To go along with the new owner faq sticky and others like this... one good thread that debunks some of these myths and bad information that get started by people who think they are experts, then n00bs come in and hear that and believe it and spread it around like an epidemic. It's really frustrating to see new owners spreading around some of this stuff and some of it could be potentially dangerous OR could keep people from enjoying some performance increase because they've been told it's dangerous or doesn't work. Some common 'myths' and misinformation I've seen spread around:
The stock WGA absolutely cannot hold more than 10-11psi by redline.
Absolutely untrue!!! Many people have observed, especially on stage 1, that the stock WGA can sometimes hold as high as 15psi by redline. Myself, I notice that on my S1 ECU, whenever I reset the ECU, the boost will ALWAYS hold 13-14psi by redline until the computer 'relearns' the curves (usually the first two days), then it will be back down to 11psi by redline. So for whatever reason, it is the COMPUTER that is lowering the boost as rpm climbs, NOT just a function of the WGA being too weak. Some people get consistent 14-15psi by redline on S1 and the stock WGA ALL the time, even after the computer relearns the curve. Maybe they are in better climate or have better fuel, who knows, the point is the stock WGA CAN hold this kind of boost
if the PCM lets it! Take control away from the PCM using various methods and you can definately get the stock WGA to hold more than 11psi to redline, you don't
need an upgraded WGA to get a higher hold.
The spring mod does not work or is bad for your car, or that the PCM will eventually lower boost back down.
Mostly untrue. The spring mod DOES work. It is not any more dangerous to your car than an aftermarket WGA. The danger lies in overboosting, and you can do that with ANY mod that allows you to control or affect boost. As long as you are careful you are not at any more risk of damaging anything with the spring mod than any other boost mod. If you don't know enough to start loose and adjust up (just like with a WGA) and end up just throwing the spring on full tight and spiking 20+ psi, you probably shouldn't be modding your car to begin with. There is lots more info on the spring mod, why it works and just how it is the EXACT SAME PRINCIPLE as what an aftermarket WGA does, which I won't reiterate here, look up the sticky on it.
About the PCM pulling boost back down over time, ABSOLUTELY UNTRUE!!! I myself along with MANY other guys have run the spring mod for months or maybe even more than a year and have all observed that the PCM never pulls the boost back down. In my own experience, I set my spring mod to peak 18psi and hold 13psi by redline, w/o the spring on stage 1 I was peaking 16psi holding 11 by redline. After over a month and 1000 miles the boost levels had not changed at all. If the PCM was gonna pull boost back down I'm sure it would have done it by then.
Bottom line, the spring mod has been PROVEN to make more power, people have seen as much as .3 of a sec drop from their 1/4 mile time with just the spring mod (and 2-3mph in their trap speeds), and many have seen increases on the dyno as well (a couple people have run 250+ whp on stage 0/1, spring mod and exhaust). And there are NO posts on the forums from anyone who 'blew their motor' by running a spring mod!
The flutter sound you hear during PTB with an aftermarket WGA is 'normal' and is not harmful
Not to be confused with intake flutter that you get after installing an aftermarket intake. There is some debate on this 'flutter' sound that anyone who has installed an aftermarket WGA has undoubtedly heard, the kind that causes the boost needle to shake and the car to run like crap as long as you hold the throttle steady. I personally talked directly to three people who I'm pretty sure would know for sure what this sound is... Steve, R & D / Engineer at AGP, Kevin (I may be wrong on this name but he was one of their head techs) at Kinetic (another manufacturer of quality WGA's), and Dodgetweaker (resident SRT guru), and they all agreed that this sound is
compressor surge. Here is a much more detailed explanation of what PTB and compressor surge are and what they are caused by:
PTB by definition: part throttle boost (or more accurately, part throttle OVER boost i.e. too much boost at part throtte).
What causes it: Because the turbo is so small that it spools very easily.
Why doesn't it happen stock? Because of the way the computer is programmed to control boost. The stock WGA spring is very weak. On it's own it would only hold 4psi or maybe a little more. How then, does a stock car run 15psi? The solenoid that the green and black lines run to, is actually a bleed-style boost controller. To limit boost at low rpm/throttle, the PCM does not bleed any of the boost signal to the WGA, therefore it opens at low boost and you get no PTOB. Then when you give it more throttle, the solenoid does it's thing and bleeds off some of the boost signal, allowing the WGA to stay shut longer, the turbo to spool more and more boost to be seen.
Why does it happen with an aftermarket WGA? Because now the WGA spring is much stronger, and there is no computer controlled bleed affecting the boost levels. Instead, now the WGA stays closed at part throttle, and the turbo spins up very easily and quickly and will make boost with very little throttle or RPM. The WGA will only start to open once the spring pressure is reached... as noted on the PTP/Kinetic and AGP, somewhere in the neighborhood of 12-15psi. Since it gets it's signal straight from the turbo, 15psi must be seen at the turbo before the WGA opens, regardless of rpm or throttle opening.
Why is this bad? Because now the turbo is trying to force more air into the engine than the engine can take. This is caused by one of two things. #1 - at low RPM, the engine can not 'swallow' all of the air the turbo is now trying to force in, regardless of how far you have opened the throttle, or #2 at low throttle openings, the air can't squeeze past the throttle body butterfly plate, regardless of the rpm.
EITHER WAY, this is a serious problem because the air 'stalls' in the intake, with nowhere to go. So what does it do? It basically tries to force it's way
BACK THRU THE TURBO. Now the turbo is basically having a tug of war, it is trying to speed up, but the 'stalled' air trying to force it's way back thru the compressor is slowing it down. this is the fluttering sound you hear and is called compressor surge, it is very hard on the turbo's bearing. So with the PCM out of control, you have to a) be sure you either don't open the throttle enough to get any significant boost or you have to open the throttle enough to not block the air flow once the turbo starts boosting, and b) be sure the engine is spinning a high enough rpm that it can use all of the air being forced into it.
Why else is PTOB bad? Because at part throttle (anything less than 80-85% if I remember right), the PCM is running off of the 02 sensor and trying to maintain 14.7 to 1 (stoichometric) air/fuel ratio. The PCM doesn't expect to see much boost at these throttle levels. Problem is, 14.7:1 air/fuel is way too lean once you start getting much boost. Exhaust gas temps will get very high, meaning the combustion temp inside the cylinders does the same. Very bad for the engine.
While compressor surge and PTB are seperate, it's important not to confuse the fact that compressor surge is CAUSED by boosting too much at part throttle and/or at low RPM. The two go hand in hand. PTB itself as a sort of 'bad word' is a misnomer.... getting some boost at part throttle is not bad. Even bone stock, you get boost at part throttle. The problem is, the computer is only really programmed to compensate for THAT level of PTB, once you exceed that by taking boost control away from the computer, the computer no longer compensates and you will run lean and the turbo will spool TOO much and surge/flutter.
Ghetto mods in general don't work or are far inferior to non ghetto mods
Usually untrue. Just because a mod is cheaper than some more popular mod or comes from Home Depot, doesn't mean they are useless or even not as good. Perfect examples:
Motor mount inserts - anyone who has TRIED the prothane inserts or even filling the stock mounts with flexane has had nothing but good things to say about them. In many ways it actually works BETTER than full mounts, in that the vibration level is barely increased at all, and you don't get the problems with bolts bending the way you can have with full mounts. Yet you still get the benefits of reduced engine movement and wheelhop and less chance your stock mounts will rip. All for $20-30 and roughly 30 mins of labor with the right tools.
Cheap forms of boost control - Along with the above mentioned spring mod, there are the cheap bleeds and ball and spring controllers, all of which can be made for anywhere from $1 - ~$20 or so. Many of these do work JUST AS WELL as the nice shiny bling MBC's that you would buy for $50-150. Ball and spring valves and bleeds are not magic or voodoo, they are really basic concepts, and the ones you would buy or make at Home Depot usually work just as well as the ones you buy from TurboXS, etc. for $50-150 or more. They just aren't as pretty. I already talked about the spring mod... this little $6-8 mod can often be set up to push just as much boost as an AGP WGA, MANY people run one peaking 18ish psi and falling to 14-15 by redline. And do so with NONE of the PTB issues that you get with an AGP. Another example, the ball and spring valve you would buy from Grainger for $10... same exact functionality as the MBC's that many aftermarket companies sell. Most of the guys who knock any of these mods, have never tried any of them. So be careful who's advice you take on this... talk to the guys who have actually TRIED them.
$20 catch can - it WORKS! in my own experience (and many others), it catches PLENTY of oil, I've had one on since the first week of owning my SRT, and just recently checked my I/C pipes and they were BONE DRY. I average about 1 tsp - 1 tbsp of oil buildup in the CC per every 80 miles of driving or so (average days drive to and from work for me). So it is definately catching the oil. Sure it doesn't look as nice as the 'real' ones, and is small so must be emptied more often, but even the big brand name ones aren't perfect (many work poorly or leak out of the sight glasses).
Motor mounts are the primary cause (and/or cure) of wheelhop
Partially wrong. Better motor mounts (or inserts) will cut down on wheel hop, but usually don't eliminate it. It seems most people have MUCH better results turning wheelhop into pure tire spin by replacing the
lower control arm bushings. Other people have also had great results getting rid of wheelspin by installing traction bars (and an H brace). Not saying motor mounts arent worth the cost or effort (especially if you go with the cheap and easy to install inserts), just saying, if wheelhop is your major concern, MM's are probably not the first place to look, but will help. Do them anyways, $20-30 and 10-60 mins, how can you argue with that? If you're going to do engine mounts, you should also do your transmission mount to get the best effect. You can go with brand name ones, but really, you can get just as good results by doing it ghetto style and filling all three mounts yourself with Flexane for about $25.
Stage 2 is slower than stage 1, or doesn't gain any power over stage 0/1
Mostly untrue. It's true that you CAN make a stage 0/1 faster than a stage 2, sure, a stage 1 with supporting mods and raised boost can outrun a stage 2, but if you put a stage 2 with NO other mods and a stage 1 with NO other mods, with equal drivers, the stage 2 will be faster. Mopar isn't 'ripping anyone off'. It IS true that many people have dynoed S2 and gotten numbers that were very comparable or sometimes even LOWER than S0/1. There are a lot of theories as to why this happens, and I believe even some Mopar/SRT people chimed in a while back that they fully expect S2 would NOT do well on a dyno. But at the track the S2 does deliver real performance gains over S0/1. Yeah you can put a WGA and whatever on your S0/1 and have it outrun an S2 but you can be guaranteed the S2 will have way better driveability (and probably reliability), plus whatever tuning you do to the S2 like exhaust or whatever will yield just as good as if not better returns, so with same mods on both the S2 will again be faster.
And by extension lets also debunk the notion that some people seem to have:
Dyno numbers as an absolute idicator of your cars peformance
Untrue! I have seen tooooo many times someone will post their dyno results "hey I have x,y,z mods and made xyz horspower, is that good?" and get a reply of "hey I dynoed with those exact same/very similiar mods and got way more/less than that, something must be wrong with your/my car".
WRONG WRONG WRONG! Dyno numbers can be affected by so many things. Different brand/type of dyno. Different weather. Different operators. Different test methods. Different elevation. Different test conditions. Different days. Hell... different MOODS even, I'm not kidding! If person A dynos 250hp and person b dynos 230hp with the same setups on the same kind of dyno does not mean a damn thing. The ONLY true useful comparisons are to be had in back to back testing, on the same dyno, same day, same operator, same test method. And even then, they are not absolute. I have seen variations of close to 15hp when I've dynoed my car from one run to the next with NO changes. So don't be convinced that just because you dynoed low something is wrong with you car, just take it as a hint that you may want to check for leaks or something, just to be sure. And if you dyno exceedingly high, dont be convinced that your some lucky schmoe with a 'factory freak'.
Same goes in a lesser extent to track times. If you go out and run a 14.4 and your buddy with same mods goes and runs a 13.9 doesn't mean something is wrong with your car. There are too many variables just like on the dyno. Most likely your buddy is just a better driver than you.. hey we all would like to think we are great drivers, but fact is, there is always somebody better.
'05 SRT's are slower/less powerful/detuned vs. '04's
This all started because a couple guys got uncommonly low dyno numbers on their stock '05's (see above about dyno numbers). But with more and more people dynoing their '05's or taking them to the track nowadays it's becoming apparent that this myth is just that... a myth. '05's average the same whp numbers and track times/trap speeds as stock '04's. The one small shred of truth to this is that '05 PCM's are a bit smarter and more picky and tend to flip out a bit more easily to mods such as raising the boost, and are a little harder to trick to get around this. But they are just as powerful stock and have just as much potential for making more power as the '04's.
Only '05's have the 3rd gear grind problems
Untrue. The problem does seem to have happened to ALL years of SRT-4's. They do seem more common on the '05's, maybe because there are more '05's out there. But all years have been affected to some degree.
Transmission problems are caused by driver abuse, inexperienced driving, WOT shifting, etc.
True and false. There are a LOT of people who had problems with their transmission the day they drove their SRT off the lot. I am one of these. I had been blocked out of 3rd gear and gotten the 3rd gear crunch before I had even finished with my break-in miles. Before I ever did a quick shift or WOT shift (which I've only tried a couple times), or had ever revved the car to redline. There are a lot of cases just like this... people who had 3rd gear issues in very low amount of miles, who are experienced manual transmission drivers, and who are older and more mature and have not abused the crap out of their SRT. This is an issue that really has been shown to be more an effect of NVG's use of brass for the shift forks, which is just way too soft a metal for that purpose on this kind of car.
On the flipside of that, some problems, like broken shift selectors, definately are caused by shifting hard and WOT shifting. Broken input shafts are usually a cause of too much power + upgraded clutch + hard shifting.
Well, that's all I can think of right this moment. I would hope this thread would gain some momentum and some of our resident TRUE experts would pitch in with more myths and maybe just maybe this thread or one like it could be made sticky so all the new owners could AVOID being poisoned by misinfo from some wannabe know it alls.
thank you for your time
EDIT: put in a much more thorough description of what PTB actually is and does.
SRT myths and misinformation debunked
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