As with so many things in life it's one of those good news/bad news situations... well not really bad news, just lots of anticipation and not as much what I had hoped/expected in terms of raw performance - but more that later.
I'll start with my buying experience. I got in on the GB put on by Brian from NOPI. All I have to say is despite what I had traditionally envisioned as "NOPI boy racer go fast parts" sellers - buying from NOPI was nothing but professional. Working with Brian was arguably the best purchase experience I've had since I bought my NSX. He always kept me up to date on everything and always took my calls and made sure I was happy - you just can't beat that level of service. I would recommend buying from NOPI again in a heartbeat.
Taking delivery took a little longer than expected due to some fabrication delays comptech was experiencing, but once the stuff arrived it was clear the comptech kit is an incredibly well designed kit. The level of detail, the packaging, the quality components, it almost felt OEM - it was just that polished.
Install: Two days later I dropped my car and CTSC off with my NSX tech "Zahntech" for him to start work on the install. (Little side note here, the CTSC boxes are way too big to fit in the NSX as they come from UPS, you'll have to unpack them or something to get all the parts in the car.) During the install John noticed that my intake plenum gaskets were drying out so he ordered up some new ones - this delayed the install just a bit, but a few days later I took delivery of the car. I arrived to find 2 boxes of not required components (like my old alternator and the vestigial passenger side engine fan :tongue: ) and a perfectly installed CTSC.
We went for a test drive and he made note of a few things I should be aware of - namely that the belt will be breaking in and we'll need to re-tension it soon. Also, I should be wary of the clutch (its old), but so far so good... So that night I went cruising, keeping it under 5500 but just putting some miles on the car - breaking it in for the dyno session the next day.
The dyno: I roll in bright and early 9am to the dyno and get my car setup. First run was like a kick in the teeth, 290hp. What!?! I'm thinking to myself... oh man, what is wrong here. So do another run, same thing. We start looking at the data and realize something boost/fuel is wrong - so I call up Comptech and get on the phone with Shad. At 9:30am on Friday Shad went through the data with the tuner and we were able to determine the belt was slipping at high RPM. Looks like that belt broke in a little faster than we had thought...After a little re-tensioning the numbers looked much better. I have to say that Shad rocks and Comptech customer service was totally topnotch and instilled yet another level of confidence in their product.
So what was the end result? It's kinda complicated, since there are so many variables like the dyno stopped short before 8000 rpm - but I got 313hp@7750 and 230ft-lbs@6000... and I still think that I might have some belt slippage and I might even be running too much fuel pressure. So I'm requesting some thoughts from you guys out there. Here are the relevant stats about my car and the dyno. It's a Mustang Dyno (I heard they read a little low), my car has I/H/E all suggested maint. was performed on the car before the CTSC install (including injector cleaning). The A/F was read off the tailpipe and is about .5 leaner than whats actually coming out of the engine - according to the lots of data. What this means is that my A/F is kinda all over the place and its pig rich which is definitely robbing me of some HP. Ultimately, I'm not after mega HP I want a safe trackable car - but if there is more safe HP in there I'd like to find it. Bottom line: Am I happy? Yes. This car is fast, it feels phenomenal and I can't wait to track it.
Dyno vid (wmv)
Notice the puffing at high rpm and look closely at the A/F boost situation and let me know what you think...
Video: I went out to have some fun with the car and man does it pull. It also sounds crazy - although, the VTEC induction growl is totally overpowered by the SC whine, so if you love VTEC engagement sound you might be disappointed with a CTSC. You can definitely see the power as the newly added power sqauts the car down under WOT. I'll have CTSC track video later this week.
CTSC Run (wmv)
If you're interested in the camera setup its a new Canon ZR500 ($250) with native 16:9 widescreen support and it's externally mic'ed from the trunk. I found that since I'm on the track with windows down the windnoise is too extreme and the trunk provides a very close approximation of inside the car with windows up. Uncompressed the video quality is really good on this camera, but I had to compress it here for space reasons.
