difference between intakes

[[ChaosweaveR]]

Originally Posted by MilzyZ34

It's not a real high hp mod, i would hope mine would yield more hp than that, but it's definately not a lot. I think for most people, they're just happy with the sound more than anything. as for power, it's hard to beat the gain/$ you get from a good pcm tune.

To me, you need to have the three basic bolt ons before stepping up to a PCM tune:

Headers
Exhaust
Intake

With all that in place, you'll need to mess with the fuel mapping, AFR, etc to maximize the most out of the increased airflow coming in and exiting the engine.

[kzulfic]

Hmmm... Has one ever been put into a GA, and how hard are they to come buy? Also would it be worth it, or just shoot for the F40?

Do you have an idea of the PCM tune gain on a stock motor with exhaust, and intake. Just curious what one could expect. Also how many degrees advanced is the timming in your PCM tune?

[MilzyZ34]

Originally Posted by [ChaosweaveR]

To me, you need to have the three basic bolt ons before stepping up to a PCM tune:

Headers
Exhaust
Intake

With all that in place, you'll need to mess with the fuel mapping, AFR, etc to maximize the most out of the increased airflow coming in and exiting the engine.

The MAF meter measures the increase in airflow, and adds fuel accordingly. I'll agree that any car, even stock ones for that matter can see a gain in both efficiency and power from doing an air-fuel tune, but we only pretty much do this on a dyno though because it's just too risky to send out pcm's to people without having all the facts on how the car is running currently. Atmospheric conditions, fuel composition (which varies region to region and also season to season), the condition of the engine and its sensors, and other factors all contribute to a vehicle's afr. Without having wideband data on the car, it would be impossible to predict the car's actual current afr, so we pretty much only do this type of tuning in house on a dyno or do a wideband street tune, or we can also do tuning over the internet if the customer is at the dyno and has hptuners. So that being said, yes a dynotune would be beneficial for everyone, but our standard pcm tune can also yield very good results without even touching afr. I've written pcm's for 3400's for about 8 years now, and have really dialed in the tune we do for these cars. We advertize a gain of about 10-15whp with our pcm tune. Generally speaking in terms of 3100 and 3400 cars, the older the car, the more conservative the tune, and the more power to be gained. Some cars like say the early malibu's have extremely conservative settings, and we can really wake them up. No matter what vehicle you have, there is always gain to be had in tuning the pcm, even if it is completey stock. there are settings in the pcm of most 3400's where torque output is limited to 208 ft-lbs, and if you go over it, it starts reducing timing to limit engine output. The more you go over this amount, the harsher the torque reducing punishment. Before we knew about this problem, back in 2005 when we had just started making cams and utting them in cars, we found that some of the 200+ whp cars would run into an issue, and would lose amost 100whp when this kicked in. For $100, we add atleast 10-15hp by adjusting the timing, we tighten up all the shifting, make the downshifts more aggressive, raise up-shift speeds to around 6000rpm, change fan settings to keep the engine running cooler in conjunction with a 180 t-stat, change ac settings to disengage the compressor when you drive more aggressviely, freeing up hp, remove some of the abuse settings which limit power from a dead-start, etc. The end result is a much more responsive car that honestly should have came that way from the factory.

[MilzyZ34]

Originally Posted by kzulfic

Hmmm... Has one ever been put into a GA, and how hard are they to come buy? Also would it be worth it, or just shoot for the F40?

Do you have an idea of the PCM tune gain on a stock motor with exhaust, and intake. Just curious what one could expect. Also how many degrees advanced is the timming in your PCM tune?

timing advance increase depends on the year, model, etc. it's also a whole table, so it's not real easy to generalize, but at wot, getting into the meat of the hp powerband, it's around +3 degrees for your car. older cars and malibus may see 5+ degrees more than stock

[[ChaosweaveR]]

A PCM tune does make a world of a difference, especially considering how conservative these cars are programmed from GM. Honestly, I sometimes wish I had the cash and slapped down for some S&S headers and a cam. Hell, a tune with a cam is a nice bump in HP and torque, makes it feel like a different car. But I just couldn't justify paying +$750 on used headers and redoing my entire exhaust to get the most out of the headers. That's just me, though.

