Brand new from our friends at TXS is their front mount intercooler, pipe set and intake for the 2008 + Evo X.
Designed with a true power enthusiast goals in mind. We use 19×11.5×3 core with the proper fin density to ensure the best heat dissipation throughout the bar and plate core, while keeping pressure drop to a minimal. The use of a core this size is good for up to 800 hp! On each side of the core we use a 2.5 inch inlet and outlet allow this core to be used as a core only upgrade. Which bolts into the place of your stock intercooler seamlessly.
The piping kit comes with high quality silicone interconnects and T Bolt clamps.
The intake adds about 10 whp and 15 ft lbs of torque!
All in all it’s a combo that fits well, is affordable, and has obvious gains!
Quick picture of the energy absorbing foam that sits between the bumper beam and bumper. This needs to be trimmed so that the NISMO V2 air duct can be installed.
2 small holes need to be drilled into the top of the beam to secure the duct in place. I also used 3M double sided tape to hold the duct in place while drilling the holes.
NISMO V2 duct installed, prior to putting the bumper back on. I had to file down the forward facing edge so that it would clear the mesh on my bumper. The dremel made it an easy job, and a quick hit of some satin black paint gives it a nice final look.
Close up of the duct installed with the bumper in place
Duct installed
Intake Heatshield Installed (Front View)
Intake Heatshield Installed (Rear View)
Now that I’ve driven the car around for the past 3 weeks with the new plenum/throttle body, I’ve started to become accustomed to the “quirks” of the setup. It still hasn’t been dyno tuned, and the street tuning we did was with the car at full temperature. Since we no longer use the drive by wire, there is no cold start setup, which is something we’ll have to tackle soon, especially with the colder months coming up. What I did notice though, was that the car doesn’t like to do a dead cold start, but hot starts are fine. However, once started, it is more willing to idle nicely before the cooling fans have kicked on, telling me that we should be able to play with the Haltech software and make things cooperate nicely. It also idles quite well with the a/c on, which is a welcomed surprise. I also noticed that when things are up to temperature, and the both cooling fans kick on, the idle freaks out a bit, with some minor surging. So, I started looking into what I could do to keep the intake from ingesting the fans air, and also keep the intake temps as low as possible. My previous setup consisted of the Gruppe-M carbon intake, but I sold it when I didn’t think I’d have any use for it during the “I’m doing ITB’s” phase. Of course, that turned out to be just a phase (nightmarish, as I’ve eluded to previously).
The first thing I did was install a heatshield. It is supposed to be used on a 3 inch conical filter, but I took a chance and it turns out to fit perfectly on my 4 inch HKS (which has a 3 inch inlet). Came in a nice polished finish. I think I’ll grab some of the nice silver heat reflective tape from Coast Fabrication just as a bit of extra prevention too.
When Kwame and I were BS’ing the other night, he suggested I also install the NISMO V2 duct that I’ve had sitting here at the shop since forever. It originally came with the bumper I was going to run, but ended up swapping for something else. So today I set about installing the duct. It did require some trimming since it was not designed with my front bumper in mind, but it ended up coming out great. I’ll do some logging with the Haltech over the next few days and hopefully it made a difference!
All too often on the web, you see guys talking about making big hp on cars through forced induction. Whether it’s a supercharger, turbo, twin charged, etc., there is always someone pushing the envelope here. But what about good old fashioned NA power? No boost, no having to inject various concoctions of combustible chemicals to be able to crank the timing – just plain ordinary air? I think it often gets left by the wayside.
I wanted to start a multipiece series on NA tuning, with particular emphasis on what to many people is the pinnacle of an NA setup – the Individual Throttle Body, or in web language, ITB. Let’s just get a basic understanding of what an ITB is and how it works.
As the name implies an Indivdual Throttle Body (ITB) means each cylinder has it’s own dedicated path for the air to reach the combustion chamber. The bodies are linked together so that they open and close together, thus allowing the engine to ingest the air required for the combustion process. There are several benefits that an ITB setup can have over a single throttle body. First and foremost is cylinder balance. With a single throttle body, you have little to no control over how much air is ingested into the the combustion chamber for each cylinder. As a result, you end up with air reaching the combustion chambers in varying amounts, at various speeds, which can leave you with cylinders producing different power levels. The amount this differs of course varies by the application. With ITB’s there is no sharing of air. Each cylinder is afforded unlimited air, and through tuning, the user can ensure that each cylinder is ingesting the exact same volume per air, at the exact same velocity. The second benefit is throttle response. With each cylinder now able to ingest it’s own dedicated stream of air, the combustion process starts quicker, and the engine responds faster to throttle inputs. Furthermore, because you now have individual paths of air vs a large single path, the volume of air and the velocity that can be ingested into the engine as the throttle plate opens is often more than a single throttle body setup allows. We’ll go into more detail on this last point in a future installment, as well as determining the right manifold design for a particular application, all with real world testing, graphs, videos and dynos!
As best I can tell, the first production car to use both ITB’s and fuel injection was the very rare BMW M1. This car was manufactured from 1978 to 1981, and used a combination of ITB’s and a mechanical fuel injection system developed by Kugelfischer and Bosch. BMW still uses ITB’s today on their M series engines.
In the next installment, we’ll look more in depth into various ITB setups as well as design differences, etc. In the meantime, take a look and listen at this clip from Option Video from Japan of a tuned Acura with ITB’s. If this doesn’t make you fall in love with an automobile, it’s pretty safe to assume you have no soul!
Kwame
Z1 Performance
Jonathan
Corner Balance 