Okay guys Im new on here but ive been using ur suggestions for years. I drive an 03 lancer ls which ive had since o3 bought salvage with 11000 miles on it because it was hit in the front right. airbags didnt deploy or anything so the car is in pretty great shape. okay now recently, since july i have started working on it and made the following mods: typhoon short ram intake, rrm piggyback, custom cat back exhaust with new piping, glasspack and wicked flow muffler, these headers and downpipe http://www.slickcar.com/details/1096...st-headers.asp, new o2 sensors, new cat, premium gas, best oil changes, new spark plugs, i mean ive spent alot on my car cuz i honestly love my car. now my PROBLEMS are as follows. first of all, my car still has problems starting up... like it cranks and dies unless i give it gas. second when i start to rev above 3000, i get this raspy ricey sound frm my exhaust, third problem and most annoying one is that after all these mods ive made, my car lacks performance i can feel its potential but its as if something is holding it back. So i took it to rrm and i told Roman to take it for a drive around the block. first thing he noticed, it wouldnt start until like the third try, second when he came back from driving it, he noticed the same problem. It wants to go but something is holding it back :/ our first guess is that the exhaust piping might be too big and not giving it any back pressure. Honestly guys Ive spent too much time and money on my car and still havent got a chance to enjoy it :'( Id really appreciate ANY HELP! oh nd they said i wired my piggybak properly cuz if i didnt it wouldnt idle so smoothly. please help.

 

#1 its quite possible you don't have you don't have the back pressure. We really can't say for sure unless you know the diameter of the piping.

#2 the cranking thing...was it cranking before the piggy?

#3 the raspy exhaust maybe that exhaust work you have going on...

#4 I remember mine being NA. I don't recall it being fast. I'm hoping you don't have your NA hopes up from riding in other NA cars. From my experience the piggy didn't do much for me.

#5 no more premium. Save your money dude. NA is not going to go any faster with it, run smoother or anything with it.

I think if we can find out why the car is hard to turn over we can find out what's going on with your car.

 

need to learn on using the return key... but i fixed it for you

response to paragraph 2:
u not gonna get any type of power from a na motor no matter what boltons u do... if u want power from the 4g94 then u have to go turbo. i dont know where u got the miss info from but all those mods u made wont make the car any faster. exaust piping max u wanna go is 2.5in. building the block and going turbo will give results to smile about .

Glasspacks are very effective at reducing back pressure, but not very effective at muffling noise. also imho totaly not needed
i would remove the honda glasspack from the exaust system to see what it has issues starting. tht would be my first guess to see why / if any backpressure issues

 

You certainly can get power from NA, it's not impossible. You need to spend a LOT of money to get anywhere near the performance you want, when a turbo could do it so much cheaper/easier/better. I think I have seen some really bad *** NA mirages, but they have several, like 5k, worth of mods done to them, maybe more.

My turbo has me at about 150hp, 6psi, about 2500 dollars custom building the kit, including all tuning tools, gauges, exhaust, intake, everything. You could probably get that same HP NA with higher comp pistons, gauges, exhaust, intake, tuning cable, head work, intake mani work, camshaft, and then a ton of labor on top of that...but you'd spend more than 3500 I think, probably even more than that.

As far as your current dilema though...It sounds like you talked to someone who knows, at RRM, who can tell that there is something holding the car back. If it was just your personal opinion, I'd have shrugged it off and said...it's a lancer, it's a slow car, but comparison to the other lancers they work on, that does mean something. Did you do a comp test?

 

Thanks guys for ur humble inputs. I had typed the first post on my phone so tht's y i didnt bother with the paragraphs.lol and a few things i wanna clear up:
- Im saving up for a turbo kit but even rrm guys told me to hold off on any more mods until i figure out whats going on with the car.
- The starting problem started ever since i installed the piggyback which was before the exhaust stuff.
- The glass pack and new cat and o2 sensors are literally a week old. I had them installed in hopes of getting rid of the raspy sound and restoring some power.

Here is a short overview of my car which i just recorded.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2uF1Jm442U

 

Take the Piggyback off and its fixed , i used to have one and was a POS made the car drive really bad and was installed properly !

 

damn i just saw ur video and ur my idol bro!lol okay imma take off my piggyback first thing tomoro. but will tht fix my performance issues as well? what else can i do to prep for the turbo?