I'll start with my buying experience. I got in on the GB put on by Brian from NOPI. All I have to say is despite what I had traditionally envisioned as "NOPI boy racer go fast parts" sellers - buying from NOPI was nothing but professional. Working with Brian was arguably the best purchase experience I've had since I bought my NSX. He always kept me up to date on everything and always took my calls and made sure I was happy - you just can't beat that level of service. I would recommend buying from NOPI again in a heartbeat.
Taking delivery took a little longer than expected due to some fabrication delays comptech was experiencing, but once the stuff arrived it was clear the comptech kit is an incredibly well designed kit. The level of detail, the packaging, the quality components, it almost felt OEM - it was just that polished.
Install: Two days later I dropped my car and CTSC off with my NSX tech "Zahntech" for him to start work on the install. (Little side note here, the CTSC boxes are way too big to fit in the NSX as they come from UPS, you'll have to unpack them or something to get all the parts in the car.) During the install John noticed that my intake plenum gaskets were drying out so he ordered up some new ones - this delayed the install just a bit, but a few days later I took delivery of the car. I arrived to find 2 boxes of not required components (like my old alternator and the vestigial passenger side engine fan :tongue: ) and a perfectly installed CTSC.
We went for a test drive and he made note of a few things I should be aware of - namely that the belt will be breaking in and we'll need to re-tension it soon. Also, I should be wary of the clutch (its old), but so far so good... So that night I went cruising, keeping it under 5500 but just putting some miles on the car - breaking it in for the dyno session the next day.
The dyno: I roll in bright and early 9am to the dyno and get my car setup. First run was like a kick in the teeth, 290hp. What!?! I'm thinking to myself... oh man, what is wrong here. So do another run, same thing. We start looking at the data and realize something boost/fuel is wrong - so I call up Comptech and get on the phone with Shad. At 9:30am on Friday Shad went through the data with the tuner and we were able to determine the belt was slipping at high RPM. Looks like that belt broke in a little faster than we had thought...After a little re-tensioning the numbers looked much better. I have to say that Shad rocks and Comptech customer service was totally topnotch and instilled yet another level of confidence in their product.
So what was the end result? It's kinda complicated, since there are so many variables like the dyno stopped short before 8000 rpm - but I got 313hp@7750 and 230ft-lbs@6000... and I still think that I might have some belt slippage and I might even be running too much fuel pressure. So I'm requesting some thoughts from you guys out there. Here are the relevant stats about my car and the dyno. It's a Mustang Dyno (I heard they read a little low), my car has I/H/E all suggested maint. was performed on the car before the CTSC install (including injector cleaning). The A/F was read off the tailpipe and is about .5 leaner than whats actually coming out of the engine - according to the lots of data. What this means is that my A/F is kinda all over the place and its pig rich which is definitely robbing me of some HP. Ultimately, I'm not after mega HP I want a safe trackable car - but if there is more safe HP in there I'd like to find it. Bottom line: Am I happy? Yes. This car is fast, it feels phenomenal and I can't wait to track it.
Dyno vid (wmv)
Notice the puffing at high rpm and look closely at the A/F boost situation and let me know what you think...
Video: I went out to have some fun with the car and man does it pull. It also sounds crazy - although, the VTEC induction growl is totally overpowered by the SC whine, so if you love VTEC engagement sound you might be disappointed with a CTSC. You can definitely see the power as the newly added power sqauts the car down under WOT. I'll have CTSC track video later this week.
CTSC Run (wmv)
If you're interested in the camera setup its a new Canon ZR500 ($250) with native 16:9 widescreen support and it's externally mic'ed from the trunk. I found that since I'm on the track with windows down the windnoise is too extreme and the trunk provides a very close approximation of inside the car with windows up. Uncompressed the video quality is really good on this camera, but I had to compress it here for space reasons.
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