[Shrike360]

Haven’t seen a lot of people who grab these kits give a review, so figured I’d give a stab at it. Quick note about the rest of my car; has test pipes + Corsa, also have the Autosolutions SSK. Placed my order through Kevin@EAS (absolutely great to work with, thanks for putting up with me Kevin!) at the beginning of July, received everything about 6 weeks later in the middle of August. Was considering installing the kit myself, but my work schedule has been hammering me and I wanted to drive the car before putting it away for the winter. So, I had my shop install it, and picked it up a week later.

Break in period was going great, until I parked it up and came back home from a grocery run to a puddle of coolant on the floor. I determined the coolant was dripping out of the coolant line at the back of the manifold. Tightened up the hose but no luck, it was definitely coming from the threading of the barbed fitting. Ended up having to drain the coolant, remove the manifold and re-seal the fitting with some high temp thread sealant. Turned out there was almost no sealant applied to the fitting. I should note I was talking with EAS and ESS at this time; ESS claimed they never had an issue with the fittings. Well, first time for everything, I guess.

Onto the driving. Have now done a nice variety of driving since the install; including backroad runs, freeway trips and around town commute. I did make a mistake during the break-in period, purely out of reflex, and accidently met full power. Mid 60s out, lightly raining on the freeway. Had an Outback doing the standard PNW passive aggressive move of trying to slowly pass me on the left as I came up on slow traffic. Did the standard drop to 3rd and punch it around instinct. This resulted in the rear tires breaking loose and the car surging from about 70 to 95 with 1-2s of throttle. Definitely a “Holy $#!+” introduction to the kit.

On the backroads, the kit is fantastic. Very linear, power is easy to adjust. Adds a little bit of low end, a good amount of mid-range and a manic top end. It adds a lot of flexibility with the additional torque. You can now ride it around in 3rd in some of the tighter stuff, and keep a very quick pace. Or if you feel like a lunatic, drop it to 2nd and hammer it. Just need to have the skill to not slide it into a tree. I’m still getting used to how much I can push it before lighting up the rears. There is a slight delay coming off throttle compared to NA, as the kit does have to vent boost. But it’s not so long as to be irritating. In a straight line, you have to manage 1st gear or else you just spin. My 285 PS4S’ are actually holding onto 2nd, unless the outside temps get low (was about 50 this morning) or the surface is rough. I’ve realized that I now start reading the road surface much more carefully, to figure out if I can go full throttle without spin. 3rd hooks perfectly, unless you find a bit of water on the road. MDM (Euro coded) doesn’t intervene at all in a straight, which I can’t complain about. The 8300 RPM limiter comes up FAST, you have to adjust or constantly smack it. Really could use a few extra hundred RPM.

On the freeway, there is a slight whine, which blends in pretty closely to the engine sound. It’s more obvious with the windows down, but easily muted out with the radio. Really, no drawbacks here. On the commute, wow. There’s just this little bit of extra torque (starting about 1800 RPM) that makes the car… effortless. Imagine just driving around everywhere with a strong tail wind helping you out. Even shifting feels smoother (from the slight throttle off delay introduced). Not what the kit was really designed for, but kudos!

Onto the drawbacks. In high temps (or after letting the car sit) or stop and go, the temps do go up and you do feel the power reducing. I think it mostly starts throttling after 110 F, but it definitely makes more power with colder temps. Seems happiest below about 70F ambient. Pretty workable in the PNW, but I wouldn’t mind an expanded coolant tank that fit into the left side of the trunk. You also lose the induction noise, which is definitely a little sad. In return, you gain some “turbo” flutter at high RPMs, and a bit of a supercharger whine. Kind of like having a jet turbine strapped to your front hood. The exhaust note also becomes VERY angry. ESS won’t kill the cold start, either, so I’ve been trying to get out of the house and neighborhood quickly. It is LOUD, had a walker glaring at me a few weeks back. I also really need to start upgrading suspension (plus a BBK), car squats hard on throttle.

Now that everything is settled, I can say it’s a great kit. You do lose some of the character of the induction noise (with a bit of an exchange). It does lose some power as it gets hot out. Otherwise, it’s a really great kit and am happy to have power that competes with cars in 2022, just in a far more exciting way.