supercharger

[drd014]

Iam interested in buying a s/c. Can I still use my headers and cai if I get one. The dealer is also telling me to get a new clutch for the supercharger. Im not trying to launch it real hard. My car is an 08 with 2500 miles on it, so the clutch has alot of life left in it. What are everyones thoughts?

[09TC5M]

You should be able to keep your header. The CAI may work, but I have heard that most will cause A/F issues. There is atleast one that is said to work well, someone may come by after me who knows which one specifically.

Yourclutch should be fine, but will not survive as long as it would under normal N/A conditions. I would look into better tires, if you still have the stockers.

Hope this helps, and good luck.

[navylife59]

The stock clutch is good to about 240WHP with no extra wear from what I have seen. With clutches, it is more a factor of clamping force due to torque loading. It is also a matter of how you drive it. I have 46K miles on my tC with the S/C being on their since 6K miles. I don't rev match my downshifts and occasionally drop it to 2nd on a 30~40 roll; no worries.

[MR.310]

Did you ask the dealer about the header, and cai? I been wondering the same thing, but im not near a dealer.

[MR.310]

you should be able to keep your header. The cai may work, but i have heard that most will cause a/f issues.

sorry, what is a/f issues?

[JRW-910]

Air / Fuel Ratio - Air-fuel ratio - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

-JRW

[MR.310]

thanks. i would have never guess that

[MR.310]

would a short ram be better then?

[navylife59]

It is all a matter of grams/sec airflow across the MAF. The ECM is tuned with TRD map to expect a certain grams/sec airflow at different throttle positions for given engine loads. Essientially this correlates as the Volumetric Efficiency (VE) of the motor. The ECM can only operate efficiently inside a set bandwidth of VE. Changing the size of intake piping, moving the MAF further or closer to the Throttle Body (TB), or even reducing the number of bends in the piping can cause drastic changes airflow velocity and volume. This correlates into the ECM not knowing what to do.

Think of it like this analogy; you are a tourist in a foreign land where you now nothing of the local language and culture except what you read about in your little tourist guide. Outside of this guide, you are completley lost. You do fine, but when you loose it you are flying blind and begin to panic as you fumble around with foreign words not knowing what you are really saying.

This is what happens to the ECM when you throw the VE guide book out the window with a homegrown CAI/SRI. The ECM calibration maps have to be skewed to account for the deviations in the custom intake. If you change S/C pulley to increase boost, you will need to adjust your map calibrations. Of course, you can only make corrections if you have a good enough piggy-back controller. Also, too much airflow volume across the MAF can go beyond it's range.