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Not wanting to blow up my car

7K views 31 replies 8 participants last post by  turmic 
#1 ·
I just purchased a invidia non-catted dp and AEM cai for my 2011 wrx. I already got the invidia q300 cbe on and i was wondering if i could put the dp and cai on and drive to my tuner,which is only an hour away, light highway then all 55mph and lower roads. I know the car runs wicked lean to begin with and the last thing i want to do is screw it up on the way to the tuner. He said it should be fine, just dont beat on it. I wanna know what ya'll got to say bout it...do or dont??
 
#8 ·
I'm with turmic, I'd Wait and install it when you get to your tuner. If you stayed out of boost and drove it like an old lady the whole way you'd probably be fine, but an hour is a long drive and it would only take one F-up to pop your motor. You never know what can happen you might have to get on it to merge on the freeway because some jackass won't let you in or any other number of things could happen where you slip for just a second then that's it. It's better safe then sorry!
 
#10 ·
but an hour is a long drive and it would only take one F-up to pop your motor.
ok dont scare the kid. it will take a little more then one boosted run. first he has an aftermarter DP, first thing that will happen is he'll over boost and the car will boost cut and go into limp mode. thats gonna happen no matter what! whether he has the intake on or not. at that point he cant hurt it. he'd have to be in boost longer for the A/F being lean to start melting and having the pistons and rods blow out the block and thats "if" his knock sensor doesnt work and doesnt pull timing and again go into limp mode.
 
#13 ·
Just drive it to the tuner with everything installed. I drove around with TMIC, CAI, PnP Exhaust manifold and Crosspipe, COBB Turbo back exhaust, Grimmsped 3-port EBCS for about a week before I could get tuned because my first session was scrubbed.

Driving to the tuner on the highway your car is targeting stoich anyways so it doesn't really change much. Stay out of boost and you'll be 100% OK or I'll give you $100.
 
#20 ·
Well for starters this is not a naturally aspirated car, it's forced induction, the cold air the flows in will be heated instantly by the turbo. Now if you were to lower the temps, by say 30+ degrees then yeah you might see a bit of a hike in power, but I doubt any CAI can do that. Also 100's of people have made good power without one. You'd be better off spending money on a good tune, and following the same basic upgrade path that most do. Trust me you'll be happy in the long run and so will your tuner. Not trying to be an a$$hat, just trying to point you in the right direction and save you and your tuner alot of headaches.
 
#22 ·
^ it is true that PRE 2008 wrx's don't benefit much from a intake but it has been shown that the 08+ cars have a very restrictive stock air box. So it is actually not that bad of a mod, it doesn't need to be a CAI but a SRI wouldn't hurt.
 
#23 ·
Not sure about the benefit of 08 and ups, but I haven't seen proof in anyway that a CAI increases power to the point where it's be worth the effort and money to install one and the headache of tuning it. SRI in my opinion and ok, but still not worth the money that you could spend on something else. The stock air boxes on these cars can handle more than most think.
 
#24 ·
^ yeah my SRI was one of the last mods to go on my car. I ran my AVO 380 turbo off the stock box for quite awhile. As a matter of fact after I got the SRI I ran a ots map from Rallitek until I had time to get tuned, and my 1/4mi times went from high 12s to 13 flat or just above, needless to say I wasn't very happy. The main reason I even got the intake was because one of my DSM friends was always making fun of me for having all this money in my car and didn't even have a intake. After I finally got a tune I was making almost 40 more whp tho, i know that that doesn't really mean much because of how the numbers can vary on the dyno, but the butt dyno could defiantly tell the difference.
 
#29 ·
i went SRI for a minute and tuned on it when i went EWG because my setup allows me to. Tuner hated it. gotta remember even if the compressor does heat up the air to say 200 degress from bringing in air thats say 75, then change that air to 95 coming in, chances are the compressor could then be able to heat the air to 220 degress. if the fan blowing on the dyno can only help the IC cool the temp 115* then one tunes gonna be at 85* and the other will be at 105*.

im not saying this is scientific but you can get the point. we just had a hard time with temps and because im blow through we can see the temps better than a draw through MAF would. im 100% all for an intake on cars and have seen there benifits.
 
#30 ·
Again a drop of 30+ degrees will make a slight difference. Intakes have there place, just not on a car that is mostly stock. Rotated, blow thru MAF then yes, but stg.2 or even one making less than 375hp it's pointless. Oh wait :beatentod :p
 
#32 ·
The older gens are good to about 300whp on stock air box. But, you will see small improvements once you are above stage 2. More improvements once you keep moving the hp up...but nothing too drastic. I'd bet still only a 10-20 hp total jump even when you are balls to the wall.
 
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