Alright, I bought my cobalt used and found out after I got it that it had the gm stage 2 kit. From what I understand I should be hitting 15 pounds of boost, which doesn't seem to be the case (although my eyes are glued to the road when I'm wot, not the boost gauge). I feel like the car is only hitting 12-13, so I did the boost bypass mod and sure enough, the car hits 15.

It may all be in my head, but the car felt faster as well. So I am wondering exactly what the car is doing. I got rid of the boost bypass mod because from what I hear, it's bad for the car. I only used it for testing purposes.

Is it possible that the stage 2 kit was installed on the car, but the car was never tuned? Is there a way for someone to check if GM ever flashed my car to the stage 2 tune? thanks for all the help.

 

boost is not a measure of power. It's a measure restriction.

Doing the boost bypass mod will increase restriction, iirc. 12-13 (its really hard to tell on our stock boost gauge...it could be 14) sounds about normal

 

I've never owned a car with forced induction... or even a car that was meant to be somewhat fast. from what I understood, 15 psi was the general rule of thumb for stage 2. The thing is though, when I first got the car, it was hitting 15 psi, or close to it. I knew that stock it was supposed to only be 12 1/2 psi (ish), which led me to check and see that my car was in fact stage 2. I don't know, maybe I'm just paranoid or something, but who knows.

 

Boost bypass isn't necessarily bad for your car. It's probably just pulling a small amount of boost from you because your Intake Air Temps after the blower are hotter than the computer likes to see. I am guessing the car doesn't have cooling mods. My car used to pull me down to 11psi when I was on a 2.6 pulley and no cooling mods. You are def tuned no doubt there. Your car wouldn't go anywhere without a tune, but I would say leave the bbm hooked up and you'll be fine. I know when I did it it felt like I gained 50 horse lol.

 

I'm a little scared to leave it hooked up. I think I will let some more people chime in before I leave it like that. My intercooler pump does keep going out, it needs new brushes and it can only work after being beat by a hammer so many times. I can't find anywhere to get replacement brushes so I think I am going to get a new pump from CX racing that I found (it's brushless so thats good).

as for cooling mods, I've considered doing option b and/or dual pass, but don't know much about this stuff. don't get me wrong, I have mechanical skills, I just haven't been in the performance auto game very long.

thanks for all the help.

 

haha well thats key information right there my friend. That would be why your getting hot. I'm not asking you to do what I say was just voicing my opinion thats all. Option B is just a simple way to bleed the air out of your system when you install a dual pass, or h/e.

 

it has been working for the most part.

as far as the boost bypass mod, I don't see how it can hurt anything, but in the how to thread theres people that are saying it isn't the best thing to do. Since I don't know to much about this stuff, I'm not sure who to believe.

 

So which is it? Even if it is working during a pull it's still going to get hotter than usual with a smaller than stock pulley. And it torque management is still on it will continue to do that. This is my last post on your thread

And for as to who you should believe... There are always going to be ppl that contradict others. They are saying that because if your car is pulling boost/timing etc there is a problem that should be addressed, not just bypassed. But in this case you will be fine if you get that pump changed. Your not talking about ridiculously high temps here it's just a stage 2 pulley.

 

thanks for all the help.

when I'm driving I rarely take my car to where it boosts over 5 psi. I checked and it was running when I decided to test with boost bypass.