Some CAI's do come with a bypass valve btw

 

So, MREV, 5/16th Spacer, and Stillen Intake is a good start?

 

Which ones? I'm unfamilar with any CAIs with a bypass valve...maybe because of the different market. Who knows..

 

My suggestion, having an 03.5 is that if its an auto, get the grounding wire kit. Without a doubt made driving MUCH more enjoyable and shift the way it should have been from the factory.

 

Search!!

You can by the AEM bypass valve by itself for like $40

 

what your gona wana do first is lower it!!! It looks like a 4x4 :0)

 

I have had my 03 auto coupe since it came out. About 20K miles on the car i had Injen CAI put on. I now have 73K miles and i havnt had any problems with it. I live in florida also so we get plenty of rain everyday. As long as your not driving your car through pools your fine....

I would recommend Exhaust for sure if you dont have one (think you mentioned you already had one though) motordyne 5/16 spacer for sure and also either the CAI or stillen intake. Those 3 mods will have you breathing a hell of alot better. You will feel the difference for sure as well.

 

a lot of people will start you off with various parts but the real question is: what are your goals and what is your budget? once the answers to those questions are narrowed down to be both specific and realistic, you can proceed.

tuning on the VQ is essential to safely get the most out of it. N/A it's the only way you'll get truly significant gains. F/I it's required. having said that, some people have run over 450whp on stock internals... but some have blown their engines at 350whp. again though, tuning becomes a major issue....but F/I on the engine unbuilt is a risky proposition in any case. having said that, i'd say that 375ish whp should be relatively safe on stock internals. even then though, on a tuned setup the engine could go.

before you consider F/I though you should know that many setups cost $5-8k depending on which you want (single turbo, twin turbo, s/c).and that doesnt include engine build up and other parts. to make a long story short its easy to spend $20k+ building the car for power alone. the question of worth depends on what the money is to you and how you value that modification. taking a ride in such a car would probably be a good idea, but at the end of the day its a personal decision.

on the N/A side, it seems that intake or plenum modifications + exhaust / test pipes are effective. then with a tune you can really get meaningful #s out of it. at best though, you may be competing with E46 M3s. If you do well. Expect to spend $2-3k ish...maybe more, for parts, tuning, etc. Soem would say N/A mods arent worth it because of the small gains, but when tuned it becomes meaningful although still far from the FI gains. the N/A mods tend to be safer though, but again the power obviously isnt the same (as FI)

hope that helps get you started. my suggestion from here is to decdie how much you want to spend, what kind of power you want, how you drive your car, and search/ask for specific info from there.

 

So what is the concensus on the 2006 Coupe and Plenum spacers? Did a LOT of searching and reading and from what I gather the 2006 coupes really need the MREV+ and 5/16 spacer to be effective? So the 5/16 spacer alone is not going to work??? Thanks.

 

whats the difference between the basic and iso thermal spacer?

 

This will get your Dad out of the driveway and yes,
do the exhaust thing.......you have tons of options.