[Ol'SaltyBastard]

By now, we have all read the 30hp claims from Injen regarding their newest intake design. I installed the intake on Friday and drove up to Detroit to have Dan (Godspeed) tune her up. My car is modified, so this is NOT the same test that Injen conducted. Here are my mods:

Autospeed Turbo back exhaust (Catted)
XX-Tuning Header and up pipe
Perrin lightweight crank pulley
UTEC


93 octane was used and max boost was set at 19psi. Dynapack AWD dyno was what we strapped it to.

290 hp
324 lb/ft


According to Dan, these numbers are pretty much what you would see, even without the intake. He also went on to state that tuning out the infamous "UTEC stumble" was a bit more difficult with this particular intake.

My personal notes are this: Intake is well made, as you would expect coming from Injen. All necessary parts are included. If you are a beginner, the instructions are not good. Install was a snap, as I have done this stuff before. I removed an Apex'i WAI from my car and installed the Injen. From that point on, my car ran like crap!! The ride to Detroit was miserable, as the backfiring and extreme hesitation were in full force. My car was previously road tuned with the WAI, and had some slight pinging up top. I would say that if you plan on putting one on your TUNED ride, you will want to hold off until the last minute prior to a retune. Also, I must mention that my idle is out of wack. The car is on the verge of stalling at red lights. I will reset the computer this morning, and ensure that the one grounding wire that I had to move has a good ground.

The intake is louder than stock, but more quiet than a WAI. This is about perfect for me, so I will keep it in for the time being. I personally think the 30hp over stock claims made by Injen are incorrect. Again, I did not perform the same test as they have, but I would have to believe that if something can improve stock by 30hp then with other supporting mods, it should do pretty close to the same thing. I say this because I am about 40hp over stock right now, and I don't believe that the intake is the source of 30 of those.

I hope some will find this info useful.

[evilSTi7]

what were your numbers before the intake

[sachin]

Well the thing is you can't just expect HP to add up like that. How a mod affects a stock car is very different than how a mod affects an already modified car. At around 300whp you're reaching the flow capacity of the turbo and it becomes a bottleneck. Personally I would never put an intake on my car unless I absolutely had to(either due to a rotated turbo setup(which I would even consider not doing simply because of the headaches involved in *properly* tuning for an intake)). The way most intakes make power is by tricking the ECU that there is less air flowing through the intake than there actually is. If the ECU can't meter air accurately and is trying to make corrections off of incorrect information you run into a plethora of issues. The readings the ECU takes from the MAF(mass air flow) sensor are used in so many of the ECU's decisions that to mess with the readings the sensor is taking by putting the sensor in a larger tube(so that more air slips by unmetered) is very dangerous.

I'm not suprised at all your car reacted the way it did to the intake--the intakes that actually see HP gains do so by tricking the ECU--it works, its just the more power you want to make using this method the more dangerous it gets.

It's also good to note that by tuning for an intake you are effectively "tuning out" the way the intake expects to make more power(by fooling the ECU) and opt instead for the safer tuning philosophy of working with the ECU(not against it) to provide safe power instead of tricking the ECU to provide unsafe power. So you're cancelling out the gains. When you tune for an intake you effectively go back and adjust the values of all the corrections the ECU makes because of the inaccurate MAF sensor reading--and there are a lot of adjustments to be made that your tuner will probably overlook simply because its simply too time consuming to go back and adjust the values when the car will *usually* run fine with him not addressing the issues because the ECU is smart enough to make the necessary corrections when something bad happens( however now that we've given it a smart enough to not make the mistakes in the first place. After all, how could it be? We gave it a lobotomy when we replaced the intake.

Technically speaking you could wire a resistor in to your MAF sensor for $0.40 and make just as much power on an untuned car as any intake on the market. I don't see why people don't just do that instead of buying an intake...the larger tube is the operative equivalent to a resistor. Oh wait--I remember. It's because its dangerous and intake marketing is misleading. Shops that build and sell intakes are trying to convince you that you're making more power by using a more efficient filter at the end of your intake tube instead of letting you know the truth(on a side note, even tubes of the same inside diameter will give different readings for the same flow of air because of turbulence). It's true that you're probably making a little more power because of the assumed improved filter design--but its most likely negligible at best. The stock filter is simply not a restriction until you start making a lot of power.

This all leads to me to my last point--as a passive bystander I can only hope that Injen isn't delivering on its claim. If their intake really did make 30whp on a stock STi it would probably be incredibly dangerous to run. I'd prefer to see a disappointed consumer feeling cheated that their intake didn't make 30whp than I would seeing a consumer who bought an intake that made 30whp by putting the motor in serious danger of failure.

Sorry for the threadjack....just needed to vent on aftermarket intakes.

[sachin]

Originally Posted by evilSTi7

what were your numbers before the intake

By the way, thanks for the inspiration for the sig.

[evilSTi7]

hahaha, thats awesome. way to kick it up a notch

[normansti]

im from detroit and im wondering where is dan(godspeed) I want to take my car there and dyno also.

[Ol'SaltyBastard]

No numbers before the intake was installed. Since he charges by the hour, I saw no need to pay someone to do something I am perfectly capable of doing myself. As I stated before, this is not a scientific test, just my results. I am aware that the stock turbo is the bottleneck in the system, and for the time being, it's gonna stay that way.

Godspeed is located in Novi, Northwest Detroit.


www.godspeedinc.com