Originally Posted by Steve Hellums
Damn screaminjoe, now I am confused. I've been doing research on ECU upgrades and pulley upgrades for several weeks. I've talked with Renntech, Kleeman and Evosport about this subject and they are telling me just the opposite of what you are. I'm not telling you that you are wrong, because when it comes to the newer generation hot rodding up cars I've never done it. Now give me an old 60's car and I can gitter-done. All of these companies I mentioned have dyno sheets to prove that their #'s are right, all three of them are telling me the same thing. They all have told me that just the ECU upgrade will gain only around 10 to 15 h.p. & just doing a pulley upgrade will gain about 30 hp, and if you do both you should gain around 45 hp.
Well, in my opinion 1/4 mph gains do not lie and are the best proof for what power gain you are really getting. Dynos can be set to say whatever the owner wants them to. Today's ECUs have plenty of technology and sophistication to adapt to the increase flow of air, usually up to 80 hp on V6s, so yes you can fine tune the power output with an ECU upgrade, but are you going to feel or see 10 to 12 hp ? I never have... And I surely wouldn't risk it for $900 or more dollars. Can't hurt to try it without it and then add it after. I have proven by mph numbers, the best bang for the buck, is the pulley and larger intake y-pipe. The pulley will give about 40 hp and the y-pipe will give about 10 and comes with high-flow air filters from Evosport. I would rather spend the $175 on the larger y-pipe to get 10 hp than $900 or more for the ECUs 10 hp. Then focus on making the supercharger's potential hidden power come out by increasing the heat transfer of the supercharger cooler and intake temps, so the ECU won't take away power when it retards the timing. See the thread on intercooler maximizing, where I explain my cheap but effective way of doing this.