So installed throttle body spacer, intake manifold spacer and catch can (before anyone starts debating whether its needed or not, I see it as insurance and bling) also painted intake manifold
Installed pre-gapped plugs from Stratified Auto. Car is running smoother with new plugs, waiting on Wastegate actuator (on backorder) and then tuning with Stratified Auto. Finally feel like the car is coming together the way I want it.
Installed wastegate actuator. And have been working with Alex at Stratified to tune car. Car is feeling like a completely different animal, pulling to redline, shifts are much crisper and as a bonus Fuel mileage is up. Made the 120 mile trip to Auborn WA, stop and go at some points and still got 32mpg. Oooh and crackles on downshift, a little silly on an auto car, but it makes me smile
So on said trip to Auborn to see 5 Finger Death Punch and Breaking Benjamin, 100 degrees, stop and go traffic and the AC decides to take a crap.... Yup, blowing hot air and small chunks of ice... WTF?
20 minutes later and the unopened energy drink in the cupholder decides its had enough of this crap and splits at the seam spraying me with hot mist, teenager is laughing at me in between complaining its too hot and I'm trying to wipe my glasses so I can see the road. Sigh, at least the concert was awesome ( and when did concert shirts get so frigging expensive?! I remember buying shirts for $15 bucks at Clapton)
Any whoo Two days later I get it into the dealer because its still under warranty and it works fine for them. Frigging gremlins.
On the plus side, they are ordering me a knew Homelink because mine works well about 50% of the time when its not too hot, not too cold, its not raining and the moon is gibbous. Hopefully new one will behave better, I hate using the clunky rattling door opener.
Still extremely happy with the Steeda coilovers, however the front end links decided that they needed to fail and are now clunking at low speeds. Thinking when I replace them I will try softening the shocks a little too, lowering it the last 3/4 of an inch has made the ride a little harder than the wife appreciates.
So I need to order more Steeda parts... I wonder if they want a cranky hormonal teenageer in trade..hmmmn
So, been trying to hunt down an odd smell I have been getting through the AC vents and figure out why the Fn AC works sometimes and not others.
So started addressing this as tech support and found that if the passenger side was open and the drivers side was closed, woohoo AC! Open the Drivers side and AC goes away after about 5 minutes.
Took it back to the dealer and they were able to verify that it was not working but not why.
Third trip and now it sounds like the AC evaporator has failed so they are ripping apart my dash and ordering a new evaporator.
On the plus side, they figured out the smell, one of the bolts on the down pipe had broken and what I was getting was emissions from the leak. Hoping that was the creak that I had recently noticed and been trying to figure out...
Cars... sometimes you love them, sometimes you want to set them on fire.
Woohoo! Wrapped up tuning with Alex @ Stratified Auto. Highly recommend him for anybody looking to get their Ecoboost tuned, I had experience working with him on my previous car a Focus ST.
I started out wanting a power curve that was much more linear than the stock tune, power from bottom to redline, Alex listened and responded with each iteration getting closer and closer. I asked for more aggressive shifts and those were tightened up too. Car pulls from idle to shift- hoping to get it on a dyno next year and see what the final results are. I feel like power wise for now the car is where I want it, pulls hard with no dead spots, cackles like a demented demon down shifting and recently got 34.2 mpg driving from Vancouver to Tacoma.