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If you want to read about the worst that can happen, scroll down to the "Clutch project" thread, which described my underwhelming experiences of last weekend.
Brad wisely said that when you increase performance there will be a price to pay somewhere else (paraphrased), meaning something else will need to be modified to compensate. Well, I'm here to tell you that more than one area is affected with me, one of which I expected and two I did not.
The expected area was the exhaust system. I knew I had to install a 3" system at least as far back as the cat to decrease EGT's. Later on when my clutch started slipping I realized the stock setup with 70k miles on it was not adequate, though read my thoughts in the other thread about using Gunk on the transmission case. Now that I have a new stock clutch on a stock PP--along with new slave, MC, braided hydraulic line, t/o bearing, and resurfaced flywheel--I no longer experience slippage (knock on wood).
Another problem that surfaced was detonation in summer heat and gas limitation (93 octane) that keep boost down almost to stock levels. Water injection and a racing intercooler were solutions, but now this is not my favorite option with my basically stock but new clutch componentry. If I increase effective octane I will be boosting more and taxing the clutch more than it perhaps can handle. So what to do?
I think for the present I'll keep my ECU upgrade since I'm not experiencing any clutch slippage at this time. If it does slip in the future I will probably pull the upgrade ECU and re-install the stock unit. If I knew it was going to be this much trouble I might not have purchased the ECU upgrade, but I must say that with the 3" exhaust and extra boost the sound and acceleration can be exhilarating. The jury's still out on this one, but for the moment the car is performing very well.
posted by 68.11.251...
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