My setup is at 382 RWHP on a Dynajet48X Dyno. I have the older style Comptech Kit, Whipple blower (the newest kits have the Autorotor blower), welded cast intake (some have a two piece design and the real early units were cut and welded from the OEM intake manifolds). I have CT Headers, ARC DTM Exhaust, 9lb pulley, Walbro fuel pump, RC 550cc Injectors, AEM FPR, AEM ECU, Dual Uego O2 sensors, EGT Sensor, Fuel Pressure Sensor, and various other stop faster parts to go with my go faster parts.
While this may or may not seem like a lot of power, it is more than I can use at most road course tracks, if you are looking to build a street fighter out of your CTSC you will quickly reach the limit of the kit and still want more. I love my HiBoost/AEM setup and feel the power level is just about perfect for the track, but if you are not going to track your car. I would give some serious thought to keeping the 6lb pulley in place and not making the move to the AEM. The nice thing about the CTSC 6lb setup is that is so simple and is easily reversed if you ever decided to change the car back to stock. However, it can be allot of fun if you are willing to take on the challenges of an aftermarket ECU.
I am lucky, I have access to the dyno I use anytime I want, so my car has lots of time on the dyno and lots of time on the street logging data and adjusting my calibration file.
I cannot stress it enough the tuner is the key to your cars happiness. If your tuner is looking for a base map to start with, I am not so sure he would be my tuner, the AEM software has a startup cal that any good tuner should be able to start from and build you a custom cal just for your car. I have looked at many cal files from many tuners, some that were held very high in the tuning world, and was surprised and sometimes shocked at what I saw. If your guy can not build the cal for your car, he is not really a tuner, he is a tune loader. I am neither of these things, I will not tune anyone’s car but my own, I am more than happy to help someone solve problems along the way, but I do not feel comfortable with tuning someone else’s car or sharing my finished cal. Every car and setup is different and I would feel horrible if a mistake I made in my tune had caused someone else’s car to fail.
If you have the time and want to learn for about the price of what some tuners charge you can take a tuners course from AEM and learn the programming steps to tune an AEM ECU. You should have a good understanding of how EFI and general engine tuning knowledge prior to taking the course, but that is all I had to go on when I started. I did get lucky enough to have one of the best teachers at AEM.
Just keep in mind, just making the move from the 6lb to the 9lb & AEM will not make a night in day change in the way your car drives, you will feel the difference but you will adjust to the change in power very quickly, too quickly. You need to figure out what you want the car to do then design a system to meet those goals, otherwise or until you know what you want I would leave the 6lb setup in place and enjoy the ride.
Dave