[kzulfic]

Originally Posted by [ChaosweaveR]

A PCM tune does make a world of a difference, especially considering how conservative these cars are programmed from GM. Honestly, I sometimes wish I had the cash and slapped down for some S&S headers and a cam. Hell, a tune with a cam is a nice bump in HP and torque, makes it feel like a different car. But I just couldn't justify paying +$750 on used headers and redoing my entire exhaust to get the most out of the headers. That's just me, though.

Don't forget heads, you might as well not do the cam if you're going to skimp on the head work.

Mike, sorry I did mean WOT.

[MilzyZ34]

Originally Posted by kzulfic

Don't forget heads, you might as well not do the cam if you're going to skimp on the head work.

Mike, sorry I did mean WOT.

amen

[kzulfic]

So, what would the price be for a dyno tune if I drove down to you?

[MilzyZ34]

Originally Posted by kzulfic

So, what would the price be for a dyno tune if I drove down to you?

We charge $500 for the dynotune, which includes a custom pcm tune, and gets you 2 hrs of dyno time with wideband air-fuel tuning. it's basically paying for a custom pcm, renting the dyno for $100/hr, and paying me $75/hr to tune it.

[kzulfic]

Thats not bad for everything you're offering. If possible I would like to learn somthing about tuning, so if I can closely watch, and ask a few questions that would be great.

I can fix, repair, remove, and install anything, but when it comes to tuning I am a beginner. I have been reading alot, but untill i get some hands on time, in my eyes I know nothing.

[MilzyZ34]

Originally Posted by kzulfic

Thats not bad for everything you're offering. If possible I would like to learn somthing about tuning, so if I can closely watch, and ask a few questions that would be great.

I can fix, repair, remove, and install anything, but when it comes to tuning I am a beginner. I have been reading alot, but untill i get some hands on time, in my eyes I know nothing.

that's fine with me.

[kzulfic]

Originally Posted by MilzyZ34

that's fine with me.

Haha, exciting. I'm shooting for late spring, I don't want to spend the money on a tune, and then add something, and do it all over again. Though it would be more learnig experince, just an expensive one.

[MercenaryX2]

I've been tuning imports, primarily Mitsu's and Scubies, for a few years now and I can personally say a tune on a stock ECU/PCM is a great benefit. The AFR maps are so poorly mapped and dump too much fuel in to prevent knocking. You can tune it to get better fuel mileage by just doing a mild tune.

Nevertheless, this is off topic. As for a CAI, the one drawback I've found is that there is no spot on the Egay kit, atleast for mine, for the crankcase vent and IAT sensor. It only came with pre-MAF piping, mounting kit and a filter that will probably give my motor AIDS. So I'd have to fab up a pipe between the MAF and TB to hold my IAT and crankcase vent pipe. So I understand what Mike is talking about because I understand how much a misreading on a MAF can do to the fueling, especially when it comes to forced induction.

So for now, I have to settle with the stock rubber piping between the TB and MAF.

@Mike, I have a question about your CAI. If I'm reading it right, the outside is rigid for flexibility but the inside is smooth like metal piping, correct?

[locoman99]

Something else you dont get with your cheap ebay parts chris is personal customer service.just last year i screwed up an order from milzy and had it being sent to the wrong address Mike caught it and fixed the order while keeping in touch the whole time.
Milzy is a quality operation...u get what u pay for, that includes customer service.

On another note...i seen some good pics of the f40 swap you did for sleepyalero...all i can say is wow. I want a set of your mounts! Beautiful work.

[sleepyalero]

Originally Posted by locoman99

Something else you dont get with your cheap ebay parts chris is personal customer service.just last year i screwed up an order from milzy and had it being sent to the wrong address Mike caught it and fixed the order while keeping in touch the whole time.
Milzy is a quality operation...u get what u pay for, that includes customer service.

On another note...i seen some good pics of the f40 swap you did for sleepyalero...all i can say is wow. I want a set of your mounts! Beautiful work.

It sure is fun to drive. 2nd Alero out there with the F40. Only 2 out there so far. Mfuller has the first.

[[ChaosweaveR]]

Originally Posted by locoman99

Something else you dont get with your cheap ebay parts chris is personal customer service.just last year i screwed up an order from milzy and had it being sent to the wrong address Mike caught it and fixed the order while keeping in touch the whole time.
Milzy is a quality operation...u get what u pay for, that includes customer service.

On another note...i seen some good pics of the f40 swap you did for sleepyalero...all i can say is wow. I want a set of your mounts! Beautiful work.

