how goes the struggle ralph? you ever get your header?

 

well, yes and no: I first ordered the Borla header through W1P two weeks ago. They told Borla to drop ship it in time for me to take with me, but it never shipped. So then I called Vivid Racing since they have a good deal advertised on EvoM, and they told me that 7 were in stock, but again this was at Borla (not at Vivid) and the drop shipment from Borla never happened. So at this point Oliver (from WORKS) got into the game and called Borla to throw some stuff around, and Borla said very sorry and it will ship overnight straight to WORKS. Then 30 min later they called back finally 'fessing up: Borla is having too many returns because of flaking off coating on the header still - so all shipments are on hold. No wonder none of the vendors ever got anything to go out ... Oliver tried to pry lose a non-coated one and have it coated by a shop WORKS uses, but Borla said no. So then I spent most of yesterday on the phone trying to get a different header, but nothing good was in stock (Mach V, Full Race, etc.). So finally I had to settle on a Megan Racing header, and since they are in CA too it should arrive at WORKS and go on the car today. So yeah ... no drama here

On a lighter note, the car was on the dyno yesterday for the baseline (259hp), and after seeing the numbers I considered a bigger turbo for a while j/k, that's a J2S rocket engine from a Saturn V (on display at the conference I'm attending). It makes about 230,000 lb of thrust, would make for a great power/weight ratio though lol.

 

Whats up Ralph, Good to see ya having some fun with the trip. Keep us all informed like you are, the pics are great. Talk to ya later Josh

 

night time update - build is done, only tuning left now. Gonna do some road tuning tonight, and put her back on the dyno tomorrow morning. The MR header turned out to be decent quality, but the inlet ports are visibly smaller than the cylinder exit ports - so it would have to be ported to really live up to its potential. I'm thinking I might still swap it for a Borla or Full Race some time in the future - for $200 the MR is a good interim solution.

Tomorrow afternoon the car is going to get "stickered", and then I'm off back to Seattle. Can't wait to drive her again .

 

Glad to hear it all got put back together all right. Let me know if you're stopping in lovely Eugene again...i'd love to check out the changes. As for mine, it's ~95% done. I'm gonna pick it up tomorrow so I can try to donload some Xede stuff onto it this weekend.
Cheers and safe trip home!

B

 

wow ralph.. i cant wait see ur MR. i beat she purr as beast.. and more powerful

 

I'm at WORKS "stickering" the car now - here's a teaser pic. Now if I could only find a "TR-400" badge somewhere

 

stickers? dont let the DSM crew here that kind of talk...

 

I hate dsm's

 

Going to put back on your rain shroud...especially now the header has no shield?

 

hell no - that header is a temp solution, not too worried if it cracks. First impressions:

the car sounds evil, it's lower, a little lumpy at idle, positively screams above 7000 rpm

a little dissappointed in the low end - lost some torque there, spool up is about 500 rpm later. the WORKS guys think the header has so-so fitment, pretty good build, but stinks from a performance standpoint. Pete estimated another 10-15 hp if I'd use the Borla or full-race instead. The EGR/anti-lag ports on the header are useless - I used one to put my EGT probe in it and it barely reads anything because only so little of it is exposed. I'll definitely swap the MR header at some not too far time in the future.

the mid end is good, solid 40-50 hp gain across the band, and very smooth torque curve from 3500 to redline. I think the tune might be a little too conservative in terms of boost - Pete was being cautious because I used to have boost spike problems and had to drive home on CA crap gas. I might fiddle with the boost settings using ECUFlash after I get back and had a chance to log stuff for a bit. the WR9 lives for high boost, so there may be an EBC (for race days) and/or WI in my future .

the top end is brutal - it scares the **** out of me, in a good way .

 

I hate you. In a good way, of course

 

And I wanna see some dyno graphs, dammit!

 

lol - I have lots of dyno data, photos, etc. but it'll have to wait until I catch some zzz's - just got home (drove straight through from SF, red bull gives you wings!). stay tuned ...

 

Welcome back Ralph, good to see that you made it home safe.