Hey everyone, I just got my first round of mods and I wanted to share what I got, why, and how it turned out.
What I got:
- American Racing Headers Long Tubes
- High Flow Cats
- RotoFab CAI
- TR7IX Plugs
- Tune for 91 octane (I live in California).
Why:
I traded in my 2013 Shelby GT500 for this car and there was very little that I missed. Power wasn't an issue, the difference seemed minor enough, however I did want more sound, drop a little weight (up front if I can), and get the car to run right on 91 octane as I was experiencing some minor knock on my crappy local gas.
How it turned out:
For now I won't say where I went to get the work done because my review is very subjective and I don't want to cause any negative feelings...
I did not get a baseline dyno. Apparently I asked for it too late, I thought this was standard practice but thats my bad for making the assumption. Given the lack of baseline dyno, I don't really know how much power I made but my gut tells me I was below average given the crappy 91 octane and VERY VERY frequent knocking, though minor, still enough to cause a significant retard and always running in the low octane table.
So based on those details above, my gut tells me I would have been below average baseline... maybe 475, not because it was a low reporting dyno but because of the crappy gas. After all is said and done, I got 530rwhp. If my guessing is right (and thats a big IF), then thats
about 55rwhp gains? and that is about in line with where I expected. I specifically asked for a
VERY VERY SAFE TUNE.
In any case, more than numbers -- how does it feel?
Sound:
The sound is phenomenal. It sounds like a banshee when I do WOT blips. I love it and have zero complaints, this landed exactly where I wanted. Great growl when I'm on it, far better than you hear on youtube and far far louder so be careful. I'm actually scared to romp on it in town now because I'm certain I'll get pulled over... Awesome. CAI woosh sounds nice too plus a little extra supercharger noise, all good.
The knocking:
Completely gone as far as I can tell, but that is only seat of the pants for now. I have an HPTuners reader and will do more diagnostics soon but I'm well pretty convinced it's running knock free. So this was my primary concern and all seems well.
Performance-Weight:
Believe it or not I can actually feel the weight loss, hopefully it's not just my imagination, but even if it is, I like it. Can't say for sure how much I dropped -- I'm crossing my fingers at maybe 50lbs off the front of the car between the Long Tubs, cats and mid-pipes.
Performance-Driveability:
This is where I may need some getting used to, or maybe something isn't running right and I'm a bit disappointed. I definitely do not "feel" any power gains, maybe even a bit of loss in low end torq and maybe some high end power? It's difficult to gauge because I rarely went WOT with the car before since I was afraid of the knocking. This may just be the first time I'm really able to feel the power of the car and its coming up a bit shorter than I hoped, whatever I'm not too worried about this -- if I don't acclimate then I'll get it dyno'd elsewhere for a second opinion.
The last thought on driveability is, I seem to have gained a hesitation when stepping on the throttle. Maybe this is from the less restrictive headers (total guess)? In any case, now when I go WOT the boost kicks in 1/4 of a second later where it used to feel instant. I wasn't expecting this and not sure if its normal.
Here's the result dyno sheet:
