This is one of those informatives and a kick butt story. Recently I had a Ingen CAI on and noticed a slight low speed surge / choppyness to acceleration...sooner or later popped the illustrious code for lean. Part of the lean is going to be the fact that I run it during winter (mistake) and the filter gets wet (snow / ice / salt - Chicago land area). Already know this from owning this car for 2 years now...no problem right - clean the filter up. No. I still have the code for a week and the surging. Put the STOCK CAI on with a brand new filter from CarQuest. Surge gets WAY WORSE and code does not subside on its own. Take it to the dealership. they get perplexed and reprogram me and drive it for a few days. Give it back, still has the surge / choppyness and within a week pops a code. Deal looks at it again and tells me the CarQuest filter must be the cause, they find one of those "service bulletins" that says some aftermarket filters may cause such code unless it is a GM filter (year right and I don't love V8 cars either right? NOT!)...I pick it up and it appears the surging is gone..WAIT FOR IT, don't you guys jump yet! About a week later, and I seriously suspect this is the REAL problem, I get the chance to pair up to a 2006 orange Cobalt SS (sort of). Here's the set up: 3 lanes of traffic on RT 83, come to a stop light and me behind a Mozda something another POZER (looks race but later admits he is NOTHING but look) and the orange SS in front of him. Orange takes off...Mozda starts and I almost hit the Mozda in the butt and have to nose dive it...get around the Mozda and run up the supercharger to about 6 g and BOOM! like a small M-80 I look behind me and all this brown smoke and pieces of materials are twirling in front of the cars behind me. Oddly enough I don't notice how loud my car is until l I slow down. Pozer boy comes up and says I blow something...slows down and says there's stuff hanging down where my muffler is. As you see from my signature, this exhaust / muffler is a unknown ID. It is just one of those 2.5" units welded to the 2.5" exhaust (looks like a muffler tacked onto the stock exhaust) that is a cylinder with a 2.5" outlet but is phony to 4". Turns out, this is a piece of stainless cylindered to a seam at the bottom with fiberglass matting and a (RUSTED OUT) steel pipe with holes in it to allow the sound to bounce into the fiberglass mat. The seam is important to the design I suspect, this was where it was cracked open like an egg....Looks as if the steel insert rusted out and collapsed and allowed the fiberglass mat to get in the way of the outlet and the power of the SC allowed it to stack up the exhaust and BOOM! Too coincidental, I suspect that the dealership found a way to hold open the fiberglass matting (or they just got lucky and the matting moved??) and let me drive away with a functioning car and charged me for a GM air filter. I could only suspect that the CarQuest filter would only be more restrictive and not less restrictive like the Ingen oil impregnated filter is (like a K&N) and would only cause a RICH code, not a LEAN code. Another thing that turned the light bulb on in the head? Over the winter I noticed black "hair" on the back of my car. This no doubt is the fiberglass flying out of that crappy muffler and during snow / rain and it gets stuck to the back of my car.

 

Why in gods name do you run mid grade?

Joel

 

Weird isn't it? I hear complaints about anything less than 91 Octane...I'm a light footer generally but really, the 89-91 octane that it is DOESN'T bother her at all, even when gettin on her. Maybe I just don't get on it hard enough in general traffic to get BETTER gas mileage than I do with MID. Don't worry, I use PRM about every 2-3 fill ups.

 

clean your maf sensor... whats a pozer and a mozda? poser and mazda? you should use 93 octane btw... that 91 and 89 is just all bullshit and is no different then 87. sunoco 93 or shell 93 v-power, clean or buy a new MAF sensor. you'll be good with the injen. MAKE SURE the maf is installed correctly. your getting misfires. whens the last time you changed the plugs?