Engine and Exhaust Modifications

August 26, 2006 - Painted Engine Cover

- Painted it myself, just painted the lettering silver. Looks really sharp, this is the way it should have come from the factory.

September 10, 2006 - CP-E MAFci

- Awesome intake! Large and noticeable gains (24 whp, 20 wtq). Best intake on the market for the 6s.

September 16, 2006 - Throttle Body Coolant Bypass

- It's pretty good, keeps the TB from heating the intake tube as much on extended drives.

October 26, 2006 - CP-E Engine Mount

- There is definitely a huge difference with the new mount. There is quite a bit more vibration, it is quite noticeable, but the engine now moves less and the overall operation of the car is smoother. The car also puts the power down more efficiently, with seemingly less flex in the drivetrain. Now when I lift off the gas in a lower gear the car doesn't buck as much.

May 28, 2007 - Injen Super SES Cat-Back Exhaust System

- The sound is really nice, it's deep and not extremely loud. Inside the car with the windows up it's hardly noticeable, but on the outside or with the windows open it sounds great. It looks awesome too, with the 4" tips and canister style mufflers. The fitment is perfect as well, the tips and the bumper cutouts have a very small and even clearance that it looks custom fit, I am very impressed with the quality.

May 28, 2007 - All Wheel Engineering Kartboy Exhaust Hangers

- The hangers are super stiff and allows almost zero movement in the exhaust, which is great because the exhaust wouldn't sway while driving. You can see from the small amount of clearance between the tips and the bumper cutouts that they would definitely hit with stock hangers. But since they're much stiffer than the stock hangers they don't dampen vibrations nearly as well, and a lot more vibration makes its way into the cabin.

January 28, 2008 - Cordova Motorsports Optimized Throttle Body

- This is an optimized version of the stock TB. The inside is polished, and the large horizontal shaft holding the throttle plate has been shaved down resulting in 15% more air flow area over stock. Also, at wide open throttle, the plate in the stock TB opens too much and actually begins closing. This optimized TB restores true WOT, where the plate is perfectly parallel to the air flow. The throttle response is slightly improved, and the engine now pulls harder and smoother at higher rpms. This is a great modification that shows what the stock component should have been in the first place.

March 29, 2008 - AWR Upper Transmission Mount

- This mount is stiffer than the stock mount. As with the CP-E engine mount, the car transmits power to the ground more efficiently and instantaneously, with less drivetrain flex. The vibration increase is not too much, likely because I already have the CP-E engine mount. But the sound inside the car now is amazing! The engine positively growls, it's a lot less muted than when the stock mount was in. The difference in sound alone is worth the price of the mount. This mount compliments the CP-E mount very nicely.

August 7, 2008 - Fluidampr Underdrive Crankshaft Pulley

- A crankshaft pulley designed for this car that has a 10% underdrive. It's harmonically balanced to dampen vibrations and prevent damage to the engine. It's an underdrive pulley, so it should use less power to drive the accessories and free up power to the wheels. I can't say I really feel much of a difference in performance, though I didn't expect much, it's supposedly only ~3-5 whp gain. It looks to be of very high quality though, much better than stock. The stock one was all rusty when I removed it. Though I had this and the stock one side by side, and the Fluidampr is slightly heavier than stock.

August 7, 2008 - Medieval Lightweight Aluminum Pulleys

- Aluminum pulleys lighter weight than stock. Clockwise from bottom left: alternator, power steering, water pump, and I'm not sure what that last one is. So far only the alternator pulley is installed on the car, because the others are too much of a pain to install. I might get around to installing them at a later time.

December 4, 2008 - AWR Upper Engine Mount

- This mount is stiffer than the stock mount. It's pretty much the same type of thing as the CP-E Engine Mount and AWR Transmission Mount, but this one is made of a slightly stiffer material. While the AWR Transmission Mount starts increasing vibrations around 3000 rpm and up, this mount increases vibrations right off idle. This mount rounds out the replacement of all three engine mounts on the car.

August 14, 2009 - EGR Optimization

- The EGR tube on this car blocks a large portion of an air passage in the intake manifold, which creates a restriction for the rear bank of cylinders. This restriction creates an imbalance in fuel trim between the front and rear banks of cylinders. Therefore I cut off a large portion of the EGR tube to even out the fuel trim between the cylinders.

Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: Engine and Exhaust Modifications
Page 3: Transmission Modifications
Page 4: Suspension Modifications
Page 5: Wheels and Tires
Page 6: Brake Modifications
Page 7: Exterior Modifications
Page 8: Interior Modifications