Re: TQC HP

[rdh@sli.com (Robert D. Houk)]

   Just recently I did some wastegate mods to my coupe, (fully 
   adjustable...) and can now pretty much dial in the HP.  WHat took me 
   about 2 hours work, I now get plenty of power, (Pins the gauge at 2.0bar) 
   and goes like a bat out of hell. If before I had 160hp, I would guess 
   this to be easily 225 or so, probably more (guesses anyone?) THe question 
   is, why whould I spend $800 for ned's mod??? Am I missing something here? 
   Or is the result the same?? 

Well, like I said, you've just bypassed the overboost cutout (right?), and
with a pegged meter, you have no idea how badly you are overstressing your
head/bolts/gasket/etc...could be a very damned expen$ive joyride if you're
not careful. (No knock sensors, etc.)

What do you get for $800? Piece of mind, mostly, that someone (allegedly
competent, from everything I have heard) has done the requisite research,
and put together a "bolt on" package that does all that's needed, and stands
a very good chance of just working if you follow the directions. For a lot
less effort than it will take to you reproduce the same results on your own.
(To my way of thinking, that $800 for a spring and a few bits in the ROM
is a *LOT* of money; on the other hand, I think he guarantees his work,
doesn't he? )

I know I have spent well more than "$800 of my time" so far in researching
the ECU and developing tools to disassemble the code, buy spare EPROMs to
test new datapoints (not to mention EPROM programmer to program the bleedin'
little suckers), gather test runs, repeat a zillion times, etc, and so forth
ad nauseum. The (well, one, anyways) nice thing about a group like this is
the pooling of lots of people's tidbits of info and experience . . .

					-RDH