First up is the Strup headers, provided by Strup Performance Products. The overall time of install for my 1st time took about 6 hours. The hardest part was getting the oem manifolds out. It took a lot of tool combinations and arm contorsion to get into the small areas, most of all..patience likely the main tool here. If I did another Strup header install, it would be significantly faster and easier. The instruction provided gave you he basics in what to remove to get to areas of the oem manifold, figuring out how to get to them is all on you. The Strup headers were a breeze to get in. Like the claims go...there is no need to lift the engine off from it's mounts. you may just have to remove a few brackets here and there...but they're fairly easy to reach..one such in particular is the header nut on the passenger side, closest to the front of the car. you'd have to remove a bracket that bolted the backside of the alternator to give you room to torque your ratchet or wrench. After the install was done...fired up the car and let the car idle learn because we disconnected the alternator terminal. (also, it might be a good idea to change your oil at the same time - the oil filter was a little in the way of arm movement but it didnt really bother us.) Anyway...I waited for a CEL to come on, and about 500 miles later, still no light on.
Pictures of the install is found here

Next up is the Motor-Dyne plenum spacer. I ordered the 1/2" spacer and iso thermal kit less the throttle body heater. We dont need that in Hawaii . Installation took about 45 minutes total with pneumatic tools and instructions were straight foward. Fired up the car and noticed....NOTHING! j/k, I wasnt moving at all yet. I'll post pictures of the install midweek.

Both mods complemented each other, get more air moving in, and efficiently getting the exhaust out as quickly as possible. On startup, the car roars, rather than your normal start up. I noticed a little bit of induction noise, it will probably get louder with the 350Z tube I'm getting from another friend. $FREE.99!!! I did the Strup install because I got them in first. Street performance is great. The result is more midrange power. Get on the throttle and go WOT and you'll start to sink in your seat. The spacer mod was delivered to me afterwards and installed the same night. It affected the whole RPM band pulling much harder from the start, again..more noticable gains midrange of the RPM band. I should say the plenum better complemented the headers. Now for the fun part, the butt dyno is not so sensitive to small mods, but with these? the mods made it loud and clear to my **** that there's power present. Overtaking cars on the freeway were a breeze, and I'm beginning to think that the mods are making the car a little more fuel efficient too. I'll get back to that one when I've diminished my fuel supply, later. I normally get 18-20mpg mixed city and highway driving. On steep hills that I'd normally have to bring my gear down to 2nd, I can take it with light throttle on 3rd gear, with little effort. I havent been able to dyno the car because the shop that I normally go to has moved to another location and have not installed their dyno in yet. As soon as they do, I'll post up. I dont want to go another dyno because different dynos give different readings.

As for the racing part...old tires did me in. The Dunlop DOT R compound SP Supersport Race tires felt like I were on my GR-Beta, rated at 280. The Dunlops are rated at 60. I kept sliding and pushing and braking later than I should be, coming up to corners much faster and quicker than I should. I'm suprised my brakes were holding up considering they're still oem brembo pads. Still not as agressive as Hawk blue or HP+ compounds. The tires grip may be haphazard by my use of them on the street and there had been about 7 track days on them. My next tires will definetly prevent me from using them on the street. (If only I could get a tire sponsor ) It's a good thing to have all that power though, I had to compesate a lot of my understeering to get the car sideways A LOT and powering out of turns. I've had a few spinouts resulting in flat spots on the tire, hindering my steering feedback with more noise and vibration, at least the rear tires were rounding out when I've powering out corners. My previous time was a 41.94 at Hawaii Raceway Parks Road course, I did worse considering the tires could not hold up and did a 42.01. Power did make itself present because people commented that I've been pulling from them in certain areas where I could never pull from or pass them. My battle was for grip this time around...power was definetly there, in ways that added power help me recover. power only realized by the combination of the Strup Headers and Motodyne 1/2" Iso Thermal Spacer kit. After our events, I've become numb to the added power, so now it means I need to add new means of making more power.


By the next event, I would already have my new tires and other suspension tidbits installed. My quest is mid 40s on our course, possibly low 40s. I'll do a few 1/4mi times and post more feed back about the performance on that particular aspect later on...till then, this is my story...and I'm sticking to it

 

Motor-Dyne spacer install pics

 

nice pics and instruction. I think that will be the next mod.

Thanks bro

 

Awesom pix Brada! (sp?)

 

nice....

 

thanks bulleh

 

Wow, a hawaiin! Maybe you're one of the few people who could pronounce Keaka correctly without being told first... "Howzit?!"

 

How are you liking the Strup headers to this date? No CEL light correct? I am looking at ordering these in the next few days so any info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance