Well I just got the Needswings CAI installed yesterday. I've been waiting for a nice (edit: "nicer") day weather-wise to come bye. It's been in the 20's and in the teens with wind chill lately. With temps in the mid to upper 40's Friday was the perfect day to tackle this install.
I'd like to preface this by saying I am NOT very mechanically inclined. I'm a tech geek at heart and know quite a bit more about home video/audio, electronics, photography & video than I do about cars. Alas, cars are one of my addictions none the less.
I printed out the PDF supplied by Needswings and popped the hood and began. Most of the early steps were cake, and even a complete novice such as myself didn't have a problem with. However I hit a huge snag in the step where you are supposed to remove the plastic radiator bypass support/core or whatever it's called. In Rob's directions the illustrations are very vague and when reading it (days before the install) I knew this step was going to nail me- and that it did. All the smooth pacing grinded to a halt when trying to simply remove this part which is secured "by two clips". Well the one clip is visible so I decided to work on that one first. It's flat and has nothing to grab to turn or pull so I'm assuming it's a pressure clip needing to be PULLED out. I gripped the piece and pulled so hard I could see the shocks move a little bit. It woudln't budge. I finally resorted to gripping the part in an area next to the clip with pliars and wrenched on it until it snapped and came out. Even then there was another clip that was hidden from view that needed to be removed.
Needless to say I couldn't get this part out without breaking it (on both ends near the clips). Has anyone else had a problem with this step? I'm assuming I'll never need to reuse the piece because it's now broken into three pieces.
Additionally when removing this plastic piece in the radiator bypass a small piece of weather stripping was on the right edge of that plastic piece that sealed against the radiator (maybe 7-8" long). Does this weather stripping need to be re-installed in any way? It just came loose after the plastic part was removed to the right of the radiator, in other words it's not glued or fastened in- it's held in simply by that plastic bypass piece being there.
Otherwise the steps were well diagramed and laid out. With the only minor exception being no info about re-bolting the power steering line on the driver side after installing the supplied felted bracket on the passenger side. Though I'm assuming it was supposed to be- so I did. The line is now seated at an angle- closer to the front of the car on the driver side, which is presumably normal after the install.
The test drive afterwards was great! Nothing like adding a good chunk of hp/tq from a single mod! Despite my mild difficulty with some of the directions I commend Rob for a wonderful product and continuing to support our cars! I can't wait to offer even more patronage in the form of a Pulley, and Manis (when available)!