 

If the piggy fixes the issue, I'm going to be shocked and also expect some sort of response from RRM, because there's just no way they can be selling something that hampers the performance of the car like that.

Turbo prep? Totally depends man, which way are you going, with RRM's kit? Your supporting mods are all fine I think if you're going turbo, you don't need them on there now, you can always add a camshaft or upgrade pistons/rods, or any of that stuff later when you feel like turning up the boost.

Most important thing is what method of tuning you will use. I advise against an FMU, and I am an advocate for EcuFlash using a Tactrix cable (obviously since I chose that method). What did RRM tell you about the bogging when you were there, other than "looks like the piggy is installed correctly". I'd like to see a dyno with it on, and then with it removed...wish you had a tactrix cable to do a VDR or virtualdyno pull before and after. Either way, as far as service goes, I hear nothing but GOOD things about RRM, so I expect they will help you.

 

Im about to take off the piggyback right now but can u please inform me more about ecu flashing. Like what is it nd is it a diy thing or do I take it to a shop?

 

Oh nd I forgot to mention, im burning wayy more gas than I did with stock. I mean I thought the piggy back was supposed to save be gas...

 

Its the piggy I bet...

 

It sounds like the piggyback needs to be tuned. RRM might have some insight on that. The stock map should be ok since you're both in California, but maybe something's up with that.

As for the raspy noise, I'd bet that the packing in either the glasspack or muffler are bad.

As for the question about ECU flashing... You can flash the tune on your own with the right cable and a computer (laptop is easiest of course ), but unless you know what you're doing with fuel tables, inj. pulse widths, duty cycles, AFRs and a whole mess of other things, you shouldn't be doing any tuning on your own. Leave that to the pros. Flashing a tune that a pro provides you is easy, though.

Not to sound rude... But why are you modding your car if you don't have the basic knowledge about how the car works? I honestly don't mean to sound rude/disrespectful but you should take a step back and take a look at the basics (which includes ECU tuning) before modifying the car. I'm not saying you need to become a God at tuning and go buy a dyno, but at least understand what it is and why it matters. Cars these days don't have carburetors; it's all computer controlled fuel injection and every year it gets more and more complex. Understanding the basics of ECUs and tuning them is essential to having even mediocre success at increasing performance from a modern car.

I know everyone starts somewhere... I started by reading Sport Compact Car back when I was like 12-13 yrs old. The tech sections in that magazine were worth more than just about all of their competitors tech sections COMBINED! lol

 

Okay u do have a good point and my background with cars is from doing all the routine maintenance on all my family's cars. So every mod I've done so far is pretty basic but I still need more research on ecu flashing before I mess with that that's y I was hoping u guys could tell me like first of all, who are the Professionals? And where do I find one?

 

There are a lot of professional tuners. Let me tell you a couple pieces of advice though. First, to tune yourself, you probably need a wideband to actually do some good. Second thing was, everyone might be right, the piggy would cause you to go richer than what is ideal and use more gas/bog down. Think you got a turbo piggy or something? Anyway, ask them at RRM for sure.

As for the startup, that could be piggy related, or it could be like, a vacuum leak, or maybe even something else electrical (Which still sort of points to little piggy).

Professionals....there are several vendors on the site with good reputations, such as mellon, who can tune via e-mail. This is a really good option for a lot of people, but if you are in CA, you should find someone local who is highly recommended to help you if you don't want to do the leg work on learning how to tune. It's a very steep road to learn, and I'm the first to admit it's not easy. Just from my EXP, I've tuned my car up on the turbo kit...but it's taken me close to 300 hours of research, learning, tuning, retuning, and then repeating that process, just to get the car where....1 year after the turbo, which is now, I am finally "happy" with the way it runs and drives.

 

I can definitely admire your willingness to dive in and take care of things yourself

A wideband O2 sensor isn't something you probably need. It's a MUST for a properly tuned car. Ask some people local to you for a recommendation on a tuner. Dyno tuning is the best way to go, but you can also have the car street tuned. If you're paying someone though, don't settle for a street tune. You're in SoCal; there's too many dynos around to not use one. The RRM piggyback is tunable, so try to call them and find out why it's acting up. They might be able to work with you on that. Once you get it running right, ask RRM if they can recommend a tuner near you that works with their piggybacks. Piggybacks are good for tuning cars at your level, and can usually even handle basic turbo setups.

Good luck!