If you actually payed attention to what I posted, I bought it used from somebody off of GAOC. I never bought it from eBay.

[sleepyalero]

I need to get me some popcorn for this.

[MilzyZ34]

Originally Posted by MercenaryX2

I've been tuning imports, primarily Mitsu's and Scubies, for a few years now and I can personally say a tune on a stock ECU/PCM is a great benefit. The AFR maps are so poorly mapped and dump too much fuel in to prevent knocking. You can tune it to get better fuel mileage by just doing a mild tune.

Nevertheless, this is off topic. As for a CAI, the one drawback I've found is that there is no spot on the Egay kit, atleast for mine, for the crankcase vent and IAT sensor. It only came with pre-MAF piping, mounting kit and a filter that will probably give my motor AIDS. So I'd have to fab up a pipe between the MAF and TB to hold my IAT and crankcase vent pipe. So I understand what Mike is talking about because I understand how much a misreading on a MAF can do to the fueling, especially when it comes to forced induction.

So for now, I have to settle with the stock rubber piping between the TB and MAF.

@Mike, I have a question about your CAI. If I'm reading it right, the outside is rigid for flexibility but the inside is smooth like metal piping, correct?

yeah, the tube has a steel helix as it's skeleton (think big thin spring), which keeps it pretty rigid, but very flexible without binding, the inside is very smooth, and corrugation is barely noticeable inside.

I should say that our cold air intake for the grand am also attaches to the MAF, and does not replace the tubing between the MAF and throttle body. why do we do this? a few reasons ... 1) it's not really much of a restriction 2) to add ports for the IAT and pcv tube properly with our setup would mean getting a custom coupler made like the ones we do for the 3800 that have an IAT port built in. These couplers cost about $50 or so though, so this would only add more expense to the cai we offer for the grand am. with the extra tubing, clamps, custom coupler, etc, probably going to cost atleast $200, and I don't see that being a product that would sell well. 3) ideally the MAF should be in a 2-3 ft section of straight pipe, right in the middle, so that flow is consitent in the MAF tube, but in the stock setup, it's attached right to the airbox and followed by a curved tube about 6-8 inches long. What this means is that the flow through the MAF is not consistent, therefor to match the tune in the pcm, the MAF has to be clocked at a certain angle. This is probably hard to understand, so think about it this way ... ideally with the MAF in the long straight pipe, the peak of the airflow would be right in the center of the tube, but in a curved tube, this peak is not in the center, it's offset along the axis of the curve, between center and the outside edge of the tube. If you had a constant airflow through the length of the tube, and twisted the MAF, you would see the flow numbers go up and down as you twist it, eventhough the actual flow rate hasn't changed. So to avoid issues with the MAF being slightly misaligned, we leave the tube in place, which is keyed for the MAF and for the throttle body, locking their relative position.

[AleroB888]

Originally Posted by MilzyZ34

yeah, the tube has a steel helix as it's skeleton (think big thin spring), which keeps it pretty rigid, but very flexible without binding, the inside is very smooth, and corrugation is barely noticeable inside.

I should say that our cold air intake for the grand am also attaches to the MAF, and does not replace the tubing between the MAF and throttle body. why do we do this? a few reasons ... 1) it's not really much of a restriction

I have found that to be correct as well, it's not that much of a bend, and much of it is smooth anyway. Of course, it would not do as well for a blow-through situation.

Originally Posted by MilzyZ34

If you had a constant airflow through the length of the tube, and twisted the MAF, you would see the flow numbers go up and down as you twist it, even though the actual flow rate hasn't changed.

I don't follow you there, are the "flow numbers" measured external and independent of the PCM? What are those parameters, if they are not the flow rate -- pressure change?

[MilzyZ34]

Originally Posted by AleroB888

I have found that to be correct as well, it's not that much of a bend, and much of it is smooth anyway. Of course, it would not do as well for a blow-through situation.



I don't follow you there, are the "flow numbers" measured external and independent of the PCM? What are those parameters, if they are not the flow rate -- pressure change?

for arguments sake, lets say you are flowing exactly 50 lb/min through the curved intake tube. the maf measures flow by the vibration of the sensor inside of it, which spits it out as a frequency (Hz). The pcm then assigns lb/min value of air based off the MAF freq vs MAF flow table. When you rotate the sensor in the tube, it will only read 50 lb/min at one position, any other way you clock it, it will either read high or low.