I Recieved the Element114 Ram Air Kit

[M4T5]

I just recieved the Element114 Ram air kit today. I haven't had much time to look at it, but I'm not seeing anything really special about it. It's a thin walled aluminim tube that's coated in a type of black powder coat material. It has more bends in it than I thought. A K&N cone type filter goes on the end of it. I'm not seeing the design really making a power difference over the Injen unit really, but that's just speculation for right now.I guess I will install it and get some pictures on Saturday.I'm sure it will take a few days for the ECU to adjust to it, so it will be a few days before I get some butt dyno results back.

J

[ken in az]

Awesome! But....

[M4T5]

I knew that was coming....but I did state I would have pics on Saturday when I do the install! BTW, has UpRev actually tuned a 06' & up M45 yet?? I surely would think by now that would have been accomplished by now.........Any news is good news.

J

[ken in az]

I knew that was coming....but I did state I would have pics on Saturday when I do the install! BTW, has UpRev actually tuned a 06' & up M45 yet?? I surely would think by now that would have been accomplished by now.........Any news is good news.

J

I called them on Wednesay and they were working on mine. If you are near the Austin area and could drop off your car to them for 2-3 days then it would be done lock, stock, and barrel.

If not, wait for mine to get done, then call away! They told me they get at least 2-3 calls a day on the M45 so it is on their radar!!!! Keep it rollin!

My tune will be on the stock setup iwth the coolant bypass and airbox mod complete with the heat shield. My mods won't be done right away because I can't decide what I want to do.

I can't find exhaust tips that don't look riceriffic or too large. If you can find a 2.5" dual rolled tip with a built in stagger then let me know!

Plus I think I want to hack off the stock cats on the header and install a high flow cat in it's place, remove the rear cats all together and install an X pipe that connects to the factory exhaust. Just after the X pipe and before the stock exhaust I want to install electric cutouts with turndowns.

Then a tune with the X pipe and a tune with the cutouts open.

After that I want to install headers 1 3/4" primaries with a 2.5" 12" long collector long tube or short - doesn't matter. I just want to rid my vehicle of the terrible factory manifolds. I can't beleive how terrible they are. I've seen better exhausts on small displacement snowmobiles!

[M4T5]

Cheese-WIZ man! Your nuts! I had no idea there were four cats on these cars. I wouldn't have thought they would have placed any on the manifolds. Don't you think you are going to have trouble with the check engine light and the O2's not functioning correctly after you eliminate two cats?Did you notice the two scrunchies on the exhaust pipes after the secondary cats? I'm guessing they are for absorbing engine shock. They look like puff balls.Their exhaust design is very poorly designed. At least from the manifolds to the mid pipe flange. Of course the area no aftermarket company has yet tried to tackle. Ken, if you have the resources to tooling, why not start having a header kit with high flow cat system produced. Basically a stainless steel kit from the headers to the mid pipes. That would be a hot seller in my opinion. Some before and after dyno results, and the buyers come swarming. Maybe even add a M35 kit to your line as well! DO IT!I'll buy it if you make it!

J

[ken in az]

Cheese-WIZ man! Your nuts! I had no idea there were four cats on these cars. I wouldn't have thought they would have placed any on the manifolds. Don't you think you are going to have trouble with the check engine light and the O2's not functioning correctly after you eliminate two cats?Did you notice the two scrunchies on the exhaust pipes after the secondary cats? I'm guessing they are for absorbing engine shock. They look like puff balls.Their exhaust design is very poorly designed. At least from the manifolds to the mid pipe flange. Of course the area no aftermarket company has yet tried to tackle. Ken, if you have the resources to tooling, why not start having a header kit with high flow cat system produced. Basically a stainless steel kit from the headers to the mid pipes. That would be a hot seller in my opinion. Some before and after dyno results, and the buyers come swarming. Maybe even add a M35 kit to your line as well! DO IT!I'll buy it if you make it!

J

I just might do that - but I don't have a TIG so the welds would be sub par and or I'd have to farm out the welding.

One thing at a time - lets get the ECU's done since headers would be useless without tuning.

Oh, and about the cats - I want at least 2 on there, high flow units in the factory location. Removing the other two cats would not cause a check engine light - MIL light if you are an OBD II DTC code - so many names lol.They are after the secondary O2 sensors and are only there to clean up the tailpipe a bit.

I want at least 2 on there because I think cars without cats stink but with UpRev you can turn off the MIL light because it's a soft code for emmisions and not a failure item - you will still have full power.

[M4T5]

Have you spoke to Ray at UpRev about reprogramming the VDC control?Meaning when you switch it to off.....IT'S OFF!Can he do something like that.I don't want tot hear you crying about not having a tig welder. Go buy one cheap a**. Either way, I would love for someone to build a set of headers with some flanged bolt on pipes utilizing two high flow cats on them that came together and went to another flange joint that bolted to the mid pipe.Damn prejudice aftermarket companies!!!!

