Bolt on questions
 

Hey everyone. This may sound like a dumb question but wanted some more insight on it.

I was talking to a mechanic teacher at a college regarding future mods I want to do including a header with a tune. He says that by doing so I'm risking reliability and could blow head gaskets or rods/pistons so if I decide to do it be prepared to replace motors or stuff always breaking.

For those of you with headers and a tune have you run into any issues? Do you think it shortens the life of the motor?

Starting to look into some preformance mods to fix the torque dip but dont want to mess around with reliability as it's both an occasional track car (open lapping, autocross, drifting) and my daily driver.

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Header isn't going to affect reliability in general. The tune can of course. Just pick a good tuner. There are several in CA and elsewhere.

Your "mechanic teacher" at college wouldn't know his arse from his elbow.

Good to know. As far as off the shelf tunes from the OFT device are the not reliable as a good tuner would be?

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I was arguing with him saying it wouldn't affect much. Hes like well you better have the money or an extra garage space when stuff starts breaking. I think if anything my hard driving will be the one to cause it. Just wanted some other opinions on it as I do want slightly more power but have it still almost as reliable as stock (mostly to fix torque dip as that's the range I typically drive in daily driving).

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They are good enough, but if you're not going to get it dyno tuned, I'd suggest EcuTek from either Delicious or CSG. I have CSG tune and it's been great! As for the motor blowing or head gaskets, unless it was tuned by FA20Club or you just have bad luck, you will be fine lol.

Your teacher does not know shit about our cars. A header+Tune is the best bang for your buck to smooth out TQ dip and give the car a nice need boost. If you plan to stay NA, IMO OFT+ plus a tune from of members to scale MAF and tweak IG timing in area if your knocking as the ECU can be aggressive. Now another alternative would be this route

ecutek+Flex Fuel+ Tune since your in CA. The OE header is decent and E85 give you the most gains.

One thing to note: OFT is re-sellable in full. ecutek only cable and dongle. License cost you will loose if you sell car.

If you decide to go with OFT, I highly recommend going with stage 2+ E85. You notice a pretty decent difference compared to stock and you'll never want to go back.

I want to play the devils advocate and side with your teacher in a few areas


In the era' he was growing up, alot of these "off the shelf" tunes or canned tunes as we called em back in the 00s, would be a rough remapping and sold to the masses, and at the very extremes of the limitations of those tunes, would a person blow up an engine or something detrimental happen.
In short, the rule of thumb was, and still currently is. A custom tune tailored to your car is best.

Now his line of though came from that era, and while oft tunes have gotten significantly better ( since the GD subaru days with uber rich access port tunes)
they are still not perfect.

the manufacturer has to tune the car for all sorts of weather, air temps, humidity, grade of gas... they account for all of that in their own "OE" tune for the car, you will be removing all that for your header and tune install


I personally knock on the bible with how good the reflash is with a header and even one step farther saying the E85 tune alone is worth it.

But I wouldnt be so quick to call your shop teacher an idiot. There was a very real time where a bad canned tune would blow motors left and right and especially in the mid 00s you where safer off choosing a custom tune.


Hell now a day Holley makes a self tuning ecu that works off the O2 sensor and its good for getting the car to the dyno/tuner to have them make a custom tune.

some guys just run with the "get it running tune" and have had no issues.

Yep, I agree with most of what @Clutch Dog is saying (this time - ;)).

I generally agree with your teacher (he must be old too - :D). For general driving and maximum reliability, leave the engine and drivetrain alone.

ol humfrz has spoke - :)