issues with full exhaust & intake...

[badbasser98]

should I be worried about reliability with a full exhaust and intake with stock ECU?

I was planning on fabbing a ram-air intake to work with my Baja hood and finish the exhaust off with Borla headers, stromung high flow and custom cat-back. I really don't want to spring for EM just to have a reliable car after this. I would go with something like the SAFC2 except that the ECU learns around it in no time...

I'm not looking for power, just some sound and an increase in economy. Am I looking in the wrong areas? :razz:

TIA,
~BB98

[Huffer]

No issues except for the rear O2 sensor - for that you can use a GP Moto spacer, or wire in a CEL eliminator.

[Svenerachi]

i'd recomend the safc2, if you haven't already check out my dyno page in the general section..
I went from 95whp untuned with all my mods installed to 124 after tuning and i've gone from 18mpg to 26mpg

you can get one cheap, i got mine for 125, and then a relatively cheap tune with a wb02 sensor shouldn't be more than an hour of tuning (80bucks?)

a little bit of an investment, but it gets your engine running the way it should be, and all you have to do is disconnect the negative battery terminal and pump the breaks, reconnect and you're good. worse thing that happens is that you're slowly being reverted to stock the more runs you make. I find that if you're just driving around normal the ecu doesn't notice anything, that its in WOT that the car starts to learn around the safc. took about 5 WOT pulls the other night for me to notice my a/f correction starting to fluctuate at idle, my sign that the ecu has taken notice of the safc.

besides, resetting the ecu gives your car time to cool down :twisted:

[rougeben83]

Any EM is really just there to optimize the stock fuel mix and make more power; nothing more, nothing less.

You can run your mods without the EM and still be happy with the performance increase. Get the little spacer for your rear 02 sensor to get the CEL to stay off and you'll be fine.

For the hood/intake idea, take a look at the graverlsports intake on RS25.com; it basically what you're describing.

You can easily replicate that by hacking up your stock box.

[badbasser98]

You can easily replicate that by hacking up your stock box.
I have a second filter box for this purpose, but it won't be a ghetto hack... :wink:

I was just worried about the car running too rich or too lean. It make no sense to buy a SAFC2 if the ECU will learn around it in a few days/weeks.

I am going to have the headers Jet-Hot coated, so this might prevent me from having to get the O2 spacer. We'll see...

[Huffer]

Coating the headers will retain heat - but it won't reduce the turbulence that the O2 sensor will pickup. You will need a CEL eliminator wire or a mechanical fix (spacer).

EM is worthless without cams, unless you enjoy resetting your ECU every 5 days.

[AJM]

Running a simple intake won't hurt your car ,although if you're worried about a little elan issue, go with cold air instead of short ram.

[redlegacygt]

with the intake going through the hoodscoope and it only being a short distance, what would happend if were to rain real heavy? i mean i know it would have to be a down-pour, but still what about things like chunck of snow?

[Chicago96GT]

with the intake going through the hoodscoope and it only being a short distance, what would happend if were to rain real heavy? i mean i know it would have to be a down-pour, but still what about things like chunck of snow? I know this isnt the same thing but with a cold air in the fender, if you hit a HUGE puddle/pond is there any way of it getting in there?

[AJM]

with the intake going through the hoodscoope and it only being a short distance, what would happend if were to rain real heavy? i mean i know it would have to be a down-pour, but still what about things like chunck of snow? I know this isnt the same thing but with a cold air in the fender, if you hit a HUGE puddle/pond is there any way of it getting in there?

Depends, if you;re that worried, get a shield, or water proof wrap etc.

Sorry to the above post, I didn't know you were considering running an intake through the hood scoop. Honestly, that just sounds like a bad idea...

[Reason]

Who says you get a CEL with the Borla headers? I never had a CEL from my header, maybe from the highflow cat.

[Huffer]

^^ some cars do Shane, some cars don't.

[Reason]

I see, so I guess I had one of the special ones :smile:

[Wiscon_Mark]

I know this isnt the same thing but with a cold air in the fender, if you hit a HUGE puddle/pond is there any way of it getting in there?

Yeah, if you submerge the filter (read, get stuck in the pond/puddle) then you could run into problems. I'd suggest completely avoiding things like that if you get a CAI. But, you would really have to water soak the filter to let water in, they do a good job with that.


with the intake going through the hoodscoope and it only being a short distance, what would happend if were to rain real heavy? i mean i know it would have to be a down-pour, but still what about things like chunck of snow?

A little hole at the bottom of the filterbox should drain anything major. You can also setup a protective screen for debris and ice chunks.

[rougeben83]

The reason for the codes on some of the cars w/ borlas was because the exhaust temp would drop too low by the point it reached the rear 02 sensor, causing a fault.

The usual fix to this problem was to either get the fix or header wrap your header (I did the later on my old borlas), or ceramic coat (my TWE's are done this way).

It really depends on the direction and amount of rain; some of the RS guys have run the hood-intake setup through rain and it was still fine (filter was a little wet though).

FWIW, the baja hood scoop does have a smaller opening and the track for the air to go through is longer than on a BD or RS hood, so the rain issue wouldn't be as bad IMO, but seriously, a regular CAI would probably do the same thing as one of these.

note that the BE's already do have a sort of ram-air setup from the factory. On my CAI intake, I just routed some pipe from the stock scoop to the cone filter.

[Svenerachi]

It make no sense to buy a SAFC2 if the ECU will learn around it in a few days/weeks...

it doesn't permenantly learn around it, once you restart the ecu, the safc2 and ecu work perfectly together

and i'm sorry i gotta disagree, rogueben, i had catback exhaust, k&n panel filter, desnorked, and lightweight crank pulley and 3 stock dyno pulls averaged no higher than 95whp. once I had them lean it out i gained 29whp just from having it tuned properly. SAE corrected i actually had 33whp gain, but i don't count that. (remember i'm in FL. conditions were 86%humidity, 103 degrees F, 12ft above sea level)

IMO, if you don't have the ecu tuned in some way for the mods you have done, then you're just wasting money and not getting what you paid for

has anyone on here modded their car without getting tuned and had a dyno pull? I'd be interested in knowing if this was just my engine in particular or if it is a subaru phenomena

[Huffer]

Subaru's run rich stock... the later ECU's run leaner so they get more power, but the MPG isn't any better (bigger car, heavier components, virtually same engine).

[Svenerachi]

i get MUCH better mpg after my tune, according to safc i'm at -2% all the time, when i hit WOT i jump to between -3-8%, then back down to 1.??% at about 5800rpms

the extra power helps too, don't have to punch it anywhere near as much as i used to

this last tank of gas lasted me a day longer than normal (3 days per tank normally)

I drive for a living, i drive from house to house all over the county inspecting insurance on people's homes, so the mpg was a very pleasant surprise