ago.

Been doing a lot of research. Since wheels/suspensions/aero are pretty much all set for a while, I’m looking at power.


From everything I’ve seen, I’m planning on doing the open flash tablet and headers. Seems to be a great price/fit for my needs.

Is it worth bothering with a snorkel and intake?
I’ve seen it both ways on that so not exactly sure.

Seems like the rest of the exhaust isn’t really worth even touching. I don’t want to make the car louder at all. Just more powers - and get rid of the torque dip

Aside from the exhaust set up you've decided on, just throw a drop in panel for the intake and you're set. The oem already has a snorkle.

I've been doing a bunch of research myself, mostly on these forums though, and it has revealed to me that if you want your car to remain NA, you're going to have a very hard time trying to find more power if you lack E85 access.

Especially on the 2017+ cars, which the tS is, it seems that headers now don't even do that much.

How and what you mod is entirely dependent on budget, goals, and car usage/expectations.

If you just want bang for buck then OFT plus punching out OEM cats. 350$ for used OFT, OEM header is free for about 10% more power. However NA gains are very limited and hard to come by and you will leave a lot on the table and lot to be desired.
ACE, PTuning, JDL. Top 3 headers in that order. Also coincidentally listed most expensive to least expensive. So you get what you pay for. But you will want a custom tune with those as well.
Expect about 20% gains from ace, 18% PTuning, 16% JDL cheaper headers like Tomei/gruppe-s will get you about 10-12% basically same as catless OEM.
Take off about 2% for all the gains if done on a 17+ MT

Then Removing cat from FP regardless OEM or aftermarket is about 1-2% more once those have been done a catback will add another 1%.

Volume is largely dependent on cats vs no cats, and the catback/mufflers, resonators more effect tone/drone. Some catbacks add little to no volume but clean up the tone/drone and sound.

E85 adds about 6% on top of everything. Highly recommended if access allows. If not Crawford billet blocks is the “poor mans” E85 for roughly a 2-3% gain. But not recommended to use both one or other.

Drop in filter adds about 1%, CAI adds about 2% but most will need to have MAF scaled, Grimmspeed CAI is most recommended as it offers good flow with very similar to OEM maf scaling.

Next on the list is FD swap 17+ MTs have a 4.3FD so the benefits will be less pronounced compared to the 4.1FDs. But for NA it will make all gears but especially 4th and 5th will pull noticeably harder.

Weight reduction is also highly recommended. Another benefit to doing an entire aftermarket headerback exhaust easily drop 15lbs, 35lbs removing trunk junk, 12-25lbs for lightweight battery, rear seat delete is another 34lbs although I made my own kit to clean the look up so added 8lbs back in but provided more noise reduction then stock seats. First 100lbs is pretty cheap and easy. The rest either costs a lot “Carbon fiber” or takes away from daily driving comforts.

Or just get a turbo kit plus tune for about 4k$ install yourself. And have the best bang for buck power to cost ratio and easily make 250whp on 7psi and have almost oem reliability.

mmmm I don't think you can just blanket % gains like that.

I can confirm, fbo and e85 and weight reduction makes the car as fast as a stock type R :)

Just leave it as is and drive it for awhile.

Really? Can you please elaborate it? I was looking for an ACE header, but this changes things...

Still go for it, because you will still get gains. Don't let what I say sway your decisions, but the 2017+ cars are known as more efficient and the biggest change in feel is due to the Final Drive.

It's just most of the reading on here seems to be that any gains made for an NA car is very small and pretty unnoticeable unless you're spending a LOT of $$$.

I'm not sure what you mean but the engines for all intents and purposes between MY17+ and MY16- are very similar in regards for tuning, if not identical in regards to overall gains.

OUT OF THE FACTORY the MY17+ refreshes are "as good as they get", with with OEM equipment. They're a little bit better than MY16- when comparing stock engine performance, so that "narrows" the difference in gains from stock to aftermarket tune. However, when you tune them the baseline is going to be effectively the same. The ACE header is going to be no less effective on an MY17+ than an MY16-.

The net result is you get less "improvement" over the stock form because the "end result" of power ends up at the same level. While you won't see as much "of a gain" from stock, it just means you just have less of a gap to close from baseline.

Sure you can.
Firstly I said “about” meaning roughly. Sure one person might get 15% and another 17% on same setup. But they would have the same percentage difference on different setups. Every dyno, dyno calibration, weather conditions etc... vary drastically. So It’s more Important to look at % differences rather then generic WHP numbers with no reference. Especially when people say I have these mods and made 200whp but have no baseline or % increase to references. Or they do have a baseline but it was like 175whp for a 25whp but that’s only a 14.5% increase. Or another person baselined 155whp and now makes 180whp. Same 25whp increase but a 16.5% difference. The same setup on the first dyno would have then made 204whp. So all you should compare is percentage differences. And those “blanket” % are relatively accurate in both expected gains but more Importantly the expected gain difference between each header/setup.

Also the data and dynos are posted all over the forums. Not very difficult to find out this information yourself. And it’s much easier when comparing setups to just use blanket statements instead of writing out a 10page analysis on exactly
How much more or less power a setup makes and at every 100rpm interval and entire % increase averaged out of powerband etc. much simpler to say this will give 20% this will give 16%. Maybe it’ll actually give 18% and 14% but the point is one makes x% more then the other regardless of the actual number.

17+ MTs have 5more hp, that increase is split between manifold, header, and tune. Exactly how much of it is specifically from the header i am not sure anyone knows. Even assuming 100% was from the header that is only a 5hp increase. If a header/tune normally gave say 20hp on pre 17s, it would now only give 15hp instead as the starting point is higher but the end result is the same. So a smaller percentage increase. But still a substantial increase none the less.

are we talking FK8 or DC2?

The fk8 man!