I just made the commitment on an FI installation. I have dedicated a lot of thought to my decision to go with FI.
Initially I thought of doing improvements and keeping it NA. I just did not feel that it would be enough, and the difficulty of keeping it easily smog-able were a rather large shortcoming.
It is very easy to get drunk with the idea of continually and incrementally increasing output on a stock engine. You know, just one more stick on the back of the donkey. At one point the donkey is going to sit down and go no further.
Most of my previous experience doing mods has been during a different time period. Back then it wasn't "FI", you either turbo'ed or supercharged. 10:1 was considered high compression, and no would think of "blowing" anything with that high of a ratio. Back then it was strongly suggested that 7.5:1 was an acceptable point to start. Of course back then there was no ECU's, VVT, and very few direct injection systems. Octane was not the big issue that it is today. You had leaded & unleaded fuel availability. They even had devices called "smog pumps", that were usually the first thing disconnected when tuning, for that initial boost in performance.
Jump up to today, with all the technological advances, multi-million dollar performance companies with rooms full of engineers, saying that 12:1 compression ratios are ok, and can take the boost. One even offers a warranty on their installations.
Now we go back to the initial thought process; What is it that you want to do?
- Do you want to make this car just more drivable and address it's inherent shortcomings
- Do you want to raise the power of this car to a realistic level that you think it should have come with?
- Do you want to make a track/street dominator, that will take 85% of the cars on the road?
- Do you want to make a track monster that will be the envy of everyone?
I think that if you going to do either of the first two, you should be able to get away with stock internals. Can you keep from ratcheting up your goals and expectations? It's more easily said, than done.
My intentions are this:
Increase in power commensurate with the intention of the build of this car.
Keeping it smog-able, with a minimum amount of effort.
Reliability
My plan is:
PD supercharger (more mid-range power)
Stock exhaust (not interested in noise - keeping it simple to smog)
Flex Fuel (better running for spirited driving)
Cooling system improvements, catch can (reliability)
For me the important thing is to keep boosted power at reasonable levels. You should be able to push the car, but not thrash it. Will I be able to keep from damaging the engine? I have no idea, but I certainly hope so.
There are some interesting articles on the FA20 on
http://dsportmag.com/
This is not an endorsement, just interesting reading.