J

[M4T5]

Well....I didn't get it installed.... I'll emphasize more on it tomorrow. I'm going to bed.

J

[M4T5]

ALL PHOTOS ARE NOW CLICKABLE FOR A LARGER VIEW!

Ok.... I removed all the engine covers and air box assemblies yesterday. The first thing I decided to do was the TB bypass mod. Let me tell you something.....that mod is not the easiest to perform. Those hoses are not real easy to get to. I was able to remove the upper hose and keep it intact. Though getting to that clamp between the TB and the intake with a regular pair of needle nose pliers was not the easiest. Here are some photos: This one shows the mod already performed. You can see the barb down between the TB and intake manifold. I have a rubber cap on the barb next to the bypass hose going down next to it. This hose fiting is not the easiest to get to......at least the clamp that is.

This photo is just a close-up of the rubber fitting cap I used. It is not necessary, but I wanted to make sure the inside of these passage ways stays clean. These 5/16 fitting caps were picked up at a local auto supply.

This next photo shows the lower connection of the bypass hose. The clamps were easier to get to, but getting the OEM hose off intact was a different story. The connection between the TB fitting and the fitting coming off the filler neck were so close that you could not get the hose off without cutting it in the middle. I assume I could have removed this hose intact by removal of the TB, but I didn't want to take the chance of tearing a gasket on a Sunday. One thing I did that was ignorant on my part was thinking I could remove that upper radiator hose to ease access without much coolant coming out. Boy was I wrong. Luckily I was able to place it back on in time before too much came out. Though I probably lost about a quart and 1/2 of coolant....

Oh, by the way, depending on the size of the 5/16 coolant hose an auto parts store has will determine if you can reuse the OEM style clamps. The first hose I received was too large to accept the clamps. I went to another auto parts store and their hose barely allowed me to use the OEM clamps when installed. It worked but it was tight.Just an FYI to anyone wanting to use the OEM clamps to keep the OEM look.

Ok, now to the Element114 intake kit. Here are some photos of the kit:



The quality looks to be decent. The inside of the intake tube would need to be thoroughly cleaned out due to some aluminum flakes inside of the tube from machining and building process.The black powder coat is thin, and of a textured mat black type finish. Skeptical about it being powder coating though. The rubber hose clamp connection seems to be very high quality. The middle of the tube where the MAF sensor would mount is smaller than the rest of the tube. Maaybe this is done for air velocity... I don't know.

The problem I ran into was the mounting ear on the tube. When I test fit the tube, the mounting ear did not seem to match up to anything. After fooling with it I figure out how it was supposed to work. There has to be a 1" to a 1-1/2" spacer mounted between the ear and a empty threaded bolt hole of the engine. Without it, I didn't see it working at all.A phone call to my contact at Element114 confirmed this as well. He told me that this kit is still a prototype kit, and that he forgot to place the long fine thread bolt and aluminum spacer in the box. He said he would send it to me. Therefore, I aborted the install due to it being late in the evening. I didn't feel like going to home depot and figuring out everything I needed to make this kit mount up correctly.Here is a photo of the intake tube held up in the correct position and showing the mounting ear bracket not matching up or touching a mounting location:



You can actually see one of the empty threaded bolt holes on the engine in the photo. The other one is covered up by the mounting bracket ear. There are two identical threaded holes next to each other that are not used for anything. I believe this is where the spacer and long bolt will go.

This is a photo I took of oil build up. Not sure if this is a seal starting to seep or is oil that drips off of the engine oil dipstick when checking level.I cleaned it up afterwards to see if it reappears.

BTW, the throttle body was a bit on the dirty side for only 20K mi on the car. It kind of looks like the same kind of results from using a K&N air filter. Here's a photo, but I doubt you will see anything due to photo quality and this being after I cleaned to damn thing. It is very dirty beyond the throttle blade, I felt force against it from the actuator when trying to force it open...so I stopped to prevent possible damage. I wish I could clean behind it where it is extremely dirty :

I just seem to have all kinds of trouble modding this car. Not really my fault though............I spent the rest of the evening putting the OE air box back in, double checking my bypass mod for leaks, and cleaning the car up. Maybe next weekend..........

J



Modified by M4T5 at 10:10 AM 2/23/2009

Modified by M4T5 at 10:17 AM 2/23/2009

Modified by M4T5 at 10:22 AM 2/23/2009

Modified by M4T5 at 11:01 AM 2/23/2009
Modified by M4T5 at 11:02 AM 2/23/2009

[M4T5]

Why are all of my pics coming out so small lately???I use photobucket. The pics of my car I posted didn't come out like that.Anyone?

J

[M4T5]

Does the air cleaner assembly actually come apart in half sections?? Kind of like this diagram shows for part #3: http://www.infinitipartsusa.co...gid=0

J
Modified by M4T5 at 1:19 PM 2/23/2009

[ken in az]

No, just 3 parts. The filter box. The grill scoupe. And the lower resonator down in the fender