Wrinkledpants

I've been on the X sauce and K04s for about 6 months now. It performed similar to being on K03s, but would get a boost spike up to about 20-21 PSI (indicated on boost gauge). This boost spike made the drivability of it kind of difficult as you'd get this huge surge of power and then it would get cut back to about 15 psi. Once you're past 5k, it just felt like the car ran out of breath. Giac is probably as aggressive as stg 1 chips get, but you sacrifice smoothness at anything other than WOT. The car would be noticeably jerky on part throttle and it was really annoying. Looking back, I would probably go with APR or some other chip. I think the few extra peak HP you get with GIAC isn't worth the part throttle roughness that goes with it. Besides, at that stage, nobody can really tell a difference in a few HP.

I then moved to Denver from Minneapolis and the power is a bit less with the thin air. I've been here for a month so I don't have that intuition about how the power should feel yet.

I installed the 3- tune and the Bosch 5 Bar FPR (many thanks to Roque) about two weeks ago. Needless to say, the car feels *a lot* smoother. The boost spike is gone and the power comes on in a much smoother and more linear fashion. The lower end feels much the same, but the top end doesn't loose as much power. It feels more like the stock power band felt. Some of the part throttle roughness is gone or at least so it seems. From the boost gauge, it peaks at about 17 and holds to 14 or so compared to holding at 15 and tapering to 12. These numbers might be off a bit as my eye isn't calibrated.

Overall I'd say the car feels faster at altitude than the X chip felt at lower elevations. I'm also still on my stock clutch (130k miles) and it hasn't slipped yet (no launching of course).

I'm actually pretty happy with the power it makes right now and don't feel the need to go stg 3 for awhile. It really does feel like it did stock, but amplified, and that's something I really like. I'm sure I will get used to it and want more, but suspension, brakes, and exhaust need to be done first.

I wish I would have logged my car before and after, but alas, I did not. I just wish the 3- tune would ignore the secondary O2 sensors. It's the only code I ever get

Pat

Nice. You know Brian @ Avalon is selling an exhaust for your car, right?

Wrinkledpants

I'll be headed back to MN soon and need to conserve $ until I'm back in CO.

I'm on long and horribly bland conference call. I'll ring you in a bit.

Rive

I dont' get any boost spikes, it simply goes to 16psi and tapers down to 14-15ish. I don't really go WOT much simply because its not worth it.

I agree that the drivability isn't great as its really jerky after 3k rpm.

I'm looking at getting ECUx and hopefully log before and after going full stage 3. I just need to keep saving and now deal with a accident saga.

Thanks for the post!

Roque

Nice. Glad you like it. It's RoQue not RoGue by the way. Roque pronounce "Rokie."

Wrinkledpants

This is going to be a tough adjustment.

iNfiNkC

there are some pretty good deals in the classifieds for used stg3 fueling these days

WECoyote-SuperGenius

You have to give Goldie some slack, he's still working on his Engrish. ;-)

canyoncarver2

Why in the world would you run regular Giac-x without a MBC in that setup?

Wrinkledpants

I don't know. Maybe I should have. A lot of people run that setup without a TCD or MBC.