There is NO substitute for wideband AFR on an FI motor, period. Something as simple as a hose or clamp failure can cost you a motor.

I'm so glad I switched kits before anything happened. Too bad I'll never know if it's done any damage to my engine or not.

You could get a leak-down check done.

Stillen wouldn't take it back? After months of hounding stillen they returned my money minus a bs restocking fee. Who would buy this kit after all the problems people have had with it?

I got nothing, but I wipe the sweat from my brow every time I hear of this happening. Thank the heavens above I went with GTM.... and Sam is my sheppard!!

Ouch, Charlie!

Sad to see this happen.....I'm wondering who claimed that the car doesnt require a tune after adding the headers?

damn!..hope the owner gets this all sorted out..

Maybe it's the same person from Stillen who told me "DETONATION IS NORMAL" lol

Then it was installed incorrectly, should only opened the holes to a tight fitment.

I don't know what you guys are babbling on about.....sounds like a limp mode issue to me :wtf2:

Stillen's kit uses an UpRev canned tune with their "turn-key" kit. UpRev uses the MAF sensors to actually tune the car, just like a factory tune. Think about it, we buy these cars worldwide; different elevation, different gas, different variances.

When you're tuning the vehicle, the MAF sensor is compensating the air, so if you say at full throttle I want to keep it around 11.5 - 11.6, then the MAF will compensate the air/fuel to see as close to those measurements as possible. Why do you think when you go with GTM's turbo turn-key kit, you don't need a custom tune sent to you if you decide to add test pipes, a 3" exhaust or anything else (thanks to the blow-through style MAF setup)? A lot of it has to do with Timing too. If you don't have an aggressive timing, you can get away with extra mods without needing a new tune.

What I think the issues is... the pull-through MAF system. You're not getting an accurate measurement of the air that's reaching the engine because it's being changed when it blows through the charger.

I've done a lot of research on this and there are a couple members I'd like to personally thank that have given me great insight on their review of this kit.

I could be wrong though :stirthepot:

:iagree:

Most ECU's are in open loop at WOT, so there aren't any fuel trims to tweak the tune towards a target AFR.

That said, even if the Z ECU can maintain a target AFR at WOT, under load the change may have happend so fast that the ECU couldn't compensate in time (or pull timing fast enough if it detected knock) so boom.

Can anything out there get a readout from the OEM knock sensor? I know uprev can't.

I suppose folks could try a J&S safeguard.

Yes and you completely missed my point. You were trying to make an argument that the tune is crap because it didnt have room for an unknown amount of leaning out. Not to mention their tunes are, in my opinion, too safe.

Oops, you're too busy trying to be a smartass to understand things. Thanks for the basic-as-bricks tuning lesson and advice.

A good tune should sit at somewhere between rich and lean...where it's supposed to be. An exhaust mod can swing that balance towards lean and blow it up in no time. Yes you do want to tune some margin of safety into your target afr, but loss of power isnt the only downside of running rich. Believe it or not, running rich can also lead to increased cyl pressures which can cause detonation and blow up the motor. Neither extreme is healthy.

Regardless, Its not whether I'm a stillen fan, I haven't really talked to anyone from stillen in months and judging by their lack of presence here, it seems almost as if they have packed their bags. It has nothing to do with that, just trying to add some sense of objective information to this thread that would otherwise be filled with misinformation...

Could it have been the boost? sure. Is it more likely that it was the headers he had just put on the car? sure.

Sorry I picked you to intervene and make a point, nothing personal bud.

Carry on with the torches and pitchforks folks.