well having owned my MY99 wagon for about 8 months I am beginning to feel the need to do some gently mechanical upgrading, what would you guys recommend to get a bit more power say 240/250ish without compromising reliability and driveability...also find the ride fairly bad, I have heard that putting 17s helps the ride, a la RB5...

 

Is it the feel of the ride (e.g. vibration) or the actual ride that is bad. I had noisekiller fitted to my car for making the sound inside the car better but the improvement it made on the feel of the ride was amazing (for c£200) vibration from the road reduced a lot.

 

Sports cat/decat exhaust and an ECUTEK remap from a reputable expert should see you to a safe 260-270bhp and similar torque- the car would be significantly improved in the drivability stakes.

Fitting larger diameter wheels is the wrong way to go if you want to improve the ride; it generally gets worse with larger wheels- it's the handling that can benefit. TBH I think you'd be better off looking at your shocks and springs...they might be tired, how many miles has the car done?

Ns04

 

wow I have never heard of anything like this, what on earth is a 'noisekiller'?

it's more the ride ie jiggly/hard, but I do get excessive wind noise at m'way speeds...

 

thanks, and you think this would be reliable, as the car is used for family trips as well? How much would those two mods cost roughly?

fair comment re wheels, good point about suspension, the car has done 57k so it could be the dampers making it worse...

 

also who would you recommend down south to do such a job?

 

If it's done by an expert, the car should have every bit as good as safety margin as std- always a good idea to get a knocklink to be safe though.

Costs.

Sports cat DP (required if you want to keep the car MOT friendly from Scoobyworld) £299. You could just get a remap with the std DP in place, but you won't get as big a gains in power, torque and drivability.
Decat centre with resonator (to keep it friendly for the family) about £140
Decent bacbox, either H&S original design or Magnex (once again to keep it family friendly) £220ish.
Uprated Samco pipework for the turbo (the intercooler hose tends to split under increased boost pressure) around £90
Ecutek remap around £550
Knocklink around £200 pounds fitted.

Better gains than the PPP for significantly less!

In the south, you could go for Bob Rawle (BR Developments) Pavlo (Zen performance) Simon (posts on here as Jolly Green Monster) Pat Hereborne (maps for Xtreme and API) Do a search and see which one you're most comfortable with.

There you go!

Ns04

 

superb info, many many thanks, lead me not into temptation...and as long as my wife is none the wiser

 

You're welcome..... I suspect you are about to sin!

Ns04

 

lol I am finding it difficult to resist, I have a sneaky car fund that she has yet to find!!!!!!!! Also about to buy an E21 323i Baur convertible as a project, she said she would divorce me if I bought another car...here's hoping

 

Ah, another happily married SN member!

Ns04

 

well quite

 

I have had the spring upgrade and it makes the handling better but still 'felt' the road (vibration) do a google search for noisekiller plus they advertise on this site. Basically they install sound proofing but the vibration from road was also reduced a lot so the ride is less harsh.

 

thanks for the info...I will search for it.

 

For my MY99 Wagon
I bought a K & N panel filter, Samco hoses, Magnex Zorst (mid section and back box) and a 2nd hand Prodrive ECU off the ole Scoobynet.
All in it cost £700
250bhp & 242lb/ft (still has downpipe cat)