ive got a few plans for my st170 and wondered what other people are running with them.

the sports cat and flexy. any good? what real world gains did u see?
drivability changed?

the vernier exhaust cam pulley. again what did u see from this? low down grunt or more top end sacrificing lower end? what did u hav urs set up to?

cheers

discuss

 

I looked into getting a decat, general concensus was that they offered no improvement in power, can play havoc with lambda readings as well. Flexi pipe on its own though might offer an improvement!

 

ye ive heard abit of mixed review really on the sports cats. dont want to run a decat as if u get pulled and tested ur screwed.

umm decision decisions

 

I had a decat on my previous 170. Top end you could notice a slight increase is responsivness, but only very slight, downside was it changed the exhaust note when revved which produced a 'tinny' rasp, not nice.

 

I would not bother with a sports cat either, i know 2 people who had them fitted and thier cars failed emmisions test, the pumaspeed ones are particularly bad.
As for retarding the timing on the exhaust cam with a vernier, expect anything from 5-10bhp.

 

how much are u usually retarded by? i can set it up on a rolling road so can find where its best but would like a starting figure.
do they loose low end grunt also?

 

Since when did they have any low end grunt??! Around town in mine I hardly ever came out of 2nd, loved it tho !

 

hiya

the standard setup is already very good, the only way to see decent gains is to switch to 2 vernier pulleys and move on to throttle bodies. Mine made 210bhp with Jenveys and fixed timing, most tuners wont go near the VCT as apparantly its a nightmare to map.

Originally i had a K&N filter, mongoose exhaust, vernier on the exhaust side, and a remap and it made 183bhp @ 7300rpm ish.

Hope this helps

Dave

 

Interesting that you lot overseas find no gains with a sports cat on the ST170... I believe you already have a high-flowing catalytic converter on your cars, whereas in the States, the cat pipe is more restrictive. We always see gains with a sports cat or de-cat.

Vernier pulley on the exhaust cam will allow you to adjust your cam overlap. I've never seen it a necessity on standard engines, but with a turbo or supercharger, it helps quite a bit to be able to "dial out" excessive overlap.

 

I've had 2 Janspeed sports CAT's, the first broke up after a year and the 2nd replacement CAT under warranty triggered the EML light and failed the MOT emissions test.

I never had it up on the rolling road but I felt that there was an increase in power.

Now have a shity standard CAT from online automotive that is triggering the EML light anyway! Getting it changed back to original ford CAT I think.

 

ye thats why i did want to loose anymore haha
want to gain some low end if anything

thanks for the info.anyone got what degrees they are usally retarded? will prob give totd a ring soon.
i will be putting one on as il be doing the cambelt on it soon anyways. and should be able to get it on a rolling road to hav a play with it.

with the VCT ive found out u can run dreamscience and then remap that, still retaining the factory VCT setting.(wont be fully optimised for the new timings or other mods but will be better than not running it imo). so that might be in the future with some other bits maybe.