Hey guys I have a 08 gts cvt with a 2.0. I've only installed a Injen cai and greddy axle back exhaust. Love them btw, for a tax return present to myself I'm going to dump some cash in mine babe and thinking about doing similar things. Just to clarify, I should get headers, bigger cat, and finish the exhaust before tuning? Wouldn't this huge increase in air throw the car into limp mode?! And silly ? But is there a restrictor plate in the mivecs? And if so, can it be bored a bit or should I not dare? Obviously a tune would need to be done immediately after haha

 

Honestly, you should be hesitant to do anything that dramatically increases horsepower/torque. The Lancer CVT trannys aren't exactly renowned for their durability.

Personally though, I had an Injen SRI and an Injen SES Performance Exhaust (included a high flow cat) installed on my 09 2.4L CVT for about 9,000 miles. I had 0 problems, however that's pretty short-term considering it really wasn't on the car for more than 4 months.

 

How much HP gains with the cat,headers,intake and tune you think?

 

Ok guys I will be adding pics this weekend after I get her cleaned up. List of mods performance and cosmetic will be listed. As for the hp increase question I do not know...yet :P

 

Hey, I bought a 2010 FED SE CVT new in June 2010. I put the Takeda SRI with a RA snorkel on in July, I've honestly driven the S**t outta that transmission and have had no issue. The transmission is not only designed for fuel economy, it's designed to eliminate shifting, if there are no hard point shifts and the gear ratio is progressive I find it amusing that people comment on how weak it is since there is very little HARD friction. The non FED is only restrictive in terms of emissions for California.
I've driven this for 85,000km, and like anyone else who's driven a CVT for awhile i'm sure you've notice how you can immediately switch from D to R while rolling and vice versa with no delay/issue, and also how you can imitate/force your own shifts with the gas pedal. I also have a 2012 V6 Outlander with an automatic, and to be honest I hate the transmission after driving the CVT.
I've always driven stick prior to the CVT, but now I prefer the CVT, unless you absolutely want to be able to do burnouts and risk burning clutches out, I would take all the CVT bashing as just that, people who have not driven one bashing it. Do a little research there is a beefed up version of a CVT called the IVT (infinitely variable transmission) that is being used by major defence contractors in the development of armoured vehicles.

 

I really enjoy my CVT as well, I can get it going pretty damn quick when I want to. Seems like while you're accelerating if you "keep tension" on the transmission belt while accelerating hard (don't let your rpm's drop at any point, even when it "shifts") you can do a decent pull. I've beaten quite a few cars with more ponies under the hood (nothing ridiculous like an Evo, it's still no race car obviously) and when I do I notice that its during their shifts is when I always pull ahead.


I do agree that staying N/A is the way to go with these cars tho, I have no doubt that too much hp/torque will pull it apart, even the RRM turbokit I think is too much, I imagine the boost shock loading that belt and tearing things apart. But all in all I'm really happy with the CVT. I have 135,000km on my car, driven with spirit the entire time and she's doing just fine.

 

I can bash the cvt. I've earned it after having 2 cvt replaced do to failures. I took meticulous care of my cvt and got the fluid changes done in 30k intervals because i was putting a lot of miles in a short amount of time. First one popped around 65k, it was a tq coverter failure. 2nd one popped shortly after around 80k. It kept whining, over heating, and going into limp mode when i was doing highway speeds for more than 15 minutes. Pretty much made the car undriveable since most of my commute was more than 15 minutes of 65+mph speeds.

After that i got rid of the damn thing. It was on it's way to becoming a lemon but with less than 20k left on the drivetrain warranty i couldn't risk it. With the luck I was having with this pos it would of popped for the 3rd time right after the 100k grace period. The main flaw with the jatco manufactured cvt that mitsu uses is that they are not repairable if something goes south. Standard procedure for mitsu and nissan is to remove and replace the whole unit if a failure occurs. All fine if you're in warranty but not so much if you're expired or void. Cost of a new cvt is anywhere from 4-6k. Used ones can be found for under 3k.

Call me old fashioned but Id rather have to replace a clutch or syncro on a manual instead of a whole tranny when something goes wrong. Until mitsu starts making US government money to invest "IVTs", i can't in good conscience recommend a cvt to people who ask.

 

I just wrote a huge reply to this, and then my browser closed. So this will be short lol


Sorry to hear you've had so much trouble, it sounds like really bad luck. I've driven mine from coast to coast, through the mountains, blah blah blah, and with no issue. I have not babied mine, like I said, I drive the sh** out of it.


Your post made me re-read my service manual, and glad I did. The maintenance manual does not recommend changing CVT fluid every 30k unless for severe condition maintenance, maybe you got contamination with one of the changes? who knows... I just did a quick google, there are a few places offering CVT parts.


Torque converter is a fairly common transmission part, I'm amazed that it would be the point of failure for the transmission, and find it highly suspect that they would not just replace that part.

 

Found a really good manual online for our CVT. Downloaded it but for some reason I can't post attachments. The way the belt is constructed, it's layered steel, strangest thing I've ever seen. I don't see how it would ever break other than heat. So, a few options, try and find someone to manufacture one from titanium/Kevlar/Tungsten Carbide, I dunno something with better properties than steel, or keep it cool. So, if we keep them cool, run EvoScan with a tranny temp alarm, or the built in Slow Down! warning in our ECU which I activated once. If the Torque converter goes, holy **** there is something wrong.

 

Ok I don't know how to post pics off of my phone, but when I get home I'll post some. As well as reply to the other posts. Sorry it was late but I wanted to wait until I got to put on my roof wrap.

 

basically get paddles or select shifter with the cvt and thats it still does really well using my paddles stock was great