Upgrades
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All the upgrades on my car had been made by the previous owner, but now that I've installed the K&N, chip and exhaust, I'm in a position to draw a few conclusions on the subject of upgrades. The question is, are they worth it...can you really tell a difference?
I tried to be very scientific about upgrading my car. Though I had both the chip and exhaust in hand, I purposely waited and installed the chip two months after the exhaust, so I could see how much of a difference each made. Regrettably, I must report that any shred of scientific proof was lost under the circumstances under which I made each upgrade. You see, I've learned an important rule:
Always wait and upgrade your car when it has fallen into such disrepair that any attention given to it makes it seem as if a performance gain of over 100% has been realized.
I unwittingly applied this rule to my BMW so I can't really decide which changes to attribute to the upgrade or to the basic repair. In other words, it both cases it had been so long since the car was in decent shape that I forgot what the stock car behaved like. I think you get the point. In any case, this may not be such a bad thing. If the perceived performance gain makes me grin, then I guess its worth while.
So here it is:
Remus Exhaust - If you've read this then you know my car was in sorry condition when I upgraded the exhaust. Basically, it had a giant hole in the muffler. Then it sat around in the shop for two weeks. When I finally got it back I was happy just to be driving it, and not having a headache. However, I did notice a significant gain in acceleration and of course, it looks beefy. Thats about all I can say about the exhaust, except "Don't try to get a Remus for an E30 M42 car."
Autothority Performance Chip - Removing the roar of the exhaust opened up a whole new world of unpleasant automotive sounds. The primary sound was the THUNK of my shock towers, along with the "wiggety-wiggety" of the front end (residual damage from this). When I finally took the car down to Bob at BCI, it was thumping and skipping all over the road. "While you're at it, why don't you put the chip in." When I picked up the car it was gliding down the road and taking corners in a manner I hadn't seen in a long time. It was happy. The car was definetly faster. Now, I know that a properly set up suspension allows you to drive much faster, but the chip has provided a VERY noticable (and enjoyable) performance punch. I now feel like I have a little extra torque on tap, and pressing the accelerator about 1 millimeter causes the car to lurch forward. The chip has also caused the exhaust to come into its own. It sounds much better now, and I feel is contributing more to the car's performance. This isn't surprising, since I specially order a chip tuned for use with a free-flow exhaust. If you're going to have an exhaust, then I definetly recommend springing for the special chip.