Wow, awesome update. I've read some anecdotes about similar systems for the 35/37, and always dismissed them as general aftermarket hyperbole. I'll check out my EX35, see if it has something similar going on.Welp, I figured out one huge bottleneck my car has. My OEM intake filters were disgustingly filthy. I mean charcoal black, as dark as the bolded text. I have no idea why after 15K miles the filters were in such terrible shape, but they were also covered with bugs (dragonflies even), and so air intake was obviously suffering quite a bit as a result.
This car doesn't have a standard drop-in filter, so it required the removal of the airbox to get to the filter (although I discovered a workaround). So I first got rid of the bugs and went to AutoZone for some K&Ns at $55 each.
After I installed them, I noticed something odd...the air inlets for the intake are facing upward...not down, not forward, but upward. They're drawing in air from the top. So I looked at the plastic shroud cover that I took off:
And I look underneath it, and it has these reaaallly tiny and narrow inlet ducts that guide the air to the airbox. And I immediately thought what a terrible, restrictive design, and then realized it's done to also muffle the shit out of the engine. And I was right. So I left it like this:
I took that pic just now, after about 80 miles of driving. The sound of the motor has dramatically improved, as this has effectively eliminated a lot of restriction - the motor would whisper before, but it growls and howls now. If you've ever done an aftermarket intake on a motor that had more than 3.0L of displacement and loved the sound difference, then you know what I mean by the change in tone - it sounds beautiful.
Most importantly, it's also added a fantastic surge of power that is now consistent all throughout the revband. Which leaves me extremely pissed that I didn't do this before, because I dyno'd the car with old oil and fucked up filters, and a chunk of plastic choking the intake.
I know if I went back to the same dyno I'd have put down 380+WHP stock and 400WHP with the tune. It makes sense now why the car did not respond to more fuel when it was being tuned - it was actually losing power. It couldn't breathe enough to justify the mixture.
Oh well, I've got a custom exhaust that should be put together for it soon enough. It'll breathe more, and then I'll dyno it again. All I know is that this car is an animal and I love it.
This only solidifies my lust for the 2015 Challenger. The R/T Scat Pack may be 300 pounds heavier than a Mustang, but 485 horses from a 392 Hemi and a body that's truly good looking.
That's unfortunate. Guess we'll see about the next Camaro.
I like Cadillac's taillights as their heritage thing, at least conceptually. They don't necessarily have to make them jut out like fins. The DTS just had tall taillights, and had a nice, clean look.
I think the ATS should have been a little bit bigger and called the CTS. The new CTS should have been called the STS. The XTS should have been called the DTS. If they stick with the current naming scheme for the flagship, they could do FTS. That way all off their names are actually derived from something (Catera, Seville, Deville, Fleetwood). What the heck do 'A' and 'X' stand for? It's not like the XTS has anything to do with the XLR. What I'm afraid of is de Nysschen replacing Cadillac's dumb naming scheme with another dumb naming scheme like what happened with Infiniti. A lot of Cadillac's old real names would probably be tough to pull off nowadays, like Fleetwood, but I think Eldorado could still be used.
Right, I agree. Fleetwood in particular is basically unusable on a modern car. I don't think Eldorado is as bad, but it would definitely have to be on the right car. The Ciel and Elmira concepts are the sort of car Cadillac would have to put it on if they want to pull off the Eldorado name, or really any new name as well. A car that exists beyond their regular range of cars. Kind of like how the Escalade, as a truck-based SUV, has a real name, while the SRX has an alphabet soup name, which presumably any other crossovers they make would have as well.
You're right, Infiniti's is ultimately an improvement. Nissan will probably soon run into the same issue with the Z. I think so far it's pretty much had progressively bigger engines over the years, but that's bound to stop sooner or later.
The Elmiraj is a regular coupe. It was the Ciel that had the suicide doors.
Ah, right. Yeah, would be good to have that as something to make it unique.
