mx5cartalk.com

So, I understand to get the most out of either of these a standalone ecu and tune is needed as well, but I can easily find dyno results for the Racing Beat headers, has anyone found anything for the xforce headers? I can't seem to find anything, not even on Xforce's home page.

What are looking for, a choice of manufacturer, or a particular configuration? Application - street or track?

Yes, to extract (sorry ) the most from them an ECU/tune is required, but if memory serves the NB headers are pretty good and not a lot to be gained on a stock ECU.

For the street, the main advantage of the headers is lifting your bling game. If you are heading for the track, combining an ECU with headers, and an appropriate exhaust, will give a power bump. It may also affect what class you can run.

If you want to track it, first look at the class structures of the events you plan to run, that will give you the proper perspective in which to plan upgrades.

Finally, if you are looking at power figures on the interwebs, I have a bridge to sell you, one owner, well maintained, terms available on a low deposit ...

.

Just a daily driver but wanting a bit more out of it, so kind of seeing what I can get away with as xforce headers are less than half the price lol.

Yeah internet figures are to be taken with a grain of salt, there are a raft of variables, and even the dyno config... The shape of the graph can give you some info, such as how much of dip around 3.5k there is.

Fair enough.

I doubt that headers are going to do much to fix that power dip, but 4-2-1 should lift the mid range generally, and 4-1 the top end.

NB8A or NB8B?

If you want to actually make any significant extra power N/A, you need to start looking at camshafts. A bit of extra compression (e.g. shaved head) helps a lot too. You can have the best intake and exhaust in the world, perfectly tuned with an standalone ECU, and you will have spent thousands of dollars for maybe 10% more power. Add cams into that same equation and you're looking at ~30%, depending on profile.

Basically your options are:
- Pay quite a lot for a pretty N/A intake and exhaust, make more noise, minimal performance boost
- Pay a bit more, add cams, maybe compression, decent performance boost
- Pay a bit more again, ditch all the above and get a turbo kit instead, massive performance boost.

As for RB vs Xforce - RB should be much better quality, but you won't notice a difference in performance unless you're running a serious high compression race engine.

Agree. It's just plain well know facts.

PaulF wrote:If you want to actually make any significant extra power N/A, you need to start looking at camshafts. A bit of extra compression (e.g. shaved head) helps a lot too. You can have the best intake and exhaust in the world, perfectly tuned with an standalone ECU, and you will have spent thousands of dollars for maybe 10% more power. Add cams into that same equation and you're looking at ~30%, depending on profile.

Yeah I was looking at the costs to get a mild increase, so was trying find parts where it might actually get used (low end), like the autoexec intake has a larger increase below 3k, than the RB intake.. that said it is still a marginal increase in torque. Given an intake and headers is floating around $1700 mark for the RB gear, then ecu+tune.... seems like it really is not that much more to boost it and get bigger gains.