Thread: C32 engine swap
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Old 03-20-2009, 01:19 AM
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rcompart
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Default Re: C32 engine swap

I say go for it but with that being said, be ready to work on it like a bad marriage you just won't give up on. I will tell you right now that the stock ECU is not running everything. I have a little over $2500 invested in mine between ECUs and other components and it's still not in the car. First things first, the factory ECU will no way shape or form read boost. Zip, zilch, nada, won't do it. It will read vacuum till the cows come home but you throw boost at it and see you later. Next, it's throttle by wire so any ECU will have to understand how this works and you will be retaining your factory ECU to make all this happen. This means you will be using your factory ECU as a piggyback to the stand alone you will need to wire all your sensor in parallel to keep your factory ECU happy and make everything work. I know people say that they've done it with the factory ECU. ChuckNorris is using special means to get everything working but I'd venture to say it's not harmoniously working like it should to give you the power you're looking to get at the price of tunability and for the HP per $ spent, you're gonna be dumping a whole lot of money into something at your own risk with no guarantee you'll get it working the way you anticipate. Lastly, if you're going to drop $3-4k on this upgrade and that is being very conservative, for another grand, you can get into an SRT6 no matter what year/trim your car is unless it's been put into a tree or something. If it's the manual transmission you're set on, then this is the way to go but if you have an auto, there is no reason to look at doing this from a financially sound standpoint. I hate telling people to go get and SRT6 because that's what everyone says when someone talks about FI on these cars but for the money you're going to spend, you'll be a lot happier and you won't have a car no one will work on, you can get an extended waranty on it, and it's proven. For me, it's not about the money same as HDDP. I'm not sure what your situation is so I'll leave it at that. Words of wisdom though, no one sells a kit for this besides Kleemann and it costs $9k for a reason and they won't let you install it yourself because of the complexity of it. There are more failed FI threads on this forum than I have fingers and toes so do your research, make up your mind either way and tackle the hell out of it. If I did it all over again, I'd buy an SRT6 put $2500 into a manual trans and HP mods. There is 10-fold the performance parts for that car than the base/limited. Sorry to be long winded but like I said in the beginning, this will be a commitment if you do go ahead with it. If you have any other questions, PM me for my phone number and I can answer any questions you have in more